Julian Blackwood stared at the phone in his hand as though it had turned into something alive, something that might bite.
Attorney Sarah Collins.
He knew the name, though not well. Everyone in their circle knew Sarah, at least by reputation. She was the sort of lawyer that wealthy men respected and feared in equal measure, a woman with silver-blond hair, a voice like poured ice, and a track record for dismantling powerful husbands before they could finish rehearsing their innocence. Julian himself had made a joke about her once, at a charity dinner two winters back, holding a glass of something old and expensive. Sarah Collins, he had said, is the woman you hire when you want a divorce to look like an execution. The table had laughed. I had laughed too, on cue, the way I always did.
I remembered that laugh. I remembered the exact weight of his hand tightening around my waist as he said it, the possessive little squeeze, the way he pulled me a half inch closer to make clear to the whole table that I was his, arranged beside him like the flowers and the crystal, part of the evening’s décor.
Now she was calling him. And I was three states away, in a small house by the sea, watching the snow come down over water that did not belong to him.
Julian answered on the fourth ring. He always let it ring a few times, even alone in an empty house, because answering too quickly suggested need, and Julian had spent his whole life making sure no one ever saw him need anything.
Mr. Blackwood, Sarah said. I assume you’re home.
His eyes went to the envelope on the desk, the one I had left for him, plain and pale against the dark wood. Where is my wife, he said.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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