Five minutes later James turned into the walkway that led to the Daughtrys’ wood-frame house and stopped. He’d visited before but had forgotten how charming it was. Nothing about it was square or plumb for its entire four floors. All the window frames and even the front-door casing were leaning slightly to the right, suggesting that if the door was inadvertently slammed shut, the entire building might fall to the right against its more solid-appearing brick neighbor. The clapboard siding was stained a light gray, while the trim was painted a pale yellow. The roof, although hard to see except for just the corners of the fourth-floor dormers, was a medium-gray slate. The front door with several bottle-bottom windows was dark green, almost the same color as James’s Range Rover. In the middle of the door was a brass door knocker in the shape of a human hand holding a ball. Just to the left of the door was a sign that said CAPTAIN HORATIO FROBER HOUSE, 1784.

James found himself inwardly smiling. He recognized it was just the kind of off-the-wall residence Shawn would choose. There was no doubt Shawn liked to stand out from the rest of the crowd, a thought that gave James another idea. Perhaps he could arrange to have Shawn given some kind of high award if he promised not to publish anything about the Blessed Virgin’s relics, something like being inducted as a modern Knight of Malta.

With the comforting sense of having come up with something of a plan, even if of dubious efficacy, James reached up and used the brass knocker to announce himself with a few healthy clangs against its brass base. After doing so he cringed, remembering the entire house’s precarious lean to the right.

Within seconds the door was yanked open by a euphoric Shawn with a scotch on the rocks in one hand and a smile to beat the band on his face. “The guest of honor has arrived!” he shouted over his shoulder back into the house from whence a most delightful aroma of grilled meat wafted. A Beethoven piano concerto was playing as background music. Both Sana and Jack materialized out of the smoky, candlelit background on either side of Shawn. There was a buzz of voices, hugs, and slaps on the back as James was welcomed into the living room. A small fire was comfortably crackling in the fieldstone fireplace behind an appropriate-size screen.

“My word,” James said, pressing a palm against his chest in a gesture of being overwhelmed. “I’d forgotten how very cozy you have it. My highest compliment is that it out-cozies, if that’s a word, my lakeside retreat in Jersey.”