The baby wasn’t an immaculate conception, and it wasn’t a random fling. The truth was more grotesque than either.

The only question was when the bomb would go off.

Chapter 4 — West Coast Escape

The thing I’d seen in the courtyard was volatile enough to burn anyone who held it. I backed away from the hedges, my mind racing. I could photograph them, step out, and expose them to the whole condo board on the spot.

But I didn’t.

Exposing it early would only let them spin it — a supportive father-in-law consoling a grieving widow. No. A secret this poisonous needed time to fester, to grow right alongside her belly.

I wanted Michael to look at the child he’d blown up his marriage for and see the face of the man who raised his dead best friend.