“Send him right up, please, Mike.” I smooth my hair and tighten the sash on my dressing gown, because regardless of the gentleman’s beauty—let’s admit it, he has none—I’ve always believed in presenting an orderly face to the world, particularly when my nerves are as shredded as they are in this moment. Then I light a cigarette, pace across the room, stub out the cigarette, think better of it, and light another. You see what I mean.

At last, the doorbell. I fly from living room to foyer and fling the door open. Sumner Fox stands in his dark suit and dark tie; the hallway lighting makes his bony face look jaundiced.

“You should have checked the peephole first.”

“For God’s sake.” I step back. “Won’t you come in, Mr. Fox.”

He’s so wide, he practically turns sideways to fit his shoulders through the door. I lead him into the living room and ask if he wants a drink or something. He shakes his head no. I feel a pang of disappointment. My head’s throbbing, my arms and legs have that heavy, sick feeling that combines the worst effects of a hangover and a sleepless night. What I need is a couple of aspirin and a Bloody Mary. Or is it the other way around?

“Sit, please,” I tell him. “I want to make a few things clear.”

He waits for me to sit first before he finds the indicated armchair and lowers his body onto it. As I said, he isn’t especially tall—I would say he only just clears six feet, if he clears them at all. He’s simply big. Even his thighs have a thick, meaty diameter, especially crammed between the arms of a chair like that, a hundred years old, built for men of elegant, aristocratic frame. He rests his hands on his knees and cocks his head a few degrees, to indicate I should begin when ready.

I knot my hands in my lap. “First things first. I am not snitching on Sasha Digby. What I’m telling you, I’m telling you so you can make my sister and her children safe. You can’t take down a single thing I say and use it against her husband in a court of law, or whatever it is you mean to do with him, if you find them. If I agree to help, you leave him alone.”

“I can’t promise that, but I can promise this conversation is off the record, so far as our investigation goes.”

“I guess that’s fair.”

“Is there anything else?”

“Yes. You go first. I want to know why you’re here right now, instead of four years ago or next month. Something’s happened to my sister, hasn’t it?”

His thumb moves, rubbing the material on the side of his knee. “Yes.”