"In fact I may've been a little bit too hard on you just then. Now that you've gotten me thinking about it, I remember having it go through my mind at the time that if I hadn't been still married to Ray and so forth, I could see myself getting very interested in this Hilliard guy. Although of course he was still married then, too."

"Talk was he never let that interfere with his personal life," Robey said, smirking. "He is a charmer, no question. I remember when his wife was divorcing him; she alleged adultery. There was a lot of talk.

That was a fairly unusual thing to do: meant someone was really pissed off. There was considerable speculation about whose names might get dragged into it, how many other divorces there'd be, if theirs ever came to a trial."

"I recall that," she said, a lot more calmly than she had lived through it.

"And then when it didn't," Robey said, 'when it settled word was she cleaned him out then the word was that was the reason.

TWO

That he'd done the right thing and given her everything she asked for, so she wouldn't raise such a stink that he'd have to leave town maybe along with a lot of other people. Bad enough he was washed-up in politics; if he let that stuff hit the fan he would've had to forget the college job, too."

He paused. "I think Geoff Cohen might've even had that case."

"He did," the judge said. "Sam Evans from our shop represented Dan.

Sam was the divorce specialist. He was extremely good at it. Up until that case, consensus was he was the very best around He couldn't make divorce fun, but if you had to go through one and you could get Sam Evans, at least you could relax a little knew you were in good hands.