Chapter 13: Glass

The clip went up at six o'clock on Monday evening and was everywhere by seven.

A short clip, grainy and green.

A woman in a man's white shirt stood in a glass room with her hair loose, barefoot, reaching for a kettle.

A tall shadow came up behind her and kissed her neck.

The caption said, WIFE OF GAINES CEO SEEN WITH "BODYGUARD" WEEKS BEFORE DIVORCE.

Under it, in red: Who Cheated First?

"Weeks before," Nadine read off her laptop, pacing the kitchen in her socks.

"It was six days after the papers. He took a week and turned it into a season."

"Who posted it?"

"Chicago Scoop. They paid for it. Darrell sold it Saturday afternoon, I can see the invoice trail."

"For how much?"

"Eleven thousand dollars." She looked up, outraged. "Eleven! You could buy a used Honda!"

I stood at the sink and did not touch the water.

On the monitor over the stove, the front gate cam showed a crowd.

Vans, cameras, a ring of umbrellas in the drizzle, microphones thrust at the iron bars.

Eleven or twelve people.

Then twenty.

"They want a statement," Nadine said.

"They can have one tomorrow."

"At the gate. Ten o'clock. I'll set up a table."

"At the gate."

"You want to hide in your dad's house, or you want to stand in front of a camera and take Chicago apart?"

"I want," I said, and stopped.

I did not know the end of the sentence.

I only knew that my hands were cold.

Winslow took the dish towel out of Nadine's fist and the laptop out of her other hand and put both on the counter.

"Go home," he said. "Eat something. Be here at nine."

"I'm not leaving her."

"I've got four men on the wall and one on the gate. Nobody gets within a hundred feet of her window again."

Nadine searched his face.

Then she hugged him, and hugged me, longer.

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