“The tattoo’s a problem, Doc,” Marino says. “It gives credibility to the phone call. It pretty much proves that whoever complained about you and Bryce disturbing the peace saw you—unless there’s some other reason this person knows about the tattoo and what the two of you were wearing.”

I recognize the sound of a turbocharged engine changing pitch, and I listen as it gets closer, louder.

“You’re still picking her up tonight?” Marino asks.

“Who?” I watch Benton’s blacked-out RS 7 coupe glide past slowly, downshifting, sliding into the space in front of us.

“Dorothy.”

“That’s the plan.”

“Well if you need any help I’m happy to get her,” Marino says. “I’ve been meaning to tell you that anything I can do, just say the word. Especially now since it’s sounding like she’s going to be so late.”

I don’t recall telling him that my sister was coming—much less who was picking her up at the airport. He also didn’t just hear this for the first time when Lucy called a moment ago. It’s obvious he already knew.

“That’s nice of you,” I say to him, and his dark glasses are riveted to the back of the Audi as Benton maneuvers it so close against the curb that a knife blade barely would fit between it and the titanium rims.

The matte-black sedan rumbles in a growly purr like a panther about to lunge. Through the tinted back windshield I can make out the shape of my husband’s beautiful head, and his thick hair that’s been white for as long as I’ve known him. He sits straight and wide-shouldered, as still as a jungle cat, his gray-tinted glasses watching us in the rearview mirror. I open my door, and the heat slams me like a wall when I step back out into it, and I thank Marino for the ride even though I didn’t want it.

I watch Benton climb out of his car. He unfolds his long lank self, and my husband always looks newly minted. His pearl-gray suit is as fresh as when he put it on this morning, his blue-and-gray silk tie perfectly knotted, his engraved antique white-gold cuff links glinting in the early evening light.

He could grace the pages of Vanity Fair with his strong fine features, his platinum hair and horn-rim glasses. He’s slender and ropy strong, and his quiet calm belies the iron in his bones and the fire in his belly. You’d never know what Benton Wesley is truly like to look at him right now in his perfectly tailored suit, hand-stitched because he comes from old New England money.

“Hi,” he says, taking the shopping bag from me but I hold on to my briefcase.

He watches Marino’s dark blue SUV pull back out into traffic, and the heat rising off the pavement makes the air look thick and dirty.