“Throughout your adult life,” he continues, watching my face, “you have conducted your private affairs with remarkable discretion. You donate significant sums of money to several worthy charities, but you choose to keep your contributions anonymous. Your social activities are chiefly undertaken with some business angle, such as fund raisers and publicity outings—your evening visit to the Palmetto Club last weekend, for example. You’ve taken pains to project an image of sexual sophistication, but in fact, since returning to New York, you appear to have had intimate relationships with only a handful of men. In rotation, like a baseball lineup.”

“Now, there’s a fascinating analogy. And what do you make of all this?”

“As a psychological evaluation? I’d say you’re a person who, having suffered profound loss as a child, has erected various defenses to protect herself. The events in Rome only hardened your determination to separate heart from head, to speak in layman’s terms. As a person of great natural loyalty, you fear betrayal most of all. Your trust is hard-won. You have, as a result, no close friends, and you don’t wish for any.”

I blow out a long stream of smoke and clap one hand against the other, holding the cigarette. “Well done, Doctor. Excellent investigative work. Must have taken years. All that without even having spoken to the patient and asked her opinion about herself.”

“I’m afraid that wasn’t possible.”

“But you know, there’s still something that my poor, traumatized, straitjacketed ego can’t quite grasp. What in God’s name does any of this have to do with my sister?”

Fox levers himself away from the drafting table and walks to the couch, where he takes a seat at the extreme opposite end from me and leans forward to link his hands between his enormous knees. “Because you asked how I knew I could trust you.”

“You’re nuts, you know that?” I stub out the cigarette and rise to my feet. “You come in here and tell me all about myself, like you’ve known me for years. It’s the most condescending thing any man’s ever said to me, and believe me, I’ve heard it all.”

“I apologize. If you think I’m wrong about any of that, set me straight.”

I don’t know how to answer him. I’m angry, all right, mostly because he’s probably not wrong about any of that, if I’m going to be honest with myself. I mean, it doesn’t take a genius to analyze the mess inside my head, does it? But I don’t like the fact that this fellow seems to have been following me around for years, speaking to everyone who knew me, going through paperwork, spying on me. Drawing goddamn conclusions about me. And I never suspected a thing, the son of a bitch.

He rises too. “I understand you’re upset. Probably upset,” he adds swiftly.