“It doesn’t matter. We can go away together.”

“Where?” she asked.

“Anywhere. An island in the Caribbean.”

She considered. “I need to get a divorce first. David has to be dealt with. If I disappear, he’ll suspect something. His father’s a powerful man. He’ll hunt me down. If he finds me, he’ll find you, and you’ll go to jail.”

“For what?”

“The obvious. Kidnapping. Extortion.”

“Jimmy is my son.”

Her turn to study him. “You didn’t know that when you took him.”

His turn to lie, he owed her that. “Yes, I did know.”

“How?”

“Never mind. Right now I have to know if you’re serious. Do you still love me?”

“Yes. I never stopped loving you, Matt. What I did … I can’t ask you to forgive me or to even understand why I did it. When you caught me with David I lost my mind. I felt so ashamed and disgusted with myself. I felt the need to run away and hide. Plus, on top of everything else, I knew I was pregnant.”

“With my kid.”

“I didn’t know whose kid it was. Not then.”

“These are lousy excuses, Amy.”

She nodded. “I’ve wanted to talk to you about this for so long. Even after I was married to David, I would carry on these imaginary discussions in my head where I tried to make you understand why I did it. It’s hard for someone like you who’s so strong to comprehend, but I’ve lived in fear of David ever since I met him. I lost myself in him and I didn’t even really like him. I felt I had to obey him and keep him happy. Even when he was living on the East Coast he would call me every few days and demand to know who I was talking to. who I was seeing. I had to report in all the time. I knew it was insane, but I felt too scared not to.”

“This went on the whole time we dated?”

She hesitated. “Yes.”

“Then you lied to him as well. You never told him about me.”

“I couldn’t tell him about you. He would have screamed at me. Don’t you see, I was afraid of him.”

“But he was three thousand miles away. You weren’t going out with him. You were going out with me. You saw me every day, for godsakes!”

She shook her head. “I felt I owed him. He made me feel that way. It was as if he had a psychic hold over me. I know that’s a poor excuse. But it was my life, my reality, and try as I might I couldn’t break it.”

“Why did you go out with me at all?”