“Busy,” he said.

“Come and eat,” she said. She waited, but getting no further response, walked to the open door and looked inside.

His room consisted of a bed with a wool blanket borrowed from Paul. His closet, gaping open, held a gym bag spilling its contents on the floor and empty metal hangers on the rod above. No posters decorated the bedroom walls; no bonsai tree like the one he had nursed at Tahoe spruced up this barren windowsill. Bob sat at a bare wooden table with his feet up, wearing headphones and an entranced expression.

She walked over to him and removed the headphones. “I hereby command the pleasure of your company at dinner.” She didn’t make it a question, because that opened up a discussion, and all she wanted to do was to wolf down the rest of her sushi and turn on her precious half-hour news show, which made her forget her own concerns.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You ate?”

“Crackers and cheese.”

She hesitated, then said, “Come anyway.” She led, and eventually, grudgingly, he followed.

He sat down at the table across from her and in front of his steaming taquitos, arms crossed. The late evening sun spilled over the table and over his pinched face. His hair, a dark mop, was getting long.

“So, how was school?”

Eyes as dark as black coffee glowered. “If you really want to know, it sucks.”

“Please don’t use that kind of language,” she said, knowing this was a futile battle, that she should respond to substance not style, but exhausted by the prospect.

“Well, you asked.”

“I know it’s hard, going to a new school-”

“I want to go home.”

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She closed it.

“Back to Tahoe.”

The final sushi had stuck in her throat, so she cleared it. “High school is always tough. I cried every day for the first three weeks-”

He interrupted. He was not here to listen to her experiences; he was busy fighting through his own. “People here are different.”

“How?”

Sometimes lately this boy she knew so well, inside out, put on a face she didn’t recognize. Now came one of those moments. “I can’t explain, if you don’t know. Plus, I never know what we’re going to do. I mean, are we staying or going? If you get married, do we move back to that condo with Paul? Can I go live with Uncle Matt back in Tahoe, since I don’t like it here? Do I show some guys they can’t screw around with me, or let ’em do it because I’m leaving anyway and it doesn’t matter? Do I go out for cross-country or will I have to quit? Why bother to join a club, if we’re leaving?”

His forcefulness blew her down, typhoon-style. When Bob was a toddler and he cried, she would wrap him up in her arms, kiss his tears away, and make it all better. Unfortunately, that was no longer an option. He was now bigger than she was for starters, and he seemed to have developed an aversion to her touch. “We discussed all this. There will be some changes, but they aren’t decided yet, and you will be in on any further decisions, I promise.”

“You told me I have to go to school here, so I’m going. That doesn’t mean I like it.”

“I went to that high school. Carmel High has a good reputation-you have to give it a chance…”

“Don’t tell me you had a great time, because, Mom, I’m tellin’ you, I won’t believe it.”

He knew she had not. She had rebelled against her parents, given them gray hair, run around, done all kinds of things she shouldn’t have done. “Here’s the thing I’ve learned. High school culture is its own world, and you should know the world’s bigger than that. You don’t have to hook up with that scene. You’ve been to Europe. I mean, you don’t have to wear a letterman’s jacket to be accepted!”

He sighed, a world-weary sigh befitting a traveler who was stuck in a culture where many people did view a letterman’s jacket as the epitome of achievement.

She got up and began to make herself a supplemental chicken sandwich with chicken from a can, contrarily wishing Bob did want a letterman’s jacket. He had once loved sports. “Honey,” she said finally, “I can’t stand having you unhappy. What can I do?” It was the question she had to ask, whether she wanted to hear the answer or not.

He had an answer ready. As an interim measure, until a final decision was made on where they would live, he wanted to go back to Tahoe and get his belongings. He needed his skateboard, his bike, all his things. “I can’t live out of just one bag.” He had only the things with him that he had taken on a summer trip to Sweden.

“We’ll buy you some clothes if you need them.”

“I need my stuff!”

She recognized from when he was little the stubborn yet brittle look that held tears inside. Times like these, she hated being a mother. “After the trial is over.”

“Now!”

“Soon. I can’t go while I’m in trial, Bob. You know that.” She petted Hitchcock, who was the only one who didn’t give a damn where they were, who only cared that he was with them and that his food bowl had been filled.

“I’ll go without you.”

She reacted to the blow by leaping up to tidy. “What?”

“I can take the train to Truckee. Uncle Matt will pick me up from there.”

“But-”

“I’m going.”

For quite a while, they went back and forth. Eventually, her ability to structure a reasonable argument vaporized in the face of his strenuous desire. Nina agreed to drive him up to the train station early Saturday morning. He would go for the weekend.

Her phone rang. Bob cleared the table and went back to his CDs while Klaus spoke.

“You have the autopsy and material sent from the medical examiner’s office?” he asked.

“Of course.” She finished off the sandwich.

“Susan Misumi is up tomorrow.”

“Right,” she said.

“I enjoyed the picture you painted today of the brandy glass flying into Stefan’s wide-open mouth.”

“Thank you. Did you call about anything particular?”

“I was just checking in,” Klaus said hesitantly, and Nina experienced another knuckle-biting moment of doubt. Had he forgotten why he called?

She asked him to talk to Stefan about trying to appear more confident in court, and, with a tolerant sigh, Klaus promised he would. “His courtroom style won’t win the case.”

She knew it, and she knew very well the pitfalls in trying to control every ineffable in a case, but creating a good impression was about the only contribution Stefan could make at this point, and she felt he should be doing it. As for Klaus, he was an enigma.

Only thing she knew for sure was that second chair in this trial was an active place to be.

Later, from her bed, Nina called Paul. “Wish you were here. I could use your-”

“I like the sound of that,” he interrupted. “What are you wearing?”

“A cold compress on my neck.”

“Oh, yeah, you sexy thing.”

She laughed, then said more soberly, “Detective Banta practically convicted Stefan single-handedly today.”

“She’s very experienced.”

Nina heard the comedy station in the background. “You knew her, didn’t you?”

“Way back when. Sure, I knew Kelsey.”

“What did you think of her?” Nina didn’t know what she was looking for and wasn’t sure she wanted to find it anyway.

“Straight arrow,” Paul said.

“Did you date her?”

“Why do you ask?”

“She’s attractive.”

He seemed to find the question amusing. “I like her, and I never knew her to tweak the truth. But no, I never dated her.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Nina, she was married. Then, when her brother got killed, she was a secret drinker. Not my idea of a fun date.” He waited for her to say something. When she didn’t he said, “You there?”

“Just silently finishing my wine here,” she said.

He laughed. “Who’s up tomorrow?”

“Uh, the medical examiner. Dr. Misumi.”

“Susan,” Paul said.

The way he said her name, a kind of warm familiarity as he wound his mouth around the word, made Nina sit up in bed alertly. “That’s right. Susan Misumi. You know her?”