Karen spotted Neal first.

“Honey,” she said, “look who’s here.”

“Hello, son,” Joe Graham said.

It isn’t just the voice, thought Neal. It’s the smile, the sweet, cheerful, mocking smile of a rat on a landfill.

“Hello, Dad,” Neal answered.

Karen gave Neal a peck on the cheek and handed him a cup of coffee.

Maybe I should give this stuff up, Neal thought. It smells like battery acid, makes my stomach hurt, and gives me a headache.

He pulled out a chair and sat down at the table.

That’s where he made his big mistake. He should have gone back to bed, pulled the covers over his head, and refused to come out until Joe Graham was thirty thousand feet in the air, winging back to New York. If Neal Carey had done that, he never would have met Polly Paget, or gone to Candyland, or had to take a long walk up the water slide.

But he didn’t.

He smelled the coffee.

Then he drank it.

Part One

Pollygate

1

Son, this job is so simple,” Joe Graham said between bites of toast, “that even you could do it.”

“More orange juice, Joe?” Karen asked. She hovered over Graham with a pitcher in her hand. Before that, she’d hovered over him with a plate of scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, and rye toast. Prior to that, she had just generally hovered, dispensing coffee, juice, and muffins while she made breakfast.

Neal shot her a dirty look. In the nine months they had lived together, Karen had made breakfast for him exactly once-Pop-Tarts, burned.

Neal did most of the cooking in the house.

Until Graham arrives, Neal thought, and she turns into Aunt Bea.

Karen returned the dirty look. Not an Aunt Bea dirty look, but a Karen Hawley “don’t tread on me; I’ll cook breakfast any damn time I feel like it” look.