Now Abraham was gone, senselessly murdered last month, and I felt an emptiness I’d never experienced before. It didn’t help that the man had left me the lion’s share of his estate, some six million dollars, give or take a million. And while it gave me a secret thrill to know that in his will, he’d called me the daughter of his heart, I hated that I’d benefited so greatly from his death. After all, I was now rich beyond my wildest dreams and all it had cost was Abraham’s life.

“ Brooklyn?”

I whipped around, then jumped up when I spied an old friend walking briskly toward me. “Helen!”

Helen Chin grinned as she glided confidently through the bar, her glossy black hair cut in a short, sassy bob. She’d always been demure and soft-spoken, a brilliant, petite Asian woman with lustrous long hair and a shy smile. The haircut and the confidence were major changes since the last time I saw her. That had to have been over two years ago, when we’d both taught spring classes in Lyon, France, at the Institut d’Histoire du Livre. But we’d first met and bonded while teaching summer courses at the University of Texas at Austin. A hurricane had come through, blowing the roof off the dormitory we were staying in. Nothing forges a friendship better than sharing trail mix and toothpaste while sleeping on cots in a crowded, smelly gymnasium for a week.

I gave her a tight hug. She felt thinner than I remembered.

“I saw your name in the program,” she said, and clasped my arms with both hands. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“I wouldn’t miss it.” I took a closer look at her, checking out the new hairstyle, her pretty red jacket, black pants and shiny black shoes. “You look amazing, and you’ve lost weight. Are you moonlighting as a supermodel?”

“Oh, right,” she said with a laugh.