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good four inches. He had to outweigh her by seventy pounds.
    Lila’s stomach pole-vaulted to her throat. Common sense would have told her that the man had not shown up to kill her. But her frayed nerves canceled logic, and an image of Yuri Makov in her office entry flashed through her mind. She couldn’t run to Cristina in the kitchen because the man was blocking the way and trapping her as surely as Yuri had. She jumped out of bed to protect herself, then froze like a deer in headlights.
    Finally, she managed, “Who are you?!”
    â€œI’m . . .”
    â€œWhat are you doing here?!” As Lila curled her good hand into a fist, her nails dug into her palm.
    â€œCristina sent me to meet you. I’m Adam Spencer.”
    â€œOh.” The sun rose on Lila’s mental landscape. The man in the dog poster’s photo. If he’d not frightened her so badly, she might have recognized him.
    She rested her hand over her heart to slow the pounding, but that hardly helped. Coming down from an adrenaline rush of fear would take a while. Lila’s brain raced as quickly as her pulse, so she couldn’t settle on the right response to Adam, such as “Nice to meet you” or “I’m Lila.” In an accusatory tone, she blurted out, “You scared me half to death.”
    â€œNothing scary about me,” he said, as cool as lettuce. “I’m an ordinary person.”
    But he wasn’t ordinary. Besides being big, he had a handsome face you might expect to see chiseled in stone. A straight patrician nose. Strong chin. Full lips. Intelligent eyes. You could tell nothing got by them, including Lila in her faded flannel nightgown with its arm slit for her cast. Today she’d not yet washed her face or brushed her hair.
    â€œYou should have knocked or warned me you were coming,” she said.
    â€œSorry.” But his remorse did not seem especially sincere.
    He wasn’t sensitive enough to understand her anxiety, Lila decided, so she didn’t bother to explain herself. As she searched her mind for what to say next, Grace hobbled in, wagging her tail with exuberance. She whined and whimpered and threw herself at Adam.
    As he bent down and hugged her, plastered against his knees, her ecstatic drool polka-dotted the floor. He murmured “good dog” and petted her shoulders with big sweeps of his hands. She trembled and nuzzled his neck, and her eyes, which had always looked troubled, were shining.
    Lila grabbed the bedpost and shrank back from Grace, though shrinking put only an extra inch between herself and that dog. Lila had almost gotten used to being in the same house with her, but not in the same room. And now that the dog’s mood had flipped from dejected to ecstatic, Lila knew that Grace was bipolar—and more unpredictable than Lila had thought.
    â€œGrace isn’t supposed to be in here. Will you please take her away?” she asked.
    â€œShe won’t hurt anything. She’s just being herself. After all she’s been through, it’s great to see her happy,” Adam said.
    â€œI don’t want her here.”
    â€œWhy not ?”
    â€œI’m not wild about dogs.”
    Adam narrowed his eyes as if she’d just mentioned the leprosy she’d picked up while serving her term in San Quentin.
    â€œI had a bad experience with a dog,” Lila said, defending her position.
    Without bothering to ask what it had been, he said, “Grace should help you get over it. She’s wonderful.” There was judgment in his voice. Clearly, he thought she was as worthy as a dust mote.
    Anyone could see that Adam was a dog fanatic. Lila pictured him living with a pack of hulking Irish wolfhounds, who licked spilled milk off his kitchen counters and slobbered over raw hamburger in metal bowls. Huge wet noses streaked the back window of the pickup he hauled the brutes to the park in every day. To get across his living room, he