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nothing.
    "Miss Klein, as I said, I'm Brendan Delaney, and I'm here to talk with Letitia Cameron, if you don't mind."
    The nurse raised one eyebrow "Miss Cameron is not available."
    "This is very important to me," Brendan insisted.
    "Miss Cameron's health is very important to me," the nurse countered. "And she will see no visitors."
    Brendan took a step back. When Dorothy had told her—finally!—that Letitia Cameron was alive and within reach, Brendan had assumed that at least this first step of the journey would be a relatively easy one. But Dorothy hadn't mentioned the rather formidable presence of Frau Klein. Now Brendan felt as if she were facing down a snarling Doberman, trained to kill and eager to take a chunk out of anyone who took a step in its master's direction.
    But she wasn't about to give up without a fight. If you couldn't out-maneuver a Doberman, at least you could outwit it. And Brendan had developed plenty of tricks, over the years, to get unwilling subjects to talk.
    They stood there toe-to-toe, waiting to see who would make the first move. And suddenly it occurred to Brendan that the prayer she had uttered out of sheer desperation had, in its fashion, been answered. Letitia Cameron was alive. She wasn't willing to accept the idea that God necessarily had anything to do with it—she, after all, had been the one to find the obituary, follow the lead to Downtown Presbyterian and then to Many Mansions. But something had led her here—if not divine Providence, then instinct, or as Dorothy Foster had implied, destiny. Whatever the source, it was a good sign, and it bolstered her hope and courage. Now if she could just get her foot in the door.
    She kept her eyes firmly fixed to Frau Klein's impenetrable gaze and sent up another experimental prayer for help and inspiration. "Miss Cameron will want to talk to me," she said with more confidence than she felt. "Please tell her I'm here."
    At that moment a voice drifted out from the next room. "Gert? Who's at the door?"
    Brendan's heart leaped, and she leaned forward to peer around the nurse's bulk. "Miss Cameron?" she called out.
    Frau Klein shifted her weight to block Brendan's view and answered over her shoulder, "No one, ma'am. Just a reporter. I'll get rid of her."
    Then, just as the nurse began to close the door, the inspiration came. Brendan reached into her bag, came up with the cobalt blue bottle, and held it up with a triumphant flourish. "Show her this," she demanded. "If she still dÒesn't want to talk to me, I'll leave."

    "You must forgive Gert's lack of manners," Letitia Cameron said with a wan little smile. "She can be rather overprotective."
    Brendan nodded and took a sip of coffee. "So I noticed."
    She watched in silence as Letitia Cameron sat on the sofa, turning the blue bottle over and over in her trembling hands. The old woman wore a pale pink housedress and soft slippers, and her hair, an odd shade of bluish white, cascaded over her shoulders like foam from a waterfall. Her eyes, a faded gray-green, bore a lost, faraway expression, and between the eyebrows, a deep frown line made a permanent furrow in her brow
    "Oh, dear. I must look a fright," she muttered. One spotted hand went to her neck, pushing the hair into place. "I just got up from my nap, and Gert hasn't had a chance to put my hair up."
    "You look just fine," Brendan assured her.
    The pale eyes fixed on Brendan's face. "What was your name again?"
    "Brendan Delaney. I've come to talk with you about the bottle."
    The faraway expression returned. "I remember this," she said, stroking the glass. "I remember it all so well. It must have been fifty years ago."
    "Sixty-five."
    "Ah. Time does pass, doesn't it? While you're not paying attention, while you're busy with other things, it just slips away. And then it's gone, and you can never get it back." She paused. "And who are you?"
    Brendan cut a glance at Gert, who hovered at the bar in the kitchen. "Arteries," the nurse