Page 6 of The Wife

He reached across the table and held my hand. When he looked into my eyes, he was no longer frustrated. “I love our son. And that’s who he is now—our son. You know that, right?”

“Of course.” I smiled. “It’s been two years since you locked this down.”

“Best decision I ever made.”

“Just figured we’d have locked down Spencer legally by now, too.”

He gave my hand a squeeze. “Time flies when you’re happy. I’ll call Colin tomorrow. I promise.”

He kept his promise. When Colin sat me down and explained the process, he said it would be easy. We simply needed to notify Spencer’s biological father and get his permission to terminate his parental rights. “Or,” he explained, “if he never had any real ties to Spencer, we can argue abandonment and potentially skip the notification if you think it’s going to be a problem.”

I tried to keep my voice completely neutral. “He’s dead.”

“Oh, even better.” He immediately offered an awkward apology, and I assured him it was fine. “Condolences, I guess? Anyway, all we need in that case is a copy of the death certificate.”

“But the father’s not listed on the birth certificate.” I didn’t explain that he was already dead and that Spencer was already two years old by the time that birth certificate was issued, listing me as his only parent.

“Huh, okay.” I could tell that Colin was waiting for a more detailed explanation, but I didn’t offer one.

“Well, that’ll be a little more complicated. The judge might ask if you know who the father is, in which case we could offer up the death certificate. They need to make sure there’s not some guy out there getting his kid taken away. It shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”

I nodded, knowing that Spencer was never going to have a legal father. When Jason got home that night, I told him everything I had learned about the adoption procedure. That was the last time we talked about it.

The paperwork isn’t important. Spencer knows who his parents are. We have Jason’s name. As far as anyone is concerned, Jason is Spencer’s father, and that’s all that matters, right?

4

The day after Rachel Sutton walked into the Midtown South Precinct, Detective Corrine Duncan received a copy of a brief report filed by the desk officer. She found herself shaking her head as she read.

She skipped down to the signature line at the bottom of the page. “L. Kendall.”

Corrine had no direct knowledge of Officer Kendall, but immediately formed a mental image of him.Him,almost certainly, not only because of raw statistical odds but from the details of the report itself. The judgmental quotation marks around “encouraged” and “suggested.” The way he noted that she “presented calmly and did not appear distraught,” as if everyone knew that good victims cry.

Corrine could already imagine the conversation that might have ensued had Rachel Sutton not left the precinct.What were you wearing? Why were you alone with him?

Old-school. L. Kendall may as well have writtendon’t believe what she might sayacross the top in all caps. This was how police took a report when they meant to signal to the prosecution not to bother. If nothing else, it would give a defense attorney ammunition if the defendant were ever charged.

Corrine wanted to think she had never written a report like that.

She didn’t start out on the job with NYPD. Her first two years were as a patrol officer in Hempstead, on Long Island in Nassau County. Policing was different there. With fewer than 120 officers, the department expected officers to investigate their own cases, with the exception of major crimes. So she learned things like why a child abuse victim might accuse an innocent person (to protect a guilty parent), why domestic violence complainants often didn’t want to prosecute (out of fear or even love), and why sexual abuse complaints had more layers than any onion. “Embarrassment” didn’t begin to describe the dynamics.

But in the NYPD, a patrol officer like L. Kendall didn’t need to know all that. He took the report and pushed the paper to a specialty unit for follow-up.

She had already googled Jason Powell. The name hadn’t rung a bell in the context of a police report, but the search results immediately jogged her memory. According to his bio on New York University’s website, he had a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Stanford, a PhD from Harvard, and was the somebody-something endowed chair in human rights investments and professor of economics. Despite the impressiveness of that résumé, it barely made the first page of Google hits. Powell was better known as an author and speaker. The first sentence of his Wikipedia listing: “Jason Powell is theNew York Timesbestselling author ofEqualonomics, the chair of FSS Consulting, and a frequent media commentator.”

Corrine preferred fiction, personally, but even she had heard ofEqualonomics. About four years ago it had been one of those books that everyone read—or pretended to read, in Corrine’s opinion—to seem well informed.

Now, according to Powell’s website, he hosted a podcast bearing the same name as his bestselling book. His Twitter account—a combination of business news, liberal politics, and snark—had 226,000 followers.Cosmohad named him one of the ten sexiest “gingers.”

She recalled seeing the author onMorning Joea couple of years ago.The panelists fawned over Powell, asking whether he might be interested in running for office someday. It probably didn’t hurt that he was nice looking—trim, clean-cut, but with a little edge. A bit too pretty for Corrine’s taste, but to each her own.

Next, she googled “FSS Consulting.” Fair Share Strategies. She clicked the “About” page. The company provided “human rights and social justice due diligence” to investors and investment groups.

She wiggled her mouse, clicked on “Our Team,” and scrolled down. The list was short, only two names in addition to Powell’s: Zachary Hawkins, Executive Director, and Elizabeth Marks, Researcher.

There was nothing more she was going to learn from her computer. She picked up her phone.

The voice that answered sounded apprehensive, even slightly annoyed. “Hello?”

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