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of the door shutting behind her.
    I yanked myself away from Jack. “She’s got a lot of nerve. Like I would help her at all unless my boss forced me to.”
    To my surprise, Jack was trying hard to hold back laughter.
    “What’s so funny?”
    “You. You’re just like her, you know. You always have to get the last word in.”
    I opened my mouth to protest, then remembered my mother’s smile and the way she’d said the word “us” and realized that Jack maybe wasn’t so wrong after all.
    Instead of answering, I began to walk back toward the kitchen. “I’m taking the dog for a walk.”
    “I’ll come with you,” he said as he followed behind me.
    As we walked toward the kitchen, I said, “I met an old friend of yours the other day.”
    “Really? Who?”
    “Rebecca Edgerton.”
    “Ah. She said she was going to contact you about the article she’s working on about your mother. I told her that you weren’t exactly—close.”
    I pushed open the kitchen door and paused. “Well, that didn’t exactly stop her from contacting me.”
    He stopped in the doorway, and he was near enough that I could smell his cologne. “It’s amazing how much she looks like Emily, don’t you think?”
    “I don’t think I ever noticed,” he said, brushing past me into the kitchen.
    “Hm,” I said, not convinced but unwilling to pick a fight. Dealing with my mother was enough friction for one day.
    I watched as Jack put the collar on General Lee; then I led the way out the back door. I was glad for Jack’s company and relieved that I wouldn’t be staying in the house alone, but I was also aware that both he and I knew I’d never admit it to him in a thousand years.

CHAPTER 5
    True to his word, Jack spent the night in the third-floor guest room without my having to acknowledge his presence. I did leave fresh sheets and clean towels outside his room to demonstrate that his being there was appreciated if not quite welcome. But even though he was sleeping on a separate floor, I knew he was sleeping under the same roof I was—the way a dog knows you’re hiding a treat in your pocket.
    I left the house early the next morning to avoid him and because I couldn’t sleep anyway. I spent two hours in my office drinking sugared coffee and organizing my office supplies as I waited for nine o’clock. I also made a phone call to Sophie, knowing that the prospect of her getting inside a historic home South of Broad would more than make up for the fact that I woke her from a dead sleep hours before she planned on being ambulatory. She didn’t ask me why I wanted her there with me while I showed my mother her childhood home. And that’s why Sophie Wallen was the person I liked best in this world.
    I arrived first, at eight fifty. I despised tardiness almost as much as bad table manners and unpolished shoes. This was probably a throwback to my years of being raised by a military father, albeit an alcoholic one, who taught me the rules if only so I could make sure he was dressed properly before being propelled out the door in the morning with a strong cup of coffee.
    I stood on the sidewalk in front of the gate tapping my foot. I would forgive Sophie for being late; it was as much a part of her personality as her Birkenstocks. But I would only give my mother until five after nine and then I was out of there.
    I spotted Sophie’s bright green Volkswagen Beetle and waved to her as she found a spot at the curb across the street. I stared as she exited the car, for once not transfixed by what she wore but instead by the rows and rows of tiny braids with multicolored beads that cascaded down the sides and back of her head. While the hairstyle itself wasn’t so bad, it made Sophie’s tiny head look like a specimen found in a shrunken-head collection I’d once seen in a potential client’s personal library.
    “What happened?” I asked, waiting for her to approach. “I hope you’re at least pressing charges.”
    She smiled broadly as she