He grabbed a full bottle of wine out of a silver cooler and tucked it under his arm. He was really moving at a fair clip, limp and all, and I could hear my high heels clip-clopping along inelegantly as we moved toward the foyer. I paused for a moment to slip my shoes off, and then I caught up with him. Something about Bobby's attitude made me want to laugh. He was accustomed to doing exactly as he pleased among people I'd been taught to respect. My aunt would have been impressed by the company, but Bobby didn't seem to be.

We went up the stairs, Bobby pulling himself along by the smooth stone banister.

"Your mother doesn't use the name Wenner?" I asked, as I followed him.

"Nope. Callahan is her maiden name as a matter offact. I changed mine to Callahan when she and my father divorced."

"That's unusual, isn't it?"

"Doesn't seem that way to me. He's a jerk. This way, I don't have to be connected to him any more than she does."

The gallery at the top formed a semicircle with wings branching out on either side. We passed through an archway to the right and into a wide corridor with rooms opening off at intervals. Most of the doors were closed. Daylight was beginning to fade and the upstairs was gloomy. I once conducted a homicide investigation at an exclusive girls' school that had this same air to it. The house felt as if it had been converted to institutional use, someplace impersonal and chill. Bobby knocked at the third door down on the right.

"Kitty?"

"Just a minute," she called.

He flashed me a smile. "She'll be stoned."

Hey, why not? I thought with a shrug. Seventeen.

The door opened and she looked out, gaze shifting from Bobby to me with suspicion. "Who's this?"

"Come on, Kitty. Would you knock that shit off?"

She moved away from the door indifferently. Bobby and I went in and he closed the door behind us. She was anoretic; tail and painfully thin, with knees and elbow joints standing out like Tinkertoys. Her face was gaunt. She was barefoot, wearing shorts and a white tube top that looked about as big as a man's crew sock, one size fits all.