“He didn’t wish for your marriage to be dissolved.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“But it was.”

I sighed, then said, “Yes, it was.”

“And you walked away with nothing except money enough for your legal fees. Did I read that right?”

It was at this point I was beginning to get scared. That was to say I was beginning to get scared in addition to the scared I already was, which was layered on top of the massive freak-out created by my home being invaded by what appeared to be about three teams of multiagency SWAT (because some had the word POLICE on their vests, some had FBI, and some had DEA), pulled out of my bed, and hauled to the Police Station to be questioned.

Therefore, my bravado melted and it came out as a whisper when I asked, “Please, can you tell me what’s going on?”

He didn’t tell me what was going on. Instead, he queried, “Did you ever regret that, Ms. O’Hara?”

“What?” I asked.

“Accepting nothing from your husband but your legal fees, did you ever regret that?”

I shook my head. “No, I… no. I didn’t. I wanted a fresh start. I wanted—”

“Why?”

I blinked at him. “What?”

“Ten years with him, multiple infidelities, he made six figures and you lived a very nice life. You could have cleaned up. But you took the dog and took off. Didn’t you think he owed you? Didn’t you think you should have part of the life you built together?”

I shook my head again. “No, I wanted a fresh start. I just wanted to… go,” I answered. “Is something… has something happened to Damian?”

He didn’t answer my question. Instead, he remarked, “Ten years is a long time. That’s a lot to invest in a life, a marriage, a home just to walk away with nothing but the dog. Seems strange you wouldn’t lay claim to something. The wedding china. The dining room set. You didn’t even take a car.”

“Damian paid for the cars,” I said quietly.

“And you wanted nothing to do with him,” he noted. “Nothing to remind you of him. Am I right?”

I nodded, staring at him, trying to read his face, but he wasn’t giving me anything.

“Lotta women, they wouldn’t feel like you. Lotta women, kind of money he made, kind of lifestyle they were used to, they’d feel something different,” he observed.

“I’m not a lot of women,” I told him.

“No, seems to me you definitely aren’t. Leaving all that behind, taking nothing but the dog. Seems to me it wasn’t so much leaving him as running away. Were you running away from your husband, Ms. O’Hara?”

I felt my chest compress like a hundred-pound weight had settled on it.