“Not really,” I said.

She looked a little hurt.

Someone -- possibly even Dauten -- distracted her with talk of the opera season, and the rest of us exchanged looks of silent relief.

Despite my complaints, I didn’t really mind the occasional family get-togethers at the Dautens. But I was distracted that evening with my thoughts of murders old and new. I was reminded of a quote by Camus: …habit starts at the second crime. At the first one, something is ending.

I was thinking about this, thinking about the likelihood of truth in it as regarded the death of Porter Jones, while we sat around chatting after dinner -- and listened to Emma demonstrate the value of her much-hated piano lessons. She’d actually loved the piano before she started the lessons, which was probably a lesson in itself.

Bill skimmed the paper while Lauren and Natalie were in a huddle in the kitchen, apparently reviewing notes on their love lives, when Lisa alighted on the sofa next to me.

“Darling, are you feeling quite all right? You’re so pale.”

Now how the hell could she say that when I’d been out in the sun all day Sunday? My nose was pink. I made some answer.

“Don’t growl, Adrien.” She gave me a disapproving look. “I think you should know I’ve had a long talk with Dr. Cardigan.”

“You’ve had what?” I was too shocked to lower my voice. This was the very reason I’d changed doctors a few years ago. Doctor Reid had been too much the old family friend. He’d brought me into the world, ushered my father out, and was Lisa’s sometime escort to a lot of society functions.

She ignored my astonished outrage. “Adrien, you must have that surgery. Why are you shilly-shallying? Do you realize -- do you want to die?”

What the hell was the deal? Was she blackmailing these people?

“Of course I don’t want to --” I interrupted myself. “This has got to stop, Lisa. You talked to my cardiologist?” I couldn’t seem to get past that. Even the ‘shilly-shallying’ barely registered. “Do you know how unethical that is?”

She simply gazed at me with those wide blue eyes. “I’m your mother. There is no such thing as unethical behavior on a mother’s part.”

The scary thing was, she believed that. No, the scary thing was that in the parallel universe that she inhabited, everyone else seemed to believe it too.

“I didn’t mean you, I meant my cardiologist.” For once I didn’t bother to hide my anger with her. “Look, Lisa, when the time is right, I’ll have the surgery.”

“That time is now.”

“Really?” I glanced around the room where everyone was carefully paying no attention to us. “Well, I guess it will make a change from charades.”

“Please be serious.” That was her no-nonsense face and her no-nonsense voice. “Chronic MR complicated by A-fib is very serious, much more serious than they realized when you were growing up. Thirty percent of people who have A-fib wind up with CVAs.”

Jesus. Lisa was speaking in acronyms. She must be terrified. She must have actually read up on the subject. I was touched. And ready to strangle her.

“And seventy percent don’t.”

“You can’t take that chance. You don’t have the right.”

“I don’t have the right?”

She said fiercely, “No, you don’t. Does Guy know --?”

“That’s it,” I said, and I stood up. “I’m not going to discuss this with you or anyone else. And what goes on between Guy and me is nobody’s damn business.” I turned to the kitchen. Natalie and Lauren were gaping at me.

“I didn’t say a word!” Natalie protested at whatever she read in my expression.

I didn’t know if that was true or not, but the idea that my private life was being openly discussed -- that Lisa was -- had the gall -- that she was daring to -- and that my lawyer, my doctor, my lover for all I knew --

I could barely formulate the thoughts, let alone the sentences.

“Thanks for dinner,” I said. “What I can’t thank you for is interfering in my private life. I don’t think I can even pretend to be polite right now, so I’m going.”

“Adrien!” She looked wounded.

“Good night,” I said, and the Dautens responded in various tones of discomfort as I walked out of the room.

* * * * *

I don’t remember the drive back to Pasadena, but when I pulled up behind the bookstore, Guy’s car was parked outside -- and for a moment I considered driving away.

But in the end I turned off the engine, got out and unlocked the door to the bookstore, and went upstairs.

Guy was seated at the table in the kitchen drinking a beer. His long silver hair spilled over his shoulders, glinting in the overhead light. He wore a black T-shirt emblazoned with a pirate skull and crossbones. His eyes looked very green as they met mine.

“Can we talk?”

I nodded. Took the chair across from him. I felt very tired. Anger is exhausting, and I was out of practice.

“I want to explain about Peter.”

I didn’t bother telling him that I’d made a couple of phone calls and learned that he’d spoken favorably at Verlane’s parole hearing. I knew he had done what he believed was the right thing. Talking to me first, hearing my feelings on the subject, wouldn’t have changed his course of action.

I said, “I think I pretty much get it. You still have feelings for him.”

“I do, yes. But they don’t have anything to do with what I feel for you. I love you. I would like us to be together. Really together.”

I nodded. “What about Peter?”

“Peter is a friend. He needs my help right now. But if you ask me to choose between the two of you, then I choose you.”

“I’m not asking you to choose.”

“Then what?”

I shook my head.

His silver brows kitted. “I don’t understand what’s going on with you.”

“I don’t either,” I admitted. “I don’t feel capable of making a commitment.”

He thought it over. “Now or ever?”

“I…don’t know.”

“I see.” I could feel him watching me. I stared at the knobs on the oven and wondered why the front left always stuck a little. “I suppose we could continue as we have been.”

I sighed. “Yeah. I suppose so.”

“Your enthusiasm is overwhelming.”

“I’m sorry, Guy. I just --”

“Here’s the thing about you, Adrien,” he said. “You keep the walls up. I don’t know if it’s because of what’s-his-name -- your college boyfriend. Mel? Or if it’s because of that asshole Riordan.”

“D’you mind?” I said automatically.

He eyed me for a moment. Then he said evenly, “Or maybe you’ve always been like this. But there’s this little distance between you and everyone else. And there’s no bridging it. Because I’ve been trying for two years.”

“Sure,” I said, starting -- against my best intentions -- to get angry all over again. “But for the first nine months you were sleeping with other people, partly for religious reasons and partly because -- and I quote -- ‘monogamy is not a realistic expectation of a healthy adult male.’”

“And I told you that if you would be willing to make a commitment, so would I. But you’re not willing, are you?”

“Not on your timetable.” I swallowed hard. “Let me ask you something. Did you have sex with Peter?”

His face went bleak.

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“That has nothing to do with us.”

“Really?”

“Really. It was comfort and affection, that’s all. Peter has lost everything and everyone.”

I said, “I let Jake Riordan fuck me last night. Do you think that has anything to do with us?”

He stared at me. He finally managed to say, “Does it?”

“To me it feels like it does.”

“Call me when you’re sure,” he said.