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apartments. That leaves this house virtually useless to them. Keeping it on the company’s books is costing them money like the proverbial white elephant. Now Sunshine Properties has decided to cut their losses, sell the house cheap, and let somebody else worry about it.” She gave Bill a meaningful look and enunciated slowly, “Very cheap.”
    Bill shook his head. “So it’s a bargain. Yes, I see that. And my investment portfolio has done really well in the last coupleof years, so I probably can afford the house if I want it, but, look here, you can’t expect me to buy this place out from under that poor old man. I mean, really! Take an elderly man’s house away from him. What will become of him then?”
    Holly Milton smiled. “We’ve thought of that. The present owners have offered to provide Mr. Jack with a free apartment or small rental home, if he should agree to go—which they rather doubt, but they hope he will reconsider. Anyhow, failing that, they have set forth a very interesting proposition that you might want to consider.”
    Mr. Jack beamed up at the prospective new owner. “Care for a Twinkie?”
    “Love,” P. J. Purdue used to say, “is like flushing yourself down the toilet. A nice cool ride and a lot of crap at the end.” That pretty much summed up her opinion of relationships, and I couldn’t imagine her ever changing her mind. I wonder if she ever did.
    In college we were all terrified of her. She was small, blonde, and vicious. She stalked the halls of the dorm like a drill sergeant’s impersonation of Drew Barrymore: black turtleneck, black nail polish, permanent scowl, sneering at the fraternity honeys and at the aerobic princesses on our hall, or perhaps at the whole idea of their pursuit of happiness in the form of another human being. “You’re in love?” she would drawl. “How quaint.”
    In the sexual revolution, P. J. Purdue was the I.R.A. Many a rapturous discussion of rose-petal-pinkbridesmaids’ dresses ended in a strained silence when Purdue entered the room with a permanent leer that put one in mind of a peckish shark.
    A. P. Hill closed the cover of her journal, wondering what had led her to record her memories of a college acquaintance after all this time, instead of her usual log entries of case work and a to-do list. It was probably this morning’s cryptic phone call, she thought. She was waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. Something was up.
    She yawned and stretched. It was nearly ten o’clock. Time for her evening run. Perhaps that would clear the cobwebs out of her brain, she thought. She would do her customary run in the cool night air, and then she’d be back to her usual untroubled self. Introspection was not a habit that A. P. Hill indulged in. When she had problems, she chose to outrun them, and if she had to keep running until she was too tired to think—well, that worked just as well.
    After the phone call, thoughts about P. J. Purdue had drifted in and out of Powell Hill’s mind for the rest of the day, as P. J. herself had once drifted in and out of dorm rooms, uninvited and often unwelcome, but oblivious to the havoc she caused, and always a commanding presence that could not be banished for long.
    Visions of Purdue’s little chicken-hawk face under a Beatle haircut had haunted A. P. Hill in court all day, and in late afternoon as she drove home, she found herself scanning the faces of people in passing cars, as if she expected Purdue to appear grinning alongside her. It was a disturbing thought.
    The feeling of uneasiness was still there in the back of A. P. Hill’s mind hours later as she laced up her running shoes and sprinted down the steps of her apartment building. She always ran in the evening, but when anything worried her, she ran faster and longer. Tonight was shaping up to be a solo marathon, she thought.
    But how could she outrun P. J. Purdue? In law school it had been all she could do to keep up with her.
    There was