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thought of the blood pouring out of the man’s arm, about how I had caused that, and I threw up again and knew I would never forgive myself. Never forgive myself for anything. But I would have killed him if I’d had to. If Constance had asked. I got back in the car and drove us back to Los Angeles.
    The next day Constance hired me as her assistant and asked me to move to New Orleans with her. I said yes. The first person I met in New Orleans was Mick Pendell, Constance’s other assistant and already a detective of ill repute. We were stuck with each other, siblings born into the same strange family.
    Three years later, Constance was murdered.
    Those of us who Constance brought together never let each other go, not entirely. Every time we tried to walk away we remembered our promises, and the debt that we could never repay.
    Later I found out that the blond man had been Jay Gleason, Jacques Silette’s last student, he of the messy hair and bell bottoms, face still pretty.
    Those of us Silette brought together would, as the Kali Yuga went on, have a more complicated relationship.

7
    A FTER LEAVING LYDIA at the police station I didn’t hear from her for a few days. First I heard from Paul’s sister, Emily. While Lydia was talking to the police and I was talking to Carolyn, she called and left a message. I didn’t call her back. The next day she called again. She said she was coming into town and wanted to talk to me.
    Everyone thinks their grief is the first grief. Everyone thinks their grief is primary and everyone else’s is secondary. But I wasn’t ready to be the Supportive Friend yet. I wasn’t ready to be the fucking selfless person who helps arrange the funeral. I wasn’t in the mood to be the person who says,
Oh, of course you were so much closer
, and
Of course this is so much harder for you.
Let her find someone else.
    But then I left my apartment, five days after Paul died, and a woman was standing on my doorstep waiting for me. She was white and tall and thin and didn’t look like she was from here. She wore brown leather ankle boots and blue jeans and a gray sweater.
    “Claire?” she said. “Claire DeWitt?”
    I didn’t say anything. Her face was pretty, or would have been if it wasn’t haunted. She had dark circles under her eyes, and her clothes sagged on her frame—she’d lost some weight recently.
    “I’m Paul’s sister,” she said. “Paul Casablancas. I’m Emily.”
    “I’m sorry about Paul,” I said. “I really am.”
    “Can I talk to you?” she said.
    “Sure,” I said. “Go ahead.”
    “No,” she said, looking like she might cry. “I mean, I think I want to hire you. I think someone murdered Paul.”
    “Someone did murder Paul,” I said. “I don’t know what the police told you, but—”
    “No,” she said again. “I mean, I think someone I know murdered Paul.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “I think it was his wife. Lydia. I think Lydia murdered Paul.”
     
    We went to a restaurant near my house. The restaurant is run by a cult. They love, honor, and obey a lady named the Enlightened Mistress who lives in Shanghai. She advocates kindness, veganism, and meditation. Other than calling herself the Enlightened Mistress she seems okay. They run a chain of vegan restaurants in Asia and in Chinatowns across the United States, and they teach free meditation classes once or twice a week.
    We got a table by the window looking out to Stockton Street. Paul’s sister, Emily, stared blankly out the window, rigid and tense. The waitress came. I ordered chicken stew, which would be fake chicken. Emily seemed startled, as if she’d forgotten where we were. I suggested she order the beef with broccoli. She did.
    “There’s something you probably don’t know about us,” Emily said when we were done. “Paul usually didn’t tell people—I don’t know, maybe he told you.”
    I shook my head, although I knew what she was going to say.
    “We’re rich,” she said.