He could imagine Cassie looking the way she always looked when hit with a question she didn’t want to answer. She’d tilt her head a little to the side, like she hadn’t quite heard the question, and she’d furrow her brow, which in fact preventative Botox treatments had made unfurrowable. “Your father is on a book tour, I thought it might be nice for Dorothy to have the company—”

Anthony believed that about as much as Democrats believed Trump had no ties to Putin. He couldn’t help unleashing a gentle snort. “You drove Max from Newton to Marblehead out of the goodness of your heart, because you thought it would be nice for my mother to have Max’s company?”

“Yes,” said Cassie staunchly.

“And you turned around right after dropping him off, and found him gone?”

“Not exactly,” said Cassie. “That’s not exactly how it happened.”

“How’d it happen?”

“On the second night, when I called your m—”

“Second?” Anthony said. Now they were getting somewhere.

“The plan was for Max to stay two nights. But I changed my mind, and I called your mother to say I was picking him up on the evening of the second day, which was yesterday, and that’s when she absconded with him.”

“Ah,” Anthony said. “And you yourself had no specific plans, nothing you wanted Max out of the way for?”

She paused. “No.”

“You just thought a two-night visit was called for?”

“Yes.” Her voice took on a strange timbre. “I thought two nights would be more fun for your mother.”

“Bullshit. Were you with Glen?”

Another pause, this one pregnant. “Maybe,” Cassie whispered.

“I knew it!” He was less bothered by this than he would have been two months ago.

“But it’s not what you think—we had a fight—we broke up. It’s over, Anthony. I promise it’s over between Glen and I.”

“It’s over between Glen and me,” said Anthony. He couldn’t help it. It was a reflex.

He had her on her back foot now, defensive. “There have been a lot of things I needed you to do, Anthony, but correcting my grammar was never one of them. How can you talk to me like this, after all I did for you?”

“All you did for me?” Anthony was incredulous. “All you did for me, Cassie, was rack up one hundred thousand dollars in credit card bills. For starters. All you did for me was kick me out of the house I paid for!”

“Some of that stuff was for you! For your image! Some of that money I spent on Shelly Salazar, to promote you!”

“Shelly Salazar,” he said, “is an opportunistic millennial nightmare.”

“She would have done wonders for you, if you hadn’t messed it all up.” Cassie sighed. “I don’t want to fight about this now. What do we do? Should we call the police? File a missing person’s report?”

“Of course we shouldn’t,” said Anthony. “They’re not in danger.”

“Your mother is probably feeding him ice cream for breakfast.”