“Stop blaming your father,” Mia advises. “At least until you know all the facts. Caitlin and I weren’t exactly BFF, but the lady had her shit together. She was the closest thing to a role model I could find in this town. And I think that’s what she would say to you now, if she could. Cut your father some slack.”

The ring of my cell phone spares me from having to respond to Mia’s plea—which in truth sounds like Caitlin speaking from the grave.

I’m half expecting the caller to be Serenity, but the phone says unknown number. Usually I don’t answer such calls, but with the situation this fluid and the stakes so high, I can’t afford to ignore this one.

“Penn Cage,” I answer.

“Penn, it’s Doris Avery.”

A premonition of danger moves through me. “Is everything all right?”

“There’s no emergency, if that’s what you mean. But I was wondering if you could come by for a brief talk.”

“With Quentin?”

“Quentin’s asleep.”

I look away from Mia’s questioning eyes and try to guess what has prompted this call. “Are you at Edelweiss?”

“Yes. I’m out on the gallery.”

“I’m only a few blocks away. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Hurry, Penn. Please.”

Chapter 34

Edelweiss has two staircases that ascend to the gallery like the legs of a capital A. As I climb the right staircase in search of Doris Avery, the orange eye of a cigarette appears from the darkness under the north gallery above me. I smelled the tobacco smoke from half a block away, but the overhead lights are off, so I didn’t see Doris. Even now, her coffee-colored skin seems to drift in and out of the dark. Only her eyes, which catch the light from the streetlamp on the bluff, remain constant in the gloom.

Her low voice, taut with tension, says, “I hoped that after lunch today, you’d feel it was worthwhile to come down here tonight.”

“How long have you been out here?”

“Long enough to smoke too many cigarettes.”

“What’s going on, Doris? Quentin didn’t want me in this house today, but you did. Why?”

“Something’s wrong.”

“Obviously. But what?”

She takes a quick drag on the cigarette, then blows the smoke away from me. “I’m not sure.”

“Is something wrong with Quentin? Health-wise?”

“Health-wise? Of course. Where do you want to start?”

“I meant mentally.”

She takes some time with this. “Is he mentally competent? Yes. Is he as sharp as he used to be? Sometimes I think he’s even sharper.”

“Then what are you talking about?”

She walks to the rail and gazes off the bluff toward the great twin bridges to the south, their silver metal glowing like an erector set project spanning the dark river. “I was third in my law school class at Emory, Penn. Did you know that?”