“Constantly checking, and doing it so obsessively that everything looks like a threat. It’s like having a smoke alarm that’s so sensitive it goes off every time you use the toaster. It’s like, Did I really leave my pen on that table? Didn’t I already wash that fork? Wasn’t that plant two inches farther to the left? Stuff like that. Like last night. I went out for an hour, and when I got home, the light was on in the bathroom.”

“You’re sure you turned it off before you left?”

“I always turn it off. But that’s not all. I thought I could smell Robby’s horrible cologne. Just the tiniest trace of it. So I start running around the apartment sniffing everywhere, and for a second I’d think maybe I could smell it again.” She sighed in exasperation. “You see what I mean? I’m losing it. Some people start seeing things. I’m smelling things.” She drove for several miles in silence. The mist had begun again, and she turned on her wipers. At the end of each arc, they made a sharp squeaking sound. She seemed oblivious to it.

Gurney was studying her. Her clothes were neat, subdued. Her features were regular, her eyes dark, her mouth quite lovely. Her hair was a lustrous brown. Her clear skin had a hint of Mediterranean tan. She was a beautiful young woman—full of ideas, full of ambition, without being full of herself. And she was smart. That was the part Gurney liked best. But he was curious how someone so smart had gotten tangled up with someone as troubled as Robby.

“Tell me a little more about this Meese guy.”

He began to think she hadn’t heard him, it took her so long to answer. “I told you he was removed from some kind of sick family situation and put in a series of foster homes. Maybe some people come out of that okay, but most don’t. I never knew any of the details. I just knew he seemed different. Deep. Maybe even a little dangerous.” She hesitated. “I think the other thing that made him attractive was that Connie hated him.”

“That made you like him?”

“I think she hated him and I liked him for the same reason—he reminded us both of my dad. My dad was kind of erratic, and he had a crazy background.”

My dad. From time to time, those words had the power to trigger a wave of sadness in Gurney. His feelings about his father were conflicted and largely repressed. So were his feelings about himself as a father—the father of two sons, one living and one dead. As the emotion began to subside, he tried to hasten its exit by pushing his attention toward some other aspect of Kim’s project, some other point of interest.