ZOE WAS ALREADY up and working when Carrie rang her buzzer. Carrie knew this because when Zoe answered the door she was wearing her work clothes—flannel pajamas with red roses on them and an apron liberally smeared with chocolate—and her blond hair was bundled up under a net. Since Zoe was six feet tall and skinny, the look was distinctive. She stood in her doorway peeling off a pair of surgical gloves and eyeing Carrie with the look of sympathy and concern that everyone had been giving her for the last year.

“Hey, Carrie. Are you—”

“New rule,” Carrie broke in hastily. “Don't ask me how I am, okay?” Zoe started to speak, then thought better of it. “And we're not talking about memorial services, or funerals.” Or mothers.

Zoe nodded. “Can I ask why you're here?”

“Not really.”

“Okay. Come into the kitchen.”

Actually, Zoe's entire apartment was a kitchen. She'd stashed a cot in one corner of it, and there was a closet where she kept her wardrobe, but the rest of her small studio had been gutted and fitted out with two industrial-size refrigerators, a restaurant stove, a large table at which two people could work comfortably, and several huge storage bins full of sugar and cocoa. Stacked against one wall were shipping supplies, rolls of gold tissue paper, and cases of hand-painted candy boxes. Zoe was a candy maker who sold herb-flavored chocolate truffles to the hippest gourmet groceries and restaurants in Manhattan. Since five that morning she'd been taking baking sheets covered with little frozen balls of the chocolate-and-cream mixture known as ganache out of the fridge and dipping them into melted bittersweet chocolate—the best Belgium had to offer—before dusting them with cocoa. The ganache had been infused with a variety of flavors such as lavender and rosewater, and in the case of one client—a Mexican restaurant—hot chili peppers.