Her first two inquiries were unsuccessful. One was at a boardinghouse where the surgeon Daniel had once resided, but he had moved on sometime last year. The second Daniel was alive but a bedridden gentleman of at least seventy-five. On the third try, she struck gold.

The house of Daniel Alameda was a Victorian on Gethsemane Street only a short stroll off Main. A stone wall with metal fencing encircled the home, but the gate was unlocked, so Celeste let herself in. The facade of the house was imposing, red brick and black trim, and there, above the lintel, so small you would not notice it if you were not looking for such a thing, was a rod of healing that marked the resident as a member of the Order of Raphael.

She knocked, and as she waited for someone to answer, her mind snagged on the rod of healing above the door. The rod proved the resident of the home was a Virtue, and the name and profession from the records confirmed a Daniel lived here who was a doctor. There was something about the Order of Raphael, something she was forgetting. Was it Mr. Ibrahim or Abraxas who had mentioned it? Or maybe Lilitha. She could not remember.

Before she could sort the memory out, the door creaked open. The woman before her was tall and candlewick-thin, her narrow face sunken. Her skin was white. Not the cheerful ruddy-cheeked white of Mr. Ibrahim but the colorless white of bones bleached by the sun. Her dress was black and a decade out of fashion, buttoned tight to her wrinkled neck.

“May I help you?” the woman asked, her voice warm as midwinter frost.

“I’m looking for Daniel Alameda.”

“And who are you?”

Celeste thought it best to lie. Explaining she was there on behalf of her sister who was possibly having a steamy affair with the man seemed unwise. “Daniel was helping me with a medical issue. Is he in?”

The woman’s unwelcoming facade slipped for a moment, and Celeste saw there was grief behind it, but she quickly recovered her cold demeanor. “Daniel’s dead. And frankly, you’ve got a lot of nerve coming here.”

She started to close the door.

“Wait!” Celeste moved to hold the door open.

The woman stopped, long enough to look down her nose at Celeste in disgust.

“I’m so sorry, but did you say… dead? Dr. Daniel is deceased?” And the dread that had been building all morning as the bad news piled up reached a deafening crescendo in her head.

The woman’s voice was caustic with scorn. “Did I speak too slowly? Too quickly? In a language you don’t understand?”

“No, of course not, Mrs. Alameda,” Celeste said hurriedly, realizing the woman must be Daniel’s wife, because of course he had a wife. Oh, Mariel, she thought, you foolish, foolish girl. “It’s just quite the shock.”