“He just ended the search and released this final statement to the press—The time has come to let Irene go, forever honor her memory, allow me to mourn her in privacy, that kind of thing—and that was that. Never went out in public again. Sold his house in Burbank to Rofrano.”

Leo scrunches his face. “Rofrano.”

“Mr. Octavian Rofrano? The Rofrano Aircraft Company? He designed the airplane she flew. They were pretty close, the four of them. Socialized together. Lindquist says they used to keep . . .”

“Keep what?”

I turn back to the yellowing newsprint on the desk before me. “Keep the cat for her, when she was on her lecture tours and her . . . and her . . . .”

“And her what?”

I look up again. “Say. How did she get the cat back?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t around back then. I mean, I was, but—”

“Because if Sophie Rofrano was mothering the cat while Irene flew around the world . . .”

Leo spreads his hands.

“I know, I know. You don’t know nothing.” I wave my hand. “Thanks for the hooch, anyway. You’re a real pal, Leo Lindquist.”

“Janey—”

“I’m fine. I truly am. It’s just a cat.”

“Goddamn it, Janey Everett. Would you just for one minute admit that you care about something? Anything?”

I continue to stare at the newsprint, although it’s starting to blur. “Would you for one minute, Leo Lindquist, admit that I’m just passing through? Sure, I liked the cat. I like you. I like your whole lovely happy goddamn family. You’re a real nice bunch. But I’m here to write a book, that’s all. I’m here to get the facts, and maybe make some conclusions from those facts, and when . . . when I’m done . . . when I’m through . . .”

He lifts me from the chair and sits down on the edge of the bed, while I fall to pieces against his chest, like I have not done in some time, not since I heard that Captain Raoul Velázquez de los Monteros had died of catastrophic injuries in some field hospital just across the German border, two days after his airplane had fallen in flames from the sky.

Leo wakes me in the night and tells me I was having a dream. I already know this, because the dream still hangs around me, more real than the bed and the room and Leo combined. It was about Velázquez. To make it up to Leo, I snuggle my face into his chest and allow him to stroke my hair, the way he likes.

“When you leave,” he says, “I don’t want you to tell me first. You should just go.”