She was dressed to go out, in a good coat, her hair done, her face perfectly composed, and she looked up at the two of us frozen on the landing with our packed bag and our guilt, and she smiled the way she had smiled at me from my marriage bed.

“And where,” she said, in a voice like cool water, “do the two of you think you’re going?”

Chapter 14 — The Confession

Here is the thing I had done that Victoria, for all her care, had not planned for.

From the moment we came down the hall I’d had my phone in the pocket of my coat, and the moment those foyer lights came on, my thumb had found it and pressed the call I’d set up and waiting since that morning, and somewhere in the city a dispatcher was already listening to every word spoken in that house.

So I did the only useful thing I could do.