“Fine. Lead on.”

He tailed Liz out of the hospital complex. She drove a red Mercedes Benz coupe with a vanity plate that declared: CUTERN.

She led him to a small strip mall off Riverside Drive. The restaurant, called Athens in Atlanta, was a cozy spot, busy with the lunch crowd, the air redolent with the scents of grilled onions, beef, and lamb. At Troy’s request, the hostess showed them to a booth near the back of the dining room. He had scanned the patrons and hadn’t seen Monica or anyone else he knew, but one could never be too cautious in public.

“This is nice.” Liz slipped off her jacket. “We don’t do this often enough.”

“Do what often enough?”

“You know, go out to eat. It’s always been takeout or Grubhub delivered to my place. If we eat at all.”

He gave a noncommittal grumble. He could feel her dancing toward the topic she wanted to discuss. But other, far more important matters pressed on his mind.

Such as the bruises he still bore on his wrists from last night’s encounter with Grace.

He hadn’t told Monica what had happened, had barely any time to talk to her before he’d left the house for work. He knew she was dropping off the children at school and intended to hang out with her mother all day; he needed to get Grace out of their house for good, but he couldn’t accomplish that without some compelling evidence. Something Monica would believe. A woman such as Grace had to have at least a few skeletons in the closet.

Their server arrived. Liz ordered iced tea and a gyro platter, and Troy asked for the same. He couldn’t summon any interest in the menu.

Watching him intently, Liz leaned forward. She was such a good-looking woman, a catch for any guy, and he wondered why she had agreed to their current arrangement. She could have done much better than him if she only demanded it; his heart would never belong to her.

He genuinely loved Monica. He loved her in the deepest fathoms of his soul. But he found the pull of the new—new women, new bodies, new sex—difficult to resist, like trying to escape the gravitational field of a black hole’s event horizon. He had long ago given up fighting his body’s natural cravings.