“Wait a minute, don’t go,” he said. “I have an idea. You might help me with a … situation. Your cousin is dining with a guest just now in the green dining room. I can assure you that she’d welcome your company. If you wouldn’t mind, that is.… Give me a quick second.”

He pulled out his phone and started to text.

The green dining room was the most private and secluded room in the Inn. Dominique usually kept it available for VIP guests—a former president and First Lady, a Supreme Court justice and a spouse or friend. A senator and his much younger female … aide. Anyone who required discretion. There was also an unobtrusive exit to a side parking lot.

“Who’s her guest? Ebenezer Scrooge?” Quinn asked.

Hassan’s mouth twitched and he lowered his voice. “Celia Avery. She’s here to talk about the Miranda Foundation gala and we’re catering it. Dominique already made a quick trip to the kitchen on the pretext of checking something and told the chef she was like ‘a tiger at the end of her tail.’”

Though my cousin had lived in the U.S. for the last twelve years and was now a citizen, she still wrestled with English—especially our idioms. Usually, though, you knew exactly what she meant.

I grinned. “It doesn’t sound good.”

His phone beeped and he checked it. “It’s not. Care to join them?”

“Maybe we should just go home and leave Dominique to it,” Quinn told him, as I said, “Of course we would.”

The two of us looked at each other. Quinn sighed and shrugged, turning to Hassan.

“You heard the lady. We’d love to.”

Hassan picked up two menus and handed them to a waiter. As we were leaving I heard him say under his breath to Quinn, “A wise decision, Mr. Santori. Very wise.”

“Somehow,” Quinn said, “I think I’m going to regret this.”

On the way to the green dining room he said to me, “Why would we love to have dinner with Dominique and Celia Avery when it’s not going well?”

“To bail out my cousin,” I said. “Why else?”

I heard him mutter, “Should have ordered a pizza” as we walked in to the small green-and-gold jewel of a room and Dominique caught sight of us. Her eyes registered gratitude and relief.