Page 83 of The Surrogate Mother

She raises her eyebrows at me. “Are you all right, Ms. Adler?”

I nod, attempting a weak smile as I sit back down on the sofa. “Yes. Of course.”

She shrugs and puts her phone down on the table. “The murder was quite a big deal, as you’d imagine. And most everyone believed Monica had something to do with it, even though they could never prove it. That’s why we left Boston and moved here.”

A chill goes through me. Monica killed someone as a teenager and got away with it. Not only is Monica a killer, but she’s apparently good at it. She was good at it when she was a teenager, so she must be great at it by now.

Mrs. Johnson leans back against the couch. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you all this. I should be advocating for Monica—I know. I used to see a therapist myself, and all we’d talk about would be Monica. Monica, Monica, Monica…”

Sounds like what I’d be talking about if I had a therapist.

“Can I ask you a question, Mrs. Johnson?” I say.

She nods. “Of course.”

“How did you lose touch with Monica?”

“Oh.” She shakes her head. “We started fighting over the affair. That was about three years ago. And things just deteriorated from there.”

“Affair?”

She rolls her eyes. “She started having what I thought was a quite ill-advised affair with her math professor in college. I told her so, but she didn’t want to hear it.”

Her words make me freeze up. “Math professor?”

“Oh, yes.” She nods. “Well, you should have seen the guy. He was very attractive—I almost couldn’t blame her. But of course, he was quite a bit older than her. And married, of course.”

“Married…?” I swallow a lump in my throat. “Where did Monica go to college again?”

When Mrs. Johnson names the university where myhusband teaches, it’s like a punch in the gut. No.No. It couldn’t be.

It couldn’t be.

“The professor was clearly taking advantage of a very young girl,” she goes on. “But Monica didn’t see it that way. She was absolutely in love, and she took all my criticisms of him as a personal attack.”

I bunch up my skirt with my sweaty fists. “You don’t… do you remember his name?”

“Steve,” she says thoughtfully. She frowns. “No, that’s not right. Simon? No…”

“Sam?” I squeak.

She snaps her fingers. “Right. Sam. That was it. I’d never seen her so infatuated with a man before. Apparently, they werein love. Can you imagine?”

I can’t even pretend she’s not talking about my husband. A math professor named Sam? There’s no way this is a coincidence.

“Do… do you know what happened with them?”

She shakes her head. “As I said, our relationship deteriorated after that. I have no idea what she’s been up to. I imagine she moved on when she couldn’t get him to leave his wife. Or else maybe she got him fired. It would serve him right.”

Or maybe…

Maybe the two of them figured out a way to finally be together.

35

Sam and Monica are having an affair.

The timeline Monica’s mother gave me means the affair has been going on forat leastthree years. Three years of him sneaking around behind my back—easy enough to do with his flexible schedule and my long hours. That ratty couch he has in his office at the university was probably a great place for him to hook up with her.