After greeting Nina and Paul, she leaned forward and gazed at the lights beyond the glass, looking a little shell-shocked. “Isn’t it thrilling how it’s all worked out?” she told Nina. “Isn’t it strange?”

Sandy offered up a toast to “The lake of the sky, Tahoe, where anything can happen and does,” and they worked their way through two bottles before eating.

Throughout the meal, Nina couldn’t help noticing things had somehow changed between Winston and Genevieve. Genevieve continued to tune her behavior to his mood, offering him butter, salt, whatever he seemed to need, but he seemed distracted. Nina supposed he, too, was turning his mind to the future, a future where Genevieve would figure less prominently.

“Where will you go, Genevieve?” she asked.

“Oh, I’ve got a million ideas! Only you know what? I can hardly think about that right now. I get so worked up during these damn things, I don’t sleep. But I can’t imagine going back to L.A. and starting over again, which is probably exactly what I’ll be doin’.” She looked and sounded tired. Underneath the gaiety, they all must be. They had crammed a couple of years’ worth of work into eight months. And they had won!

They commiserated for a few minutes about the difficult transition to daily routines after the epic intensity of the past months.

“Like my mother used to say,” Paul butted in. “These are good problems to have. What will you be doing next, Lindy?”

She looked startled by the sudden attention. Her plate was still full of food. Apparently, she had preferred the champagne. Her eyes had a glassy sheen. “Oh, I’ll just go about the usual routines of a wealthy woman,” she said. “Teas. Parties. Mansion-shopping.”

“Poor you,” Genevieve said, making light of her mood.

“You mean rich me,” said Lindy, and everyone laughed, including Lindy.

After dinner, Nina asked Winston about his plans.

“I’ve got some paperwork to go through and some expenses to add up for Sandy,” he said, winking at Sandy. “Then I’m planning to take a couple of days before I go back to enjoy this fine spring weather, get some exercise. I feel like I’ve hardly moved for months.”

“Jogging every spare moment doesn’t count, I suppose,” said Sandy.

“Oh, and I brought a few things here. Little thank-yous for all your help.” Winston reached into a bag beside his chair, bringing out a huge package for Sandy, and a tie-sized box for Wish.

“Now don’t look so gloomy,” he said, handing over the box to Wish. “I promise, someday soon, you’ll need a tie.”

“Hey, really, Mr. Reynolds. This is just great.” Wish smiled feebly. He tore off the ribbon and ripped the box opening it. “Silk, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Great.” Wish held the blue tie close to his eyes, as if the details in the pattern might cast light on what had possessed a smart guy like Winston to choose such an outlandish and inappropriate gift.

Winston broke into full-throttle laughter. “Well, glad you like it.”

Sandy opened her much larger package carefully, setting the floral wrap neatly to the side of her place, untying the ribbon, and placing the interior tissue in a tidy stack until Wish looked ready to grab the box from her and tear into it himself.

Inside, nestled like an animal, was something thick and soft.

“What is it, Mom?” asked Wish impatiently. “C’mon, get it out.”

“I looked at a few moth-eaten ones before I found this one. It’s been well-cared-for,” said Winston.

“Where did you find it?” she demanded.

“In a shop in Minden. The proprietor told me the family that owned it sold everything they had and moved to Stockton last month. They told him the man’s great-grandfather made it. This was the last one he made before he died sometime in the fifties, at least that’s what the dealer claimed. They had found it stored very carefully in a cedar-lined trunk. Never used it.”

But Sandy stared into the box for a long time before pulling the object out to hold up. “A rabbit-skin blanket,” she said. “My mother had one when I was a kid that looked like this.”

“Those were big with the Washoe,” Wish explained to Nina, whose puzzlement must have showed.

“That’s what the dealer told me. Said they keep you so warm at night, even up in Alpine County at six thousand feet in the wintertime, you could sleep in the nude in a lean-to,” Winston teased. “Of course I thought of you, Sandy.”

But the joke was lost on Sandy, who stroked the blanket with a reverent hand, saying, “Each blanket lasted three years, then you made another.” She scrutinized the front and back, then looked at Winston with the same intense interest. “You must have paid a lot.”

“They are rare,” Winston agreed.

“Used to be the Washoe hunted rabbits with nets, shooting arrows at the rabbits, who ran into the net thinking they were escaping,” Sandy said. “Four or five hundred a day were killed. Then they cut the hides into strings and dried them for a day and a half. Twenty-five strings made one jackrabbit blanket for two people.”

“I’m saving for a down blanket this winter,” said Wish stoutly. “No animals die, and it’s just as warm.”

“But when this blanket was made, life was different,” said Sandy, pulling the blanket up to rub against her cheek, “In those days, you survived without money. Even up here in Tahoe where it gets really cold.”

The shift in atmosphere was subtle. Winston handed out more gifts, exotic flowers for Nina, Genevieve, and Lindy, a pen for Paul. Sandy put the rabbit-skin blanket across a chair.

It sat there, a reminder of times when money meant nothing. The conversation lagged.

“Oh, it is beautiful this year, isn’t it?” said Nina, hoping to bring back their earlier good spirits. “More beautiful than I can ever remember. Cobalt-blue skies, cartoon clouds, a great success to celebrate…”

“Will you listen to this girl. She’s giddy with success!” Lindy said. “Let’s do one last toast, to Nina and her Irish luck.”

They raised coffee cups and glasses to her, and drank.

“This had nothing to do with luck, you know,” Nina said. “Without you all…”

“Stop her before she gushes,” commanded Winston.

“And Paul here…” she said.

“… whom we have forgiven for not pegging Wright as a problem,” said Winston, interrupting her train of thought.

“Let’s not get into that again, Winston,” Genevieve said. “None of us had Wright pegged, except maybe Nina. Anyway, he’s no danger to us anymore.”

“According to Paul, maybe he is,” said Nina. She felt a need to speak about this, even as she realized she was contributing to the erosion of good feeling they had built up.

“What do you mean?” asked Sandy.

“If you can believe this, he’s hinted around that he finds the circumstances of Wright’s death terribly suspicious.”

“How can an allergic reaction be suspicious?” Winston asked.

“I don’t know,” said Nina. “Ask the expert.”

Winston shifted in his chair to face Paul more directly. “What are you thinking?”

“He thinks someone spiked the food,” said Nina. “Crazy, huh?”

Their waiter picked up Lindy’s credit card and the bill, and walked off while the party stared at Paul, agog.

“All this commuting you have been doing between Carmel, Washington, and Tahoe has driven you completely around the bend,” said Winston.

“It’s just peculiar,” said Paul, “him keeling over. Maybe-”

“Stop right there,” Winston said. “That’s useless conjecturing. Do you realize if you even hint at this notion of yours to anyone you could cause us a huge delay?” asked Winston. “An investigation by the police could hold up our money for months.”

“Believe me, I never intended to hint at anything.”

“He just doesn’t like peculiar things,” said Nina, recognizing for the first time she, too, had had too much to drink. Her head was spinning…

Paul took her arm and helped her up. “I think we’ll be going now,” he said. “Anyone need a ride?”