Rose scuffs a toe over the Y’ALL. “That lowers the intimidation factor a few percentiles. See a doorbell?”

Mel finds the button and presses it. Inside, bells toll in mimicry of Big Ben.

They wait.

Rose sticks her arms out like the wings of a chicken so she won’t sweat on the linen dress.

“Probably had to send the butler in from the pool area or the tennis courts,” Mel says.

A butler wouldn’t surprise Rose, but when the door is finally dragged open, it is by a barefoot man in khaki shorts and a button-down short-sleeved shirt, worn untucked. He looks to be in his early forties; his sandy hair is receding, and a paunch is beginning to punch out the shirt.

He doesn’t speak or invite them in, just waits, probably for them to start their sales pitch or fund-raising speech so he will have grounds to tell them to bugger off.

“I’m here to see Mrs. Boster,” Rose states coolly.

The man blinks. Though he is bland and harmless-looking, there is a touch of the lizard in that slow blink.

“Hey, Barb!” he shouts. “Someone here to see you.” The man takes the flowers from Rose’s hands and trails them down by his side the way he might hold a baseball bat he hasn’t decided whether or not to use.

“To see me?” A female voice filters down a long hallway, followed by the hush of soft-soled shoes on thick carpet. A woman in her midthirties, with jaw-length soft auburn hair, drifts into view over the doorman’s shoulder. She wears white shorts and an aqua tank top that shows an abundance of décolletage. This bounty, as well as the woman’s face—a pleasant face with wide-set brown eyes—is deeply tanned and lightly freckled.

“I’m Barbara Boster,” she says in an oddly hopeful tone.

“My name is Rose Moore.” Rose was once told that Moore was one of the commonest names in America, more so than Smith or Jones, but without the fishy alias overtones. “This is my granddaughter. My husband is a friend of Chuck’s.”

“How nice! What’s your husband’s name?” Barbara asks.

“Peter, Pete.”

“Peter Moore.” Mrs. Boster thinks hard enough that a tiny crease appears between her eyes. “I never heard of him, but it could have been before my time.” Rose guesses there are about forty years of Chuck’s life that are before his wife’s time.

“Come in, y’all come in,” she says with a sudden smile, as sweet as a child’s. “We’re lettin’ all the AC out standin’ here.”

Mel and Rose follow her into an entryway carpeted in rich violet and lined with beautifully framed and matted botanical prints. It smells new. The prints are lovely, Lilian Snelling’s work, but mass-produced, the art not worth one-fiftieth the cost of the frames.