Pausing to study her reflection in the driver’s window of her white Cayman S, she did a kissy thing with her lips, arched her back, got in the cool little sports car, and revved up.

Property tax records had her residing in the big, blocky house for the past fifteen years with one Gary Sullivan. But no man accompanied her as she turned east on Sixth Street and headed toward downtown through Koreatown.

Destination: the Biltmore Hotel.

Aha! thought Binchy. Rich person’s version of a no-tell motel. Maybe he’d luck out and that Fellinger would show up, too.

But Sullivan had nothing spicy in mind. Walking straight to the hotel’s gilded grand ballroom, she attended a benefit dinner for Planned Parenthood.

Binchy, wearing a suit and tie, as he always did, managed to blend in with the eight-hundred-plus people during the cocktail hour.

When dinner was announced, he watched Flora Sullivan pick up her place-card and take her seat, introducing herself to her immediate neighbors, a pair of elderly, elegant women.

“Two drinks,” he reported the following morning. “Picked at her food, that’s probably how she stays skinny.”

“No boyfriend in sight,” said Milo.

“Nope. She drove back home alone.”

“Sounds like a fun evening, Sean.”

“Didn’t mind, Loot. I’m in the groove.”

Night two, Reed on Flora Sullivan, Milo on Grant Fellinger.

Sullivan’s turn to hunker down at home, appearing only to greet a Real Food Daily deliveryman, whom she tipped generously enough to evoke a smile.

“That’s a vegan place,” said Moe Reed. “Just like the stuff in Frankie DiMargio’s place.”

“Common ground based on no-cruelty?” said Milo. “I’m in danger of irony overdose.”

He hung up and continued watching nothing happen at Fellinger’s midsized contemporary abode. At nine fifty p.m., a woman stepped out, followed by the attorney. Milo recognized her as the aging brunette he’d seen in Fellinger’s office photos. No signs of the two boys in the portraits and no cars other than the BMW and the Challenger. By now the kids would be in college, let’s hear it for empty nest.

The woman Milo knew from real estate records to be one half of the Grant and Bonnie Jo Fellinger Family Trust dyed her hair blond.

One of those attempts at holding onto hubby as time did its thing?

He watched Bonnie Jo pocket a ring of house-keys and slip her arm through her husband’s. The two of them walked up the block, heading north. Passing right by the Porsche 928 parked across the street.

The car was Rick’s Sunday drive but he was always good about sharing it. Appreciating Milo’s contention, tonight, that something “classy” would blend in on an affluent street.

Milo watched the couple stroll off and fade into the darkness. A few minutes later, the Fellingers were back in view, strolling languidly.