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a minute. “No, Ms. Delmond is not available at this time. Let me transfer you to one of our best agents, a recent graduate of—”
    “I need to speak to Angela.”
    “I’m sure you’ll be just as satisfied with Gilda Cannella. Let me transfer—”
    “Transfer me to the broker.”
    “Well, Mr. King’s out of the country. I’ll have to put you on hold while I see if Mr. Bartleby’s with a client. Your name is…?”
    “Claire Malloy. I want to sign an offer on the house that Angela showed me yesterday.”
    I was replaced on hold and allowed to listen to elevator music for a good five minutes. When the receptionist came back on the line, her bubbliness had evaporated. “Mr. Bartleby just left for a closing. If you’ll leave your number, he’ll call you back in the next day or two.”
    This meant I would have ample time to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica before I spoke to him. I gave her my number, then hung up and went to refill my coffee cup. Caron was staring at a cabinet crammed with boxes and cans.
    She frowned at me. “If I try to extract my cereal box, I’ll be buried alive by saltines and cornflakes. Don’t put that on my headstone, okay?”
    “Have some toast,” I said. I could not prevent myself from comparing her to Jordan. Instead of a purple Mohawk and piercings, Caron had my curly red hair and freckles. Even her earlobes were unsullied. On the other hand, her expression was vaguely reminiscent of Jordan’s (and Colonel Hollow’s). “Very soon you’ll have a kitchen with a dozen cabinets and storage shelves. You will never again live in fear of being struck dead by a can of corn.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “I found the perfect house. It has four bedrooms, four bathrooms, a balcony from which to drop rose petals, a pool, a big terrace, an orchard—”
    “You bought a house Without Consulting Me? What if I don’t like it?”
    “I invited you to come along yesterday, but you were too busy talking on the phone to Inez about Joel. You spent the night at her house, for pity’s sake. Unless he proposed, it could have waited an hour.” I saw no reason to mention that the hour had lasted more than three hours. “If I may paraphrase your remark, you said you didn’t care what house we bought as long as you had your own bathroom.”
    “Of course I care! I have to live there for a whole year, you know. I’d be absolutely humiliated if I invited my friend over to a teepee or something. Does it have an attic with a resident psychotic who stumbles around in the house after we’ve gone to bed? I’ll bet he has a chain saw.”
    “I believe it’s a machete.”
    She stuck a piece of bread in the toaster. “That’s a relief.”
    In the living room, I described the house in detail, emphasizing the glories of her private bathroom and walk-in closet. When I mentioned the meadow and stream, she interrupted. “There aren’t any meadows or streams in Farberville. Just where is this house?”
    “Not too far,” I said glibly, “and the pool is enormous. You can have the best pool parties all summer. We’ll get a grill so you can fix hot dogs and hamburgers.”
    Caron rarely bought my evasions. “How far?”
    “Ten minutes or so.” I was sure Dr. Spock would allow a parent to fib if it was in the child’s best interest. “It’s in a place called Hollow Valley.”
    “So it’s hollow? It sounds more like a hole than a valley. Are there Hobbits?”
    I gave her a brief rundown of the history of the place, omitting any references to the less-desirable resident members of the Hollow family. “We haven’t signed an offer because Angela drove off, leaving me there. She won’t answer her cell phone, and she’s not at the office. At least I think she’s not at the office,” I said slowly, “but I do have her briefcase because she left it at the house.”
    Peter had propped it against a wall next to the small dining table, the table itself being piled so high with junk that it had