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connected wife named Barbara and four big-toothed, impossibly blond, Harvard-educated children. I’d Googled him whenever I got into one of my Norman Rockwellian moods and turned nostalgic. I figured when I answered his questions, he’d think the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, that I was as shiftless as my dad and as co-dependent as my mom, and I wished I could whip out pictures of two-point-two munchkins, a dog and a successful husband, and refer circumspectly to my part-time job as a rocket scientist.
    â€œI work at home,” I said instead. “Medical billing and coding. Doctors like to outsource that stuff these days.” Feeling stupid, I blushed, but then plunged on. Telling the truth is good for you, Tucker had taunted me, not so long ago, during one of our screaming fights. You ought to give it a try sometime . “No kids. I was married for a couple of years, then divorced.”
    The truth , I told Tucker silently, is overrated .
    My uncle’s face reflected a calm, intense interest as he listened.
    I left out the part about seeing Nick’s ghost, of course, and I didn’t get around to mentioning that I lived in a rented apartment over a biker bar in Cave Creek, either. I’d save that for when I really wanted to make a major impression. Show him my stack of dog-eared, highlighted Damn Fool’s Guides, too, and tell him how I’d educated myself on every subject from psychic pet communication to private investigation. Who needed Harvard?
    â€œSo that’s about it,” I said, letting the words dwindle to a sigh.
    Uncle Clive settled back in his chair, tented his fingers together over his chest. “You must have a few questions yourself,” he remarked.
    Hell, yes, I had questions.
    The first one, which I didn’t voice, was: What ever happened to that no-good, scum-sucking, parent-murdering brother of mine? Correction, Geoff was a half brother—but the whole topic congealed in my throat, like some gelatinous mass, and the words my brain framed were slithering along, flattened against the side walls, trying to squeeze past it.
    I’d run a hundred Googles on Geoff if I’d run one, after finding his last name in the newspaper archives. I didn’t remember it, for reasons already stated, and Lillian had always clammed up whenever I raised the subject. Geoff Waters, born to my mother by her first husband, had gone to a juvenile detention facility in California after confessing to shooting Dad in the back of the head and Mom through the throat. At twenty-one, he’d been released and his record expunged. It galled me a little—and scared me a lot—to know that he was out there somewhere, lily-white as far as the law was concerned. Going on just as if nothing had happened.
    â€œGeoff,” I finally managed. “Where do you suppose he is now?”
    I hadn’t realized Clive was tense until he visibly relaxed. “Who knows?” he replied, followed by an unspoken, Who cares?
    â€œHe killed my cat,” I said. The words just came out, without my consciously forming them.
    What cat?
    Clive leaned forward slightly in his metal chair. His bushy brows lowered a little, and his eyes narrowed.
    I blushed again, rubbed my right temple with my fingertips. “I don’t know why I said that,” I admitted, flustered. “I don’t remember owning a cat.”
    My uncle bent a little farther at the waist and laid a hand on my shoulder. “This is too much, too fast,” he said. “I’m sorry for springing myself on you out of the blue, Mary Jo. It’s just that I’ve wondered for so long, what was happening to you—if you were all right. When I saw you, I…”
    I wasn’t used to that kind of concern, and I’ve got to admit, it felt damn good. After I married Nick, Lillian and I weren’t exactly estranged, but we weren’t as close, either. She flat-out didn’t like