He went up the steps and onto the porch, where he stood dripping onto the floor. The house smelled of coffee and a meal cooked not long ago, meat and beans and spices. His stomach rumbled loudly enough for them both to hear it.

“Sorry.”

Her arms were still crossed. She turned and went into the well-lit kitchen, pausing on the door swell. “Rivera’s been cooking. Chuletas, and arroz con habichuelas.” Then she plucked a folded towel from a laundry basket and tossed it to him.

Tony might be in Savannah, but Rivera was here, which meant they weren’t alone in the house, and that was a good thing. A very good thing. Any moment Rivera might come down the stairs and sit down across from him. They would argue about movies or books or Ogilvie, and that would help him focus. Because he had come here to talk about business, after all. John fixed his mind on that idea and then he sat down to eat.

The table was cluttered with books and piles of paper and folders, some of them spilling photographs or newspaper clippings. Angie’s mess, because Angie worked best like this, scattering everything around her and then standing back to see what patterns jumped out. It had irritated him and intrigued him too; sometimes, watching her work, John had the odd idea that he had been born without some particular kind of seeing that Angie—that many people—took for granted.

She moved Rivera’s dirty bowl out of the way and put a clean one in front of him. For a few minutes they said nothing more to each other than strangers sitting at a restaurant counter: please and would you like and thanks. Then John was overwhelmed for a while by Rivera’s cuisine of choice, which demanded his absolute attention. He drank the beer Angie put in front of him and accepted another thankfully.

Out of the corner of a tearing eye John watched Angie, who was playing with her food, drawing on her place with the tip of her knife. She looked less tired than she had that Saturday morning she had come to the house for breakfast, almost exactly a week ago.

First son of the local gentry sets up an ideal life for himself and discovers perfection is overrated. Or maybe you haven’t got to that last part yet?

A week in the New York City archives up to his eyebrows in the most demanding, arcane, interesting material he could find, and still John had never been able to get rid of Angie’s voice and the things she said to him over his own breakfast table. Now, when they were alone, she seemed content with small talk, because she said, “Where are Rob and Kai this weekend?”

“They found a house. It’s empty and they talked the real estate agent into letting them camp out there tonight.”

“So they’ll be moving.”