Anthony drove him through the front gate at 6:45, the way he had a thousand times before. Richard sat in the backseat with his briefcase on his lap and his face composed in the careful neutrality he had practiced for an hour in front of the small mirror in the hotel bathroom. Vivian was waiting for him at the front door. She had changed. She was wearing soft gray pants and a cream sweater and her hair was pulled back the way she wore it when she did not want to look like she had tried.
She came down the steps and took both of his hands. "Thank God," she said, "I have been worried sick all day." "I am all right," he said. "What happened with the car? Did you find out anything?" "The company is investigating. It looks like someone impersonated the dispatcher and rerouted the assignment. Marcus thinks it may have been an attempted robbery. There have been a few of these in the city recently. Wealthy men, black cars, the drivers are sometimes paid off."
He watched her face as he said it. He watched for the small flicker of relief that would tell him the explanation he had constructed was being absorbed exactly as he had intended. It came, a small softening around her eyes. A faint exhale she did not realize she had been holding. "That is horrible," she said. "I am so glad you noticed. I almost didn't, but you did." "Yes." She put her arms around him. He returned the embrace gently the way he always had.
He felt her breathing against his shoulder. He felt for the first time in many hours the specific sadness of holding a person who has decided you are worth more dead than alive. It was a sadness without sharp edges, slow and large and quiet like a tide that had been coming in for a long time and only now was high enough to notice. "Come inside," she said. "I had cook make your favorite. We can have a quiet evening."