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Whitmire had lived an amazing life filled with talent, celebrity, travel, music, and beautiful women. Katherine was not his usual fare. Neither a model nor a singer ingenue, she was already in her early thirties when she met Bill. An architect with a modest career, she’d landed her biggest contract yet with the remodel of a Tribeca loft for the lead singer of the Smashing Pumpkins.
    She’d been on her way out, blueprints in hand, when Bill showed up for a coffee. Coffee turned into cocktails. Cocktails evolved into dinner. And, much to her surprise, she’d woken up in his bed the next morning.
    She expected it to be a one-night stand, her first—and probably only—in a lifetime. But Bill called her three days later, and three days after that. Within two months, she started to wonder if they were actually in a relationship.
    And then one day, to put her mind at ease because she was nearly two weeks late for her period, she peed on a stick. And then another, and another. With the trilogy of pink plus signs lined up on the top of her toilet tank, she saw the quick end of her exciting new romance. Bill was fifty years old and had never been married. This story could not have a happy ending.
    She gave him the news, fully expecting him to ask when she’d be getting it taken care of. But then, once again, Bill Whitmire surprised her. He smiled and hugged her, and then he cried and said, “Thank you for this.” He held her hair when the morning sickness started. He rubbed vitamin E lotion on her belly every night, promising to love her even if her entire abdomen ended up striped with stretch marks.
    Six months into the pregnancy, he asked her to marry him, so they “could be a real family.” They exchanged vows on the beach at Montauk. Elvis Costello officiated with a minister’s certificate from the Internet. Their wedding announcement was placed prominently in the New York Times Sunday Styles section. She changed her name.
    When she became pregnant a second time, with Julia, it was Bill who proposed buying a townhouse with ample space for the children to play. The top floor could be an apartment for a live-in nanny to help Katherine juggle the additional chaos that would accompany another child.
    Bill Whitmire had settled down. He was a good father. And he’d chosen her to do it with. She remembered actually spinning around with glee on this marble floor that quiet day, staring up at the bright white molded ceiling so far above her, feeling like she’d won the love-and-marriage lottery. She was living a fairy tale, and Bill was her Prince Charming.
    Two months later, the house was no longer empty. Billy with his Toy Story bedspread. Julia with her moss-green, elephant-themed nursery. Katherine’s custom closet was bigger than the apartment she’d last rented as a single woman.
    Mira, the full-time nanny, had her own living space upstairs.
    To this day, Katherine still wondered how long it had been going on—right beneath, or above, her nose—before she realized. She’d come home one afternoon to find the familiar sound of Bill’s music emanating from his study, but no Bill. The elevator parked on the top floor. No sign of Mira, either.
    She’d taken the stairs so they wouldn’t hear the elevator. If she was wrong, she could always tell Mira she was just slipping in some extra exercise.
    But her suspicions had been right. Bill was the one slipping something in.
    Now, more than sixteen years later, she had watched her daughter’s body being wheeled out of that same top-floor apartment. The detectives she had insisted upon were gone. Everyone was gone.
    She walked to the bar cart in the sitting area and poured a crystal highball glass full of Bill’s vodka. She hated herself for thinking about his first (known) infidelity when she should be thinking about Julia.
    But in many ways, that moment was inextricably entwined with this one. When she saw Bill—panting and sweaty behind the bent-over nanny, his unzipped,