“Oh, yes. Jill has always talked to me. Confided in me. It was painful. I wanted to believe that the two of you could find a better solution.”

“You could have helped.”

“I thought I did.”

Ted shook his head. “Only when it cost you nothing. You got me an interview. Thank you. But you did nothing, said nothing, to the family when it counted. One word from you would have meant a lot.”

“My duty was to the family. I don’t agree with all they do, but I can only lead where I know I will be followed. Family politics are as complex as any other kind. More so, in fact. And don’t be so sure that interview cost me nothing. All favors have a price. That’s the world I live in.”

“Is that how you explain it to yourself?” Ted wanted to smash the Judge’s patrician reserve—and maybe his nose, too. He pulled himself back from that abyss. “And why are you here?”

“What exactly is your complaint? You landed on your feet.”

True. He wasn’t homeless, hungry, or destitute. But neither was he living the life he had imagined when he first worked for the Judge, fifteen years before. “They hated me and made every day that I stayed around after the divorce pure torture. When they offered to keep me on—it was in a way that would ensure I would be even more miserable.” He stopped. Rehashing the past was a weak man’s play. He was allowing himself to be baited like a lawyer with his first case.

The Judge’s eyes lit up. The advantage had swung to him and he knew it. “What do you expect from them? A family is a pack. To wrong one is to wrong all.”

The whole conversation so far had been jousting for position. The point would be revealed only when the Judge held the high ground. Ted knew he was being manipulated but could not resist. “And they hounded her after the annulment. They couldn’t live with an amicable divorce. They had to push on Jill until she stopped speaking to me.”

“In the end, Jill went along with their wishes,” the Judge said. “That was the price they demanded. She paid it, until she didn’t have to any longer.”

“That’s a cold-blooded perspective,” Ted said.

“You think? I would imagine perspective is all, isn’t it?”

Ted was done. He knew the one chink in the old warrior’s armor—Jill—and Ted would not attack there, no matter the provocation. Screw it. He had a lunch date. He made an elaborate show of checking the time on his phone.

“Why are you here?” Ted asked.

“I’m taking too much of your time. Again, my car is at your service.”

Ted’s phone pinged. A text. Uber. “I have a ride. They’ll be outside in four minutes.”