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the co-op’s grand marble lobby, avoiding the gaze of the friendly doorman so he couldn’t stop her with small talk. She made it outside in time to see Greg walking two blocks south. Her heart quickened at the sight of him from afar—it was hard not to admire his effortless elegance, his confident posture and purposeful stride.
    Was she really the kind of wife who spied on her husband, after thirty years of loyal marriage? But he had left her no other option. Week after week over dinner they hashed out variations of the same exasperating dialogue:
    Her warm touch on his arm. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
    His almost imperceptible flinch. “Nothing. I told you.”
    â€œBut you’ve been so . . . distant.”
    â€œMy patients—”
    â€œI know, I know. But you’ve always had tough patients. That’s never stopped you from . . .”
    From wanting me, she would think. All their lives he had been a passionate, affectionate partner, his libido barely slowing down over the years. But in the last few months, his interest had dropped off. He greeted her with dry pecks instead of kisses, failed to seek her out in the shower, kept his hands to himself in bed.
    Yet her inquisitions always failed. Across from her at the dinner table, he would shrug, his hazel eyes shifting to that faraway state that reminded her of glass hardening. Even in his withdrawn state, he was attractive—six feet tall with a slender athleticism honed by years of running marathons. His salt-and-pepper hair was thick, his features chiseled, his lips expressive.
    â€œYou’re sure there’s nothing else bothering you?” she would press. “Just work?”
    â€œYou’re doing it again,” he would tell her gently, despite the tightness in his voice. “Trolling for a story.”
    Oh, why did she even try?
    Ever since she’d left her beloved career as an investigative reporter twenty years before to become a full-time mom to Adam, their only child, she would gravitate to what she called “little icebergs”—hints of possible stories submerged beneath the surface. If there was anything she had learned from her decade as a journalist, it was that she had a nose for sniffing out stories, though she did sometimes get carried away with dead-end leads.
    Of course, that was all well behind her, since Greg’s work as an ER doctor and his lucrative consulting gigs had made a luxuriously idle life possible for her. It would be ridiculous to think of going back to work in her midfifties, when she had all the money she could ever hope to spend. So her days were filled with social outings, shopping, fund-raising for Greg’s medical charity, and babysitting their two-year-old granddaughter Sophia, the light of her life. Meanwhile her investigative instinct remained, like a phantom limb that sometimes needed scratching.
    But this time, the itch wasn’t just in her mind. She was sure of it.
    She kept safe distance behind him on the sidewalk, following him another three blocks south on Riverside Drive and east two blocks to Broadway. He walked fast, as though he were late. She pulled the baseball cap low over her face when he turned the corner, not that it mattered; he would never think of her if he noticed a woman in an obnoxious pink sweat suit. Her colors were classy whites, beiges, blacks.
    His charity office was on the third floor of a walk-up building on the corner of 80th and Broadway, right across from their gym. Across the street, shielded under the arched doorway of a brownstone, she held her breath. If he walked past his office, that would be her first real proof that he was hiding something.
    His steps slowed—her heart caught—and then she saw his hand reach into his pocket for his keys. When he stopped at the right door and opened it, she realized the depth of her relief. How badly did she want to be wrong! He disappeared inside, and she turned to