“You’re sad,” he said in a clipped voice. “Natalie’s a good daughter. Just different from you, Blythe.”

Natalie swallowed. Had Mom discussed her with Grandy? Complained about her? “Can we keep the appointment with Dr. Yang?”

“I’ll be ready. I won’t forget.”

“Count backward by sevens from one hundred,” the doctor instructed Andrew.

Andrew looked at the man blankly. Close-cropped hair, clipped fingernails, crisply enveloped in his white coat, the shine on his shoes reflecting the glare of the overhead lights, his eyes like two small mirrors.

Then Andrew looked around the tiled exam room. Blythe perched on a swivel stool, holding her fingers in knots of tension. Outside the window framed by bright steel, leaves turned to gold and coalesced into a flock of finches, then flew off.

It had been a bad night, a night of comets and tornadoes and bellyaches and the strange taste of metal in his mouth. He didn’t know this doctor. Did he? The white coat had a name embroidered on the breast pocket: David Yang, MD. Neurology.

“Mr. Harper?” the gentleman prodded. “Can you count backward by sevens from one hundred for me?”

For him? For what purpose? “I’d rather not.”

The doc smiled. “It’s okay. On my best day, I can’t count backward by sevens, either.”

Andrew glanced over at Blythe. Her exceedingly pretty face was puckered by worry. “I hate being a bother,” he said.

“Grandy, you’re not a bother. You’re the best person I know and always have been.”

He was not a bother, and she was not Blythe.

He felt a sharp pang of sadness, because his daughter was gone. His granddaughter had come to manage things, and she had discovered that the shop was in trouble. Crushing debt and back taxes. She believed the only way to survive was to sell the shop and move away forever. What Natalie didn’t understand, what he hadn’t been able to make her see, was that they couldn’t sell the shop—at least, not until they found the lost treasure.

“Can you tell me the date?” asked the doctor.

“Can I consult my calendar?”

“Of course.”

Andrew took out his billfold, neatly organized as always. He took out a card-size calendar, adjusted his glasses, and said, “It’s the sixth of October. A Tuesday.” In a tiny corner of the billfold lay a small square of cloth. He unfolded the square to reveal a length of faded green ribbon—the one object he kept with him always. His father had given it to him, along with the story of how the slender ribbon tied him to the Sunrose Building and the treasure that lay within.

PART TWO

In San Francisco, two people actually saw the earthquake. Jesse Cook, the police sergeant on duty in the produce market, saw it a moment after he became aware of panic among the horses all around him.

—GORDON THOMAS AND MA X MORGAN-WITTS,