“I couldn’t save him,” Karina says, crying. “I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t save him.” Her words turn to sobs, then great big gulps of air as she gasps and chokes.

Jaya wraps her arm around Karina’s shoulders. “Honey . . . we talked about this. You know Prem’s death wasn’t your fault. No one blames you.”

Karina shakes her head violently, as if trying to rid her mind of something. Keith is frightened, watching her battle with herself. “August . . . ,” she whimpers. “I couldn’t save him.”

Jaya flashes Keith a worried glance. “Who’s . . . August?”

Keith feels the ground slipping out from under him as Karina begins to explain. A scuffle between friends, a fistfight, an accidental death. Then it all comes rushing out of her, an unstoppable stream of words. She admits to taking a leave from college to move into a house in Rancho Paraiso with a bunch of hippies. Keith has been to Rancho Paraiso a few times, with clients for golf outings or business dinners at the tucked-away French restaurant. It’s the kind of sleepy hamlet he could imagine retiring to, back when he thought about such conventional life stages. Apparently, his daughter has been living there all this time with a dozen other people, some sort of crazy commune.

Karina tells them about the marijuana farm, and when Keith hears about the absence of a license, the intra-state shipping and the equipment purchases on his credit card, paid automatically by his assistant, his heart plummets. It is clear that Karina has been complicit in several criminal activities, and the argument can probably be made that she was, in fact, the leader of the operation. He has learned over the past year how lawyers can twist things to make people look guilty.

The revelations accumulate until Keith realizes he doesn’t know his daughter at all. What he took to be a natural part of her growing into an adult was in fact a series of well-crafted lies and deliberate omissions, designed to keep him in the dark. How did his smart, responsible daughter fall into this kind of racket? This guy—Michael or Micah, whatever the hell his name is—Keith is going to make him pay. The thought of Karina associated with such an obvious charlatan, caught up in drug smuggling, IRS violations, property disputes, manslaughter —his entire body pulses with the desire for vengeance.

They leave the restaurant and drive to the hotel in silence, Keith quietly fuming. Jaya goes upstairs to get Karina settled in bed while Keith says he’ll wait for her at the hotel bar. He paces the lobby as he dials his attorney’s number and waits for him to pick up. “Carl, thank god—”

“I swear, Keith, you have a sixth sense,” Carl says.

Keith is puzzled. “About what?”

“The SEC. I assume that’s why you called?”

“What? No. I . . . What? You heard?” Keith turns toward the wall and closes his eyes to brace himself. “Tell me.”