A well-dressed man in his late forties or early fifties came out of Whittier Place first, a briefcase in hand. He placed the briefcase on the ground, went to shrug into his topcoat, then sniffed and leaned back into the bright sunlight, got a taste of uncommonly warm March air. He put the topcoat back over his arm and picked up his briefcase, looked back over his shoulder as a small group of morning commuters came out behind him. He smiled at someone in the group.

She didn’t smile back and at first the bun in her hair and the glasses over her eyes threw me. She wore a charcoal woman’s business suit, the hem of the skirt stopping just at her knees, a stiff white blouse underneath, a dove-gray scarf around her neck. She paused to work at the collar of her black topcoat, and the rest of the crowd broke for their cars or walked toward North Station and Government Center, a few heading for the overpass that led toward the Museum of Science or Lechmere Station.

Desiree watched them go with flat contempt and an air of rigid hatred in the set of her slim legs. Or maybe I was reading too much into it.

Then the well-dressed man leaned in and kissed her cheek and she ran the backs of her fingers lightly across his crotch and stepped away.

She said something to him, smiling as she did, and he shook his head, a bemused grin on his powerful face. She walked into the parking lot, and I saw that she was heading for Jay’s midnight-blue 1967 Ford Falcon convertible, which had been sitting in the parking lot since he’d left for Florida.

I felt a deep, uncompromising hatred for her as I watched her place her key in the door lock, because I knew the time and money Jay had spent restoring that car, rebuilding the engine, searching nationwide for specific parts. It was just a car, and appropriation of it was the least of her crimes, but it seemed like it was a part of Jay still alive out there in the lot and she was closing in for one last kick.

The man walked out onto the sidewalk almost directly across from me and I stepped back farther behind the support beam. He changed his mind about the topcoat as he got a hit of the biting wind coming down off Causeway Street. He put it on as Desiree started the Falcon, and then he began to walk up the street.

I stepped around the support beam and behind the car, and Angie’s eyes met mine in the sideview mirror.

She pointed at Desiree, then herself.

I nodded, pointed at the man.

She smiled and blew me a kiss.

She started the car and I cut across the street to the sidewalk, followed the man up Lomasney Way.