“I can’t believe we’re finally doing this,” I said, trying to inject some warmth into the sterile silence. “A clean slate. It’s going to be good for us, David.”

David didn’t look at me. His hands were gripping the leather steering wheel so tightly his knuckles looked like bleached bone. He was a successful architect, a man who built skyscrapers and dealt with millions of dollars in contracts, but right now, he looked like a cornered animal.

“Yeah,” he muttered, his eyes darting to the rearview mirror for the tenth time in a minute. “Clean slate.”