I knew it wasn’t the sort of statement one was expected to answer. I said, “If that was supposed to make me understand, let me remind you that’s not a motivation I have much experience with.”

He looked up sharply. “Haven’t you ever liked someone? Respected them? Been their friend?”

Had I ever… “No,” I said. “So if you tell me it makes you want to get killed for no good reason, I’ll have to take your word for it.”

He dropped the twig. “I was going to tell you dinner was ready. I bet we’ve both missed it now.”

We had, but there were leftovers. I felt a little like a character mistakenly let loose in Beauty and the Beast, in that house. All one’s needs provided for, and no staff in sight. And a strong suspicion that one ought not to try to leave. Mick took his dinner away with him; I sat in the kitchen with mine, at a wooden table with a scarred top, under a hanging kerosene lamp. It was another of the house’s comforting rooms, full of simple objects and the smell of garlic. Or maybe the damned house just thought I needed comforting. I cleaned up after myself and found my way up the back stairs without incident to my allotted room.

Of all the things that might legitimately trouble me, one seemed to take precedence, but I couldn’t quite grab hold of it. I yanked off my boots and lay down on the bed, staring at the wall that sloped over it, the part under the roofline that was almost but not quite the ceiling. The wallpaper was full of flowers and leaves, like everything else in the house. Who was the gardener? China Black? It seemed out of character from my first sight of her, vampiric in dark blue chiffon and sunglasses, on the first floor of my building.

Bingo. The tea party, when China Black had told Mick Skinner that they weren’t looking for him, they were looking for his body. But in my apartment, China Black had asked… no, it wasn’t conclusive. She’d asked, more or less, to be allowed to speak to the previous occupant, and there was nothing to tell me for sure who she thought that might be. Then when she failed, and was so furious, she’d said, He wasn’t there.

If there was something about Mick that ought to be passed on, she or Mr. Lyle would do it. If it didn’t need to be passed on, I didn’t want to know it. After all, plenty of people around that tea table knew things about me I was glad they hadn’t said.

I lived on City time, staying up until dawn and sleeping through half the day to avoid fighting with the sun. So I was surprised when I woke to a mild blue morning sky in the window. I hadn’t remembered falling asleep, which I’d done in my clothes on top of the comforter. I really had to stop sleeping in my clothes. The hall was quiet. I thought of that bathtub suddenly, the one big enough to drown in. I dug my clean shirt out of my pack and headed for the bathroom.