As she stands aside to let me in, her eyes are full of something more complicated than “hello and welcome.” It’s the same mix of emotions that I see in Lee’s eyes when he greets me, and in my parents’: vigilance, nervousness and, the dominant note, hope: that everything will be all right even though Nicki is here and Nicki is trouble.

Melissa is so much more a member of the Redgate family than I am; she’s the anxious, obedient daughter my parents should have had.

“Lee back yet?” I ask.

“No.”

“Good. I need to talk to you alone.”

Melissa rolls her eyes. “Oh, not this again, Nicki. If you’re going to beg me not to tell Lee—”

“Lee’s the last thing on my mind at the moment.” Beg? Is that how she sees me: permanently on my knees in her saintly presence? “It’s the police I need you not to tell. I wouldn’t ask, but it’s kind of an emergency.”

She stops. If she’s having second thoughts about letting me get as far as the kitchen, it wouldn’t be the first time. She holds up her hands, flat, fingers stiff and extended. As if she’s trying to push something away. “The police? Again?”

I flinch. “Forget last time. The only thing I hoped you’d do then was listen. I needed to talk to someone and you wouldn’t let me tell you—”

“Oh, so you are dragging this up again?” Melissa says angrily. “Can’t you let it go? It’s my choice. You should respect it.”

I wish she’d at least offer me a comfy chair before starting with the shoulds and shouldn’ts. We’re still in the hall, which is as perfectly smooth and rectangular as every other space in Melissa and Lee’s house. There’s not a curve in sight—not a cornice or alcove anywhere to disrupt the lines. Each story is a rectangle made up of rectangles, and so is the building as a whole. So are the four identical houses attached to it; together, the five form an uber-rectangle that looks as if it’s serious about subjugating, if not flat-out annihilating, all the circles, squares, ovals and triangles in the Greater London area.

Adam said to me once, “Nicki, all houses are made up of straight lines. Don’t you think you might be . . . projecting slightly?”

“I don’t want to get into our usual argument again,” I say to Melissa. “I’ve got a favor to ask you. You can say no if you want, but at least make me a cup of tea and let me ask.” I gesture toward the kitchen.

Melissa stays where she is. “And I can tell Lee?”

Her question makes me gasp. I must look like what I am—someone whose life has been blasted apart, again, after an email correspondence with a man I don’t know, again—and all Melissa cares about is whether she has my permission to report back to my brother about me.