“It didn’t need to be light to be day.”

“That was not her husband; she knew him, and that was not him. But of course she didn’t really know him.”

“Dexter was too legit,” Julia continued. “His life was too verifiable, too aboveboard. He was nobody’s spy, nobody’s mole, nobody’s rat. He was who he is. And he didn’t know that you weren’t.”

“She didn’t want to give the murder-pornography frame by frame. Didn’t want to recite her route across Manhattan, the length of the knife blade and the number of times she pulled the trigger, the color of the blood-splattered wallpaper in the hotel room, the man falling to the floor, the baby crying in the next room, the woman emerging and dropping the bottle, its nipple popping off and the milk spilling onto the carpet, the woman pleading “Por favor,” her hands up, shaking her head, asking— begging— for her life to be spared, her big black eyes wide, deep sinkholes of dark terror, while Kate trained the Glock on her, a seemingly eternal internal debate, while the baby sounded like he was the same age as Jake, late infancy, and this poor woman the same age as Kate, a different version of herself, an unlucky woman who didn’t deserve to die.”

“Maybe he was wondering if they could make it, such liars, together. A marriage based on so many things that were not true. A life lived so falsely, for so long.Kate didn’t know that Dexter hadn’t admitted all his lies. Just as she hadn’t revealed every one of her secrets.”

“She hoped that a day would come when she wouldn’t be suspicious of everyone who walked by.”

“She needed friends, and a life, and this is how you acquired those things: by talking to strangers. Everyone was a stranger, all on equal footing in strangerhood.”