“I know,” she said, staring into Patrick's bright blue eyes. “You see, he wouldn't have any problem with that. A changed name. Everything is interchangeable to him. Names, people, wives. Me, Marisa. Nothing is real to him, none of it matters. Not even Rose.”

“No, I suppose not. He's left a lot of wreckage in his wake,” Patrick said. “He got right in there, took what he wanted. Cops learn all about the statistics, all about emotional abuse, and how women who are more educated, or make more money than their husbands, are more likely to suffer it. But meeting you and Marisa . . . really woke me up.” “Emotional abuse,” she said, an earthquake sending shock waves through her bones. The phrase—language—seemed so subtle, so polite, so nothing, compared to the reality of living through it.

“He took everything he could from you,” Patrick said. “Got his hooks into you—heart, soul, and pocketbook.”

“I know,” Lily said. “I could never figure out where his paychecks were going. One night I dreamed he had a double life.”

“Maeve had us check out that possibility,” Patrick said wryly.

“Really?” Lily asked, remembering the desperate conversations she had had with her grandmother.

“Those trips he took,” Patrick said.

Lily nodded. Hawthorne was an affluent town, and Edward had told her he had to cultivate business by visiting clients at their other houses. Some of them wintered in Naples or Palm Beach; the Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo; Aspen or Taos. Some had summer places in Edgartown, Sag Harbor, or Nantucket. “Edward was always flying off,” she said.

“We never found much evidence of business he actually did in those places,” Patrick said.

Lily glanced up, her heart kicking over.

“What?” he asked.

She looked away, wondering whether to tell him or not, remembering her state of mind back then.

“Go ahead,” he said. “I want to hear.”

“Once I was cleaning out the garage,” she said. “I found an old pair of golf shoes. Really old, and mildewed, ones he never wore. He kept his good ones in a closet in the apartment. I started to throw them away, and something rattled inside. It was an earring.”

“Not one of yours?” Patrick asked.

She shook her head, slowly, spinning back, as if in a dream.

“No. I held it in my hand. . . . It wasn't valuable or anything. Just cheap silver metal, with rhinestones.”

“Did you ask him about it?”

“Yes. He said he had no idea where it came from. But his eyes—” She shuddered. “His eyes turned black, as if he had a monster inside. He was furious that I'd found the earring.”

“What did you do?”

“I threw out the old shoe, and the earring.” She dug her nails into her palms, so Patrick couldn't see. She had been so scared, at such a deep level. She had never let the thoughts come into shape until she got away from Edward, until she'd run away to Nova Scotia.