I dipped my jaw enough to indicate shock at the very idea. “I wouldn’t dream of it. I only want answers, and no one on my side of the family is very forthcoming. You’re the only person who might could help me, so I’ve come to you.”

“Hmm.” She downed a little more of her drink and swirled the remaining contents of the glass with a winding of her wrist. “What sorts of answers?”

“For starters, I want to know who A is.”

She jumped, almost sloshing the clear beverage free of the clinking ice and over her fingers. “What are you talking about? What A? What is it you think you know?”

Her reaction startled me as much as my question startled her. “I was just wondering—the A who wrote to my mother when she was in Pine Breeze. I think he must have been my father.”

Eliza’s shiny snake eyes glistened, but she settled back into her chair and set the glass on a small table to her left. She had misunderstood me, and she was relieved to realize it. I couldn’t help but wonder what she thought I’d meant. “Oh. So you want to know about Arthur.”

I leaned forward. “That’s what the A was for?”

“Oh yes.” She nodded hard enough to make her loose skin flap, and her voice was more earnest than honest. “And you’re very correct—he was your father, if your mother was to be believed. He believed her, that much was certain. How’d you learn of him?”

“I went to Pine Breeze.”

“Don’t lie to me, child,” she snapped. “Not if you want straight answers in return, like you say you do. Pine Breeze has been torn down.”

“No, it was shut down. And it’s about to be torn down, but it still stands—just as they abandoned it twenty-five years ago. I dug around in there until I found Leslie’s files, and those files included some letters from A, presumably Arthur.”

“What did those letters say?” She was on the literal edge of her seat now, our faces only feet apart. I sensed an advantage, but I didn’t want to press it too hard or reveal too much. I leaned back again and took another swig. It was easier to imbibe after twothirds of a glass, but not much easier. I’d still rather drink turpentine.

“Mostly that he missed her, and he wanted her to leave Pine Breeze. He wanted her to move to a facility closer to him. He also complained a lot because she wouldn’t write him back.”

“Is that all?”

“Basically.”

She retreated too, distrusting my slippery word but sinking against the winged chair back and exhaling. She polished off the rest of her drink in one quick upward tip of the glass.

“So, who was he?”

“Arthur?”

“Yes, Arthur. Who was my father?”

Her cheek twitched, poorly smothering a smile. “You won’t like the answer.”