For a second I honestly thought she might strike me—and that would have been a first—but she held her position and straightened her back. “Nothing like me. That’s more unfair than you know.”

“Then tell me why Tatie paid for my mother to be at Pine Breeze. That would be useful, and it would set the two of you apart.”

Disgust clouded her face. She shook her head. “You don’t even know what questions to ask. You don’t know what’s useful and what’s not. You’re shooting in the dark, firing blind, and you think you’re going to wring something out of her?”

“See—that’s what I mean. Since you’re not talking, I’m going to have to go ask someone else.” I went on with my packing, even though I was all but done. I pulled an extra T-shirt out of a drawer and made a show of unfolding it, then folding it again.

“No.” Lulu’s knuckles whitened around the doorjamb. “No, don’t go to her. Ask me whatever you want, but don’t go there. Not after I’ve spent so long keeping you away from her. She’ll fuck you up if she can.”

I shoved the shirt into the bag and faced her then, full on, no blinking away. “Why did Leslie ask to go to Pine Breeze?”

Lulu leaned against the frame. Her temple pressed against the wood. “She was afraid.”

“Of who? Or what? My father?”

“No. Not your father.” She shook her head, rolling it back and forth on the frame and wearing a pink groove into her skin. “She had him wrapped around one little finger, I think. That’s the impression I got, anyway. If anything, she was irritated by him. But not afraid, ever. Not that I know of.”

I believed her. And if I thought she was going to tell the truth, I might as well keep asking, even if it did turn out to be too little too late. “All right then. Who was my father? And I want to hear more than some initial or general Caucasoid appearance you think he might have had. You’ve gotta know more than that.”

“He was somebody’s husband. Beyond that, I don’t know. All I know is that he was married, and that his wife was a nut who kept threatening Leslie. I swear to you, baby, that’s all I know about him. He had a wife, and she knew about Leslie. She tried to make trouble.”

That may well have explained the nasty letter I’d found. “And that’s why she was afraid?” I asked.

“Yes,” Lulu affirmed, but her almond-colored eyes veered away from mine. “I think that’s it.”

In that quick dash of her glance, she lost me, and I knew for sure that this wasn’t going to work. Even if she was telling the truth, it was a slanted version of it—a version that was close enough to falsehood to serve me no purpose. She was right. I didn’t know what questions to ask yet, and until I did, I needed to go find someone who didn’t know me well enough to lie to me. I reached back for my bag and threw in a pair of sneakers.