I let her talk.

I kept my face entirely still, entirely blank, and I let her fill the silence, because I had learned, on a hospital bed a week before, that there is enormous power in a silence the other person cannot read — and because I knew something she did not, and I was curious how much she would say before she stumbled onto the edge of it.

Chapter 9 — The Fatal Brag

She could not help herself; people who are certain they have won never can.

“Alejandro makes an incredible income, you know,” she said, warming to it.

“He’s being promoted to vice president next month.