Impossible. Still, Holly let Jessica pull ahead, then regretted it when the silver car turned right at the end of the block without signaling. Holly stepped on the gas, crunching over a speed bump, and followed.
When she rounded the corner, Jessica was nowhere in sight.
Panic. Anger. Then a realization.
Holly pulled up to where an alley bisected the block. Looked left and saw nothing. Looked right—there. The sedan pulling into an off-alley parking spot.
She made herself wait a full minute before following slowly, navigating by her parking lights. Halfway down the block there was parking for a half dozen cars. Jessica’s, empty and dark, was one of them. The building number, 3201, was spray-painted on a dumpster.
Holly hoped for a further clue, like unit numbers painted on the pavement, but the dirty crust of ice and snow obscured even the lines of the parking spaces.
Tapping the gas, she continued down the alley and was about to turn right again to view number 3201 from the front—it must have been the building on the corner—when Jack’s Porsche streaked past.
She froze, feeling caught, exposed, and completely panicked even as his car disappeared around the corner, following Jessica’s route to a parking space.
He hadn’t seen her. Had he?
Every fiber of her being told her to flee the neighborhood and hurry back to Barrington Hills. But slowly reason overpowered her flight response. Jack couldn’t have seen her. He had no reason even to be looking for her or to expect her car to be idling in an alley behind Jessica’s apartment building.
He had waited until Jessica left Cancura, giving her a few minutes’ lead to ensure no one saw them leaving together. Then he’d followed, driving the way he always did, fast and recklessly, taking any shortcut that would save him a few precious seconds. Because Jonathan Wright hated to waste time.
Especially when he was eager to see his lover.
Breathing steadily, feeling her pulse begin to drop, Holly resolutely turned right and right again, halting in front of 3201. It was a squat three-story building, probably over a hundred years old, whose gray exterior gave little hint at what lay within. Lights were already on in several windows, and a giant TV flashed on the wall in one of the second-floor units.
Jessica was in one of them. Jack was making his way upstairs. Holly waited, half expecting to see their silhouettes embrace in a front window. But she didn’t see motion in any of the units.
Picking up her phone, she texted, What’s your schedule tonight?
His answer came quickly. Still at work. Going to be a late one. Sleeping downtown and headed to that conference in Cancún tomorrow.
Don’t work too hard, texted Holly.
Thinking that this time, his absence gave her room to move.
The next day, after getting Ava, Paige, and Logan off to school, Holly searched the address of Jessica’s apartment building and found an open listing. She had a full morning of patients at the clinic but made an appointment to view an empty unit at three o’clock, ample time to get there and back with no chance of encountering Jessica. She’d confirmed Jack was actually in Cancún—the website for the four-day “Envisioning Medical Futures” conference featured him as the keynote speaker, and he wouldn’t blow them off the way he’d blown off his own wife on New Year’s Eve—so there was no chance he’d be dropping by for some afternoon delight.
Through her appointments, a mix of annual checkups and sick visits, Holly struggled to stay focused, to make small talk with the moms (it was always moms) who accompanied their kids, to compliment the kids on growth spurts, to keep alert for signs that a rash or fever might actually be something other than the obvious childhood malady.
She failed miserably.
Instead, she was consumed with a desire to see inside the apartment, to see whether there were clues as to how far things had progressed. Did Jessica cook for Jack? Did he keep a change of clothes there—or more than one? His own toothbrush? How many hours had they spent together there while Jack claimed he was hard at work at the office?
Jessica Meyers was a cipher. The handful of photos Holly had been able to find online—from graduate school, the Cancura site, and a rarely used Twitter account—didn’t even hint that she was a free spirit who streaked her hair with primary colors. Her smiling, wholesome face gave no hint that she was the kind of person who would carry on an affair with someone she knew damn well was married.
But Jonathan Mitchell Wright III was not just a random not-quite-silver fox. He was rich, widely respected, and almost famous. Any ambitious young woman would be drawn to him.
Finally, Holly’s appointments were done. After a hurried lunch, she headed into the city and made her way from the expressway back to Jessica’s apartment. She parked two blocks away, not wanting to risk anyone seeing her car or license plate. She’d even taken the precaution of making the appointment from the house’s landline, a number no one used with a voice mail no one checked.
The leasing agent climbed out of his Ford Focus as she came down the sidewalk. A young man with wavy, light-brown hair and a friendly, open face, he introduced himself as Evan.
“Elizabeth Isles,” she told him. “Call me Liz.”
Recalling the fake name Jack had used with his long-ago fling, she’d decided two could play that game. Unfortunately, she wasn’t much more creative than Jack, and all she’d been able to come up with was her middle name and her maiden name.
“You want to see the two-bedroom loft, correct?” asked Evan.
“I’m divorcing my husband,” Holly told him, the words surprising her as they came out of her mouth.
Evan looked momentarily stunned. Then, gamely, he said, “Well, I can see why you need your
