You’d think I’d have been pleased to discover the existence of close kin. Instead, I was pissed off, convinced they’d known about me for years and hadn’t cared enough to seek me out. I was thirty-four when the first family overtures were made, and I counted their twenty-nine years’ silence as evidence of crass indifference for which I blamed Grand. I really didn’t have a quarrel with my aunts and cousins. I’d tossed them into the pit with Grand because it was simpler that way. I’ll admit it wasn’t fair, but I took a certain righteous satisfaction in my wholesale condemnation. For the past two or three years, I’d made a halfhearted attempt to modify my attitude, but it hadn’t really worked. I’m a Taurus. I’m stubborn by nature and I had my heels dug in. I shoved the invitation in my shoulder bag. I’d deal with it later.

Sutton returned after twenty minutes with five crisp one-hundred-dollar bills, for which I wrote him a receipt. Once he was gone again, I locked the cash in my office safe. Since I’d be devoting Thursday to Sutton’s business, I sat down and did a rough draft of one of the client reports on my To Do list, figuring I might as well get one chore out of the way. By the time I’d finished, it was close to 4:00 and I decided to shut down for the day. One reason I’m self-employed is so I can do as I please without consulting anyone else.

I rescued my car from the semilegal parking spot I’d found earlier. My office is on a narrow side street barely one block long. For the most part, the surrounding blocks are posted No Parking, which means I have to be inventive in finding ways to squeeze my Mustang into any available space. I was due for a parking ticket, but I hadn’t gotten one yet.

I drove home along the beach, and within minutes my spirits lifted. Spring in Santa Teresa is marked by early-morning sunshine, which is eradicated almost immediately by dense cloud cover. The marine layer, known as the June Gloom, usually stretches from late May until early August, but that’s been changing of late. Here we’d scarcely made it into April and low clouds had already erased the offshore islands. Seabirds wheeled through the fog while sailboats, tacking out of the harbor, disappeared in the mist. In the absence of sunlight, the surf was the color of burnished pewter. Long strands of kelp had washed up on shore. I inhaled the salty essence of damp sand and sea grass. Cars rumbled along the wooden wharf with a sound like distant thunder. It was not quite tourist season, so traffic was light and many of the beach hotels still sported vacancy signs.

I turned left from Cabana onto Bay and left again onto Albanil. I found a length of empty curb across from my apartment and paralleled my way into it. I shut the engine down, locked my car, and crossed the street, passing through the squeaking gate that serves the duel purpose of doorbell and burglar alarm.