Melanie nodded slowly. “But she’ll never give it to you. She thinks you’re the enemy.”

“She thinks I’m a woman scorned,” I said. “She thinks I’m broken.”

I picked up my phone and unlocked it.

My fingers were cold, but my hands had stopped shaking.

“I need to meet her,” I said.

“She’s at his office,” Melanie reminded me. “If you go there, you’ll run into him.”

“No,” I said. “I’ll wait until he leaves. Then I’ll invite her to lunch.”

I looked out the window at the passing traffic, the brake lights bleeding into the wet asphalt.

“I’ll play the grieving wife,” I said. “I’ll tell her I’m ready to sign the divorce papers. I’ll tell her I just want to talk, woman to woman, to find closure.”

“She won’t believe you easily,” Melanie said.

“She will if I play to her ego,” I said. “Chloe always wanted to win. I’ll let her think she’s won.”

I reached into my purse and pulled out a small, black USB device I had purchased a week ago from a private investigator in Glendale.