“There are other things I need to come clean about, too,” Troy said. “I’ve done some things I’m not proud of, baby. You need to know the truth about what I’ve done.”

Monica shuddered, glanced away from the screen and met his eyes. Her gaze was so clear, so incisive, that he realized she knew everything about his affairs, that perhaps she’d known all along and had never wanted to acknowledge it.

“You’re here now,” she said. “We’re in this together. We’ve got to get our children, Troy. That’s all that matters to me in the world right now.”

Troy veered into the campus parking lot. Grace had perhaps a ten-minute lead on them, but he prayed that his advance call to the school had derailed her plan, that the front desk receptionist had listened to him. Grace looked so much like Monica, could pass any visual test as Monica that he worried about how the school faculty would respond.

“Not seeing your car in visitor parking,” he said. “Maybe she didn’t come here.”

“Or maybe she’s left already.” She was shuddering.

Troy didn’t bother to find a parking spot. He slammed to a stop outside the front entrance and hustled out of the car. In his peripheral vision, he saw Sullivan turn into the lot, too.

Troy tugged at the front door, found it locked. He mashed the buzzer and shouted into the intercom.

“It’s me, Troy Stephens! I called about my kids!”

He expected the receptionist to immediately disengage the locks, to let him in to collect Lexi and Junior, but almost a full minute passed before someone came to the door and pushed it open, and it wasn’t someone he expected.

It was a cop. The officer scowled at him.

“I need to get my kids, man!” Troy said.

He tried to go past the cop, but the guy stuck out his long arm, blocking the entrance.

“Brother, your wife already left with the children.” The cop put his fists on his waist. “Is there a problem here that we need to discuss?”

Troy felt as if the ground had opened up beneath him. He took a step back, his knees wobbly.

Monica had gotten out of the car, too. She hobbled toward him, shaking her head in a stout refusal to accept what she knew had happened.

As if from across a great void, Troy heard his cell phone ringing. It was the ring tone he had assigned to Monica’s mobile number, in a fit of mean humor: the mad cackle of a witch. Dazed, Troy accepted the call.

“I’d like to propose a trade,” Grace said.

59