In the early twentieth century the county had been rural, but as the decades slipped by, its small towns had grown together until they formed a giant bedroom for the executives who boarded the Burlington Northern commuter trains that took them into the Loop each day, and also for the engineers who worked in the high-tech industries that sprang up along the East West Tollway. Gradually, the brick wall that bordered the estate had been enclosed by shady residential streets.

As a child Phoebe had spent little time living in the stately Tudor home that sat among the oaks, maples, and walnut trees of the western suburbs. Bert had kept her in a private Connecticut boarding school until summer, when he sent her to an exclusive girls' camp. During her infrequent trips home, she had found the house dark and oppressive, and as she climbed the curving staircase to the second floor two hours after the funeral, she decided that nothing had happened to make her alter her opinion.

The condemning eyes of an elephant illegally bagged during one of Bert's African safaris stared down at her from the maroon-flocked wallpaper at the top of the staircase. Her shoulders slumped dispiritedly. Grass stains soiled her ivory suit, and the sheer nylons that sheathed her legs were dirty and torn. Her blond hair stuck out in every direction, and she'd long ago eaten off her peony-pink lipstick.

Unbidden, the face of the Stars' head coach came back to her. He was the one who had picked Pooh off the casket by the scruff of her neck. Those green eyes of his had been cold and condemning as he'd handed the dog over to her. Phoebe sighed. The melee of her father's funeral was another screwup in a life already full of them. She had wanted everyone to know she didn't care that her father had disinherited her, but as usual, she had gone too far and everything had backfired.

She paused for a moment at the top of the stairs, wondering if her life might have been different if her mother had lived. She no longer thought very much about the showgirl mother she couldn't remember, but as a lonely child she had woven elaborate fantasies about her, trying to conjure up in her imagination a tender, beautiful woman who would have given her all the love her father had withheld.