“She has a lecture tonight,” I said.

“Yeah, but I think she’s going out after.”

I leaned in, as though we were conspirators. “She seeing someone?”

“Hey, don’t ask me. You want to know what she’s up to, ask her. I know how this works. I squeal on her, then you’ll be pumping her for information on what I’m doing.” He twirled some more linguine onto his fork. “I’m going to eat this. I don’t care that she’s not here.”

“How about you?” I asked. “You seeing someone?” Paul put the fork into his mouth, his cheek poking out on one side. I went on, “What about, what was her name, Wendy?”

Paul shook his head. He chewed a few times, washed the linguine down with some water. “I never went out with her. Besides, she has a butter face.”

“A butter face?”

“Yeah. Everything’s great, but her face.”

Angie came in. She’d changed her clothes, refreshed her makeup, brushed her hair. She looked—and as her father, this gave me the usual sinking feeling—terrific.

“Oh sure,” she said, looking at her brother eat. “Start without me, why don’t you.”

“Hey, you owe me. Dad’s asking me questions about your personal life, and I’m refusing to testify.”

She glared at me. “Is that true?”

“No,” I said.

“I need a car tonight,” Angie said, deciding that my attempt to pry information from her brother was too routine an occurrence to get worked up about. “I’ve got an evening lecture. And I really want to take the Virtue. I want to drive down with the sunroof open.”

“I don’t know, honey,” I said. “Why don’t I just give you a lift down? I could pick you up after.”

“I don’t believe this. We have this huge discussion, about how we need a second car, about how you don’t want me taking public transportation home late at night from school, and we get a second car, and you want to drive me down? When Mom isn’t even here, and there’s no one else who even needs the second car but me?”

Paul stopped chewing, looked at me, smiled. “Yeah, Dad.”

How could I make my case, that it would be better if I drove her, if I couldn’t bring forward my evidence? Was I going to tell her that I’d spoken to Trevor a short while ago, had tried as best I could to intimidate him, suggested that he back off and leave her alone?

She’d kill me.

And what of this cryptic warning from Lawrence, that someone might be after me? Did that mean anything, really? And if it did, did it have anything to do with Angie? That seemed unlikely.