Keegan found his Timex on the coffee table and squinted at the smudged crystal: 8:15. In her last few years, his mother had kept old-lady hours—dinner at five and bed by nine. Now, with full daylight shining behind the curtains, her dog expected to be let out. The poor thing should have been taken out hours ago. He buckled the watch on his wrist.

Keegan stood—too fast—and he clutched the arm of the settee when he felt like he might black out. The heat and the whiskey and the sleepless nights were wearing him down. The Jameson bottle on the coffee table was more than half empty; he’d meant to have only a shot—two at the most—to help him sleep. He scratched the stubble on his cheek. A half of a fifth. How much was that? He couldn’t do math in his head in the best of conditions. Fractions least of all. But half of a fifth was too much, and now he was hungover. He straightened up gingerly and tested his footing. The dizziness had passed.

The dog darted around the coffee table and tugged playfully at Keegan’s trouser leg.

Keegan cursed and shook his leg free. “Nobody likes a morning person,” he told the dog, then he shuffled in the direction of the back door, working the aches out of his legs and willing his blood to circulate. What day was it, anyway?

The dog sprinted ahead of him, claws skittering on the oak floorboards, and disappeared into the kitchen.

Keegan plodded after her. The dog had been his mother’s constant companion in her final years, but his own apartment quad had rules against pets. Eventually he’d have to take out an ad in The Times classifieds or cart the poor mutt down to the Eagle Rock pound—but, hell, there were so many other raveled strands of his mother’s life left for him to knot up. Her dog would have to wait.

When Keegan got to the kitchen doorway, Nora pressed her nose to the crack beneath the back door and pawed at the weather stripping. He unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the door open for her, and she rocketed down the back steps, scattering finches from the rosemary hedge. Keegan left the door standing wide and went over to rinse his face at the kitchen sink. If the forecast was right, it would be another brutally hot day, but for now the breeze that seeped in through the door felt cool.