At lunchtime, I sat at my desk and ate the peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwich I'd brought from home. At twelve-thirty, I left the building and started walking around the block, hoping I'd remember where I parked my car. I found the VW, unmolested, at the corner of Capillo and Olivio, much closer than I'd thought and in the opposite direction. For the fifth day straight, the sky was overcast, a brooding gray, roiling at the edges where a thick mass of clouds threatened rain.

Santa Teresa is constrained on the north by the mountains and on the south by the Pacific Ocean, limiting geographic growth. The westernmost neighborhoods feather out as far as Colgate; the easternmost sweeping into Montebello where the prices jump. Horton Ravine, where I was headed, is a moneyed enclave, carved out by land grant and deed, whereby successive California governors rewarded military leaders for killing people really, really well. The resulting three thousand plus acres were passed from rich man to richer, until the last in line, a sheep rancher named Tobias Horton, had the good sense to subdivide the land into saleable lots, thus making a killing of another kind.

I took the 101 as far as the La Cuesta off-ramp, turned left, and followed the road around to the right, heading for the main entrance, which consisted of two massive stone pillars with HORTON RAVINE spelled out in curlicue wrought iron arching between them. The Ravine was lush, the trunks of sycamores and live oaks stained dark from the recent rains. Most of the roads are called "Via something"; via being the Spanish word for "way" or "road." I drove past the Horton Ravine Riding Club, continued a mile, and finally took a right turn and went up a hill.

The Glazers lived on Via Bueno ("Road Good"... if I remember rightly from my brief matriculation in night-school Spanish). The house was 1960s modern, a dazzling white cluster of abstract forms superimposed on one another in what amounted to an architectural pig pile. Three soaring stories were variously angled and cantilevered with a steeply pitched tower driving straight up out of the center of the mass. There were wide decks on all sides and large expanses of glass, into which birds probably regularly propelled themselves and died. When I'd first met Dana Jaffe, she was living in a small housing tract in the town of Perdido, thirty miles to the south. I wondered if she was as conscious as I of how far she'd come.

I parked in a circular motor court and crossed to the low sweeping stairs that led up to the front door. A few minutes passed and then she answered the bell. I could have sworn she was wearing the same outfit I'd seen her in the first time we'd met – tight, faded jeans and a plain white T-shirt. Her hair was still the color of honey, with silver, as fine as silk threads, now appearing in the mix. She'd had it cut and layered, every strand falling into place as she moved her head. Her eyes were khaki or hazel, sometimes reflecting green, sometimes brown under softly feathered brows. Her most arresting feature was her mouth. Her teeth were slightly occluded and the overbite made her lips appear plump and pouty.