He was still in thinking mode when Jack returned with a huge container of soup and a second one he assumed held noodles from the Chinese restaurant. Jack rummaged for anything in the cabinets that resembled a soup pot and poured the contents from the containers into it.

“That’s enough soup for an army. Who’s going to eat all that?”

“I had to order three quarts for them to make me the noodles. Lizzie said noodles. I didn’t want to disappoint her. Smells like chicken soup to me. All we need to do is toss in some carrots, celery, parsley, and maybe an onion. That’s what they told me to do. Want some?”

“Maybe later. What did you do with the wontons?”

“See, that was the problem. I tried to cut a deal with them—keeping the wontons in exchange for the noodles. No deal. They made out, that’s the bottom line. What did you find out from Charles?”

Harry repeated his conversation with Charles. “Then I called back, but nothing. It just rang and rang and didn’t even go to voice mail. I had some questions after I thought about what I had been told. I called twice more, and it went to voice mail again. I called back, and Charles said he would get back to me because he couldn’t talk just then. So far, nothing more than what I’ve already told you. Now that you have the chicken soup thing going on, do you want to go back to the clinic? I just looked in on Lizzie, and she’s good for many more hours of sleep.”

“It’s getting late. I say we stay here. Charles will call when he has something concrete to tell us. Let’s go into the family room and chill out. This whole thing is making me crazy.”

“This is a fabulous room, isn’t it, Harry?” Jack said, looking around at the beautiful room, with its vaulted ceilings, tasteful artwork by local artists hanging on the walls, the highly polished floors, and the comfortable but worn furniture that adorned the room. It was definitely a room that a family lived in on a daily basis. It was clear to both men that the room was divided and yet worked as a whole at the same time. One section screamed it was Lizzie’s space, and another section left no doubt it was Cosmo’s area, because all of the furniture was oversized and custom-built. The third section belonged to Little Jack and held all the stuff the kid had collected in his happy little life. And then there was the family section, with one huge—as in huge—chair with matching ottoman that was obviously Cosmo’s and a deep comfortable recliner both men knew was Lizzie’s. The last chair was a scaled-down version of Cosmo’s chair, but not so small that it wouldn’t hold an adult. Kids didn’t stay little for long. The family unit. This unit was where Jack and Harry headed, with Jack taking Lizzie’s chair and Harry Little Jack’s.