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“That would have been more like a year and a half ago,” Eve suggested, and Unger set her jaw.

“You’re very thorough. We have a great deal in common, and were attracted to each other. Julietta was, and is, restless in her marriage. This was her first affair, and it remains the only time I’ve entered into such a relationship with a married woman, or man for that matter. I don’t like cheating.”

“Must be hard doing something you don’t like for a couple years.”

“It’s not without its difficulties, or its excitement. I won’t deny that. Initially, we just forgot ourselves. But rather than the one-time thing we both assumed it would be, our feelings deepened. I enjoy sex.” She shrugged. “In general, I find women more interesting in bed than men. But with Julietta I found more. A kind of mate.”

“You’re in love with her.”

“I am. I am in love with her, and it’s difficult as we can’t be together openly.”

“She won’t leave her husband.”

“No, she would. But she knows that I won’t be with her if she does.”

“Now you’ve lost me.”

“She has a child. A child deserves to have both of his parents when this is possible. I won’t be a party to removing that child, that innocent, from the security he has now. It’s not the boy’s fault that his mother loves me instead of his father. We’re adults, and responsible.”

“And she doesn’t agree with your stand on this.”

“If Julietta has a flaw, it’s that she’s not as good a mother as she could be. Not as devoted or involved as I think she should be. I’d like to have children one day, and I expect my mate to want and care for the child as I will. From all I know, Thomas Breen is an excellent father, but he can’t be the boy’s mother. Only she can.”

“But he’s not so hot as a husband.”

“As he’s not mine it wouldn’t be accurate or fair for me to judge. But she doesn’t love him, or respect him. She finds him tedious and too easily led.”

“You were with her on the night of September second.”

“Yes, at my apartment. She told her husband she had a late meeting.”

“And you think he’s buying it?”

“She’s careful. He hasn’t confronted her. She would have told me. To be frank, Lieutenant, I think she wishes he would.”

“And the following Sunday morning, when she took the boy out. Were you with them?”

“I met them in the park.” Her voice warmed. “I enjoy the boy.”

“So you’ve spent time with him, the three of you together.”

“Once a week or so. I want him to know me, so he’s comfortable. When he’s older, perhaps we’ll find a way to blend our relationships.”

“Has Julietta ever told you her husband is violent?”

“No. Believe me, if there was violence in the home, I would urge her to take the boy and leave. His work is odd, disturbing, but he appears to leave it at that. You suspect him of killing that woman in Chinatown. Lieutenant, if I believed him capable of such a thing, I’d get my lover and her son away from him. Whatever it took.”

“You know the trouble with people having extramarital affairs, Peabody?”

“Explaining why you never wear all that sexy underwear you bought at home?”

“There’s that. But it’s the delusion. They really believe they’re getting away with it. Some do, for the short haul, but there are always tells. Too many late nights at the office, secret ’link transmissions, the friend of a friend who happens to see you having lunch with someone not your spouse in some out-of-the-way restaurant. And beyond all that, if that spouse isn’t in a coma, there’s a sense—a look, a smell, a change in touch. Serena Unger’s no dummy, but actually believes Breen hasn’t got a clue.”

“And you don’t.”

“He knows. His wife’s been playing pass the strap-on with another woman for a year and a half, he knows.”

“But if he does, how can he ignore it, just go around pretending everything’s fine day after day? It would have to eat away at you, make you crazy . . . Which is exactly what you’re getting at. If Roarke was fooling around with somebody, what would you do?”

“They’d never find the bodies.” She tapped her fingers on the wheel as she sat in traffic. “Women are ruining his happy home, threatening