“I know, but that was just her relationship with you,” said Rachel. “She was always taking from you, I saw that myself. It’s like she thinks you have so much that you won’t miss it. But she was good to people who didn’t have much of anything. Like when she took me in after my boyfriend tried to kill me.”

I remembered being surprised by Claudia’s kindness at the time, but later I’d felt like Claudia was really taking advantage of my kindness, forcing me to shelter and feed her friend. “I heard that Claudia went to rehab in the spring,” I said. “Do you know the name of the place?”

“It’s funny you ask. I wanted to know where she’d gone, and she wouldn’t tell me. After our dinner from hell, I started wondering if the guy she was seeing was connected to the rehab center. And I don’t mean another patient. I think he was a therapist she saw there.”

I thought about this. If Rachel was right, why was Claudia worried about my fury? The idea of a doctor taking advantage of my sister made me livid, but that was nothing next to picturing my sister with my former fiancé. “I don’t know. Claudia was completely anti-therapy. She thought people who went to therapists were suckers.”

“Love can do strange things to your brain,” Rachel pointed out. “Like a drug.”

CHAPTER 16

Martin arrived at the flamenco bar almost half an hour late. He’d called me from his car, apologizing and swearing to be there soon. When he finally arrived, he was oddly disheveled in a crumpled suit, and his eyes were frantic as he scanned the room. He spotted me and pushed his way through the crowd, then wrapped his arms around me tightly. He kissed me on the forehead, then lightly on the mouth. “I was afraid you wouldn’t wait,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I hate being late, especially for you.”

I’d had time to think about how I would deal with him while I dressed at Jesse’s, then later as I sipped cava at the scarred wooden counter at the bar on Crosby Street. The place was just as I remembered—a long, skinny, dark-paneled room with red velvet curtains that blocked the eyes of the world outside. Rumor had it that the place had been raided a couple of times for fire-code overcrowding violations. Almost every seat snaked along the bar; there were just a couple of plush red velvet seats at tables for the lucky few who had staked an early claim. Later in the evening, the tables would be removed and the space would resonate with guitar music, clapping hands, and the nailed heels of the dancers. I’d visited plenty of flamenco bars in Spain, and my interest in the dance had only grown.