Eve frowned down at his desk a few seconds—she seemed to be studying the battered phone book, the stolen Denny’s ashtray, his unrinsed coffee mug—and then she laughed, quick and silvery. The sound took Keegan by surprise. He leaned forward.

Eve smiled and shook her head again. Then she tucked her chin and spoke in a voice that was unnaturally deep: “‘What say you, Simon Catling?’”

Keegan stared at her, his mouth open a little.

Eve seemed amused at his expression and fanned her smiling face with one hand. “It’s from Romeo and Juliet,” she said, laughing. “I knew I’d heard the name. It’s a bit part. Simon Catling only has one line.”

KEEGAN’S MG WAS a two-seater convertible, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a passenger beside him. Maybe it was Judy on one of their on-again, off-again dates—the cocktails, the promenade, the climb up the stairs to her cramped apartment two floors above a liquor store.

He looked over at Eve now in the passenger seat. She held Nora in her lap, while the dog strained to get her nose out the open window to gulp at the hot wind.

“Sorry about the dog,” Keegan said.

“Nonsense,” Eve told him. “She’s darling.”

A jewel dangled on a chain in front of Eve’s blouse. It was a clumsy gold setting with a pale blue stone shaped like a teardrop. The gem was large and luminous, though the chain it hung on was a simple gold serpentine. It must have fallen out of her blouse when she was tussling with the squirming dog. The necklace didn’t seem in keeping with Eve’s austere taste in clothes. It was bulky and vulgar—the kind of clunky costume jewelry his late mother would have favored.

Eve seemed to catch him looking and tucked it quickly inside her blouse, out of sight. “It’s just a rhinestone,” she told him, as if he had asked a question. And a few seconds later, as if he had asked a follow-up: “It has sentimental value.”

KEEGAN ALMOST MISSED the turnoff to Ormsby’s place; he’d never actually taken it before. He coasted up the single-lane drive to the estate’s front gates. The gates were closed, and beyond them Ormsby’s circular brick driveway lay empty. The gloom of early evening had set in, but there were no lights on in the big house. All that was lit were the twin carriage lamps, set into the broad brickwork entryway.

Keegan idled in front of the gates.

Eve stroked the dog’s head and looked out through the windshield. Keegan could feel her tensing up at the prospect of being left alone in that big house with night coming on. In the silence, Keegan reached over to scratch the dog’s head, and their fingers brushed. Eve pulled her hand away.