One of his bushy, salt-and-pepper eyebrows lifted as he scanned me from curly head to black-booted foot. “I think perhaps you are mistaken.”

I pressed my fingertips to my chest in faux astonishment. “What? Tatie didn’t tell you she had a nigger in the family woodpile? I assure you that we are in fact near and dear relations, and I think she might be interested in talking to me.”

The doorman hesitated, but he did not withdraw. He recovered his composure and said, with carefully measured dignity, “Ms. Dufresne is not receiving visitors at this time. Perhaps if you were to leave a message and return, she might give you an audience at a later date. Since you are family, you no doubt know about the unpleasantness with her nephew—your cousin, I suppose. She’s quite elderly, you understand, and she’s not taken the news well.”

It was all I could do not to laugh in his face, but he seemed perfectly nice, and being rude wasn’t likely to get me half so far as manners might. “Malachi? Of course I know. I’m the reason he was in jail to begin with.” I let that sink in before following it up with the rest. “I’m the kid he tried to kill fifteen years ago. And a couple of nights ago, too, come to think of it.”

His right eyebrow joined the left one, high up in the creases of his forehead. “You’re Eden?”

I propped a hand on my hip and smiled with my lips pressed together. “C’est moi.”

“And . . . and you want to talk to Ms. Dufresne?”

“I sure do. Last time I saw her, she made it pretty clear she had some things to say to me; I just thought I’d give her the opportunity.”

He faltered, dropping his hand down the door until it fell to rest atop the knob. With his other hand, he rubbed at the wrinkle on his forehead that now threatened to swallow both brows whole. “But I don’t think . . . I don’t think they’re . . . very nice things.”

I laughed, but not too loud or hard. “You know her well, then. You’ve worked for her a long time?”

He permitted himself a smile, slowly catching up to my nervous good humor. “Many years. Though not as many as it sometimes seems.” His arm pulled the door open and he stepped aside. “Do come in. I’ll tell Ms. Dufresne you’re here.”

“I would very much appreciate that,” I said, swooping past him and into a marvelous hallway with a lengthy Turkish carpet spread over the wooden floors. The doorman led me into the parlor—there was actually a parlor—and asked me to wait while he went up to announce my arrival. I complied, sitting on a high, velvetpadded chair at the fully stocked wet bar that gleamed brass and mahogany.