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Carver told her. When he knew she was watching he ran his gaze down her body, to the elegant swell of calf and curve of ankle beneath the severely tailored blue suit skirt. “Then, too, there are things that stay pretty much the same.”
    “I only came home for a moment to get my listing book,” she told him.
    “So you say.”
    She gave him a grin he recognized, a sudden flash of wickedness across her strong, serious features. Her gray eyes were direct and challenging. “It’s someplace in the bedroom. Want to come help me find it?”
    That had been the idea. But suddenly Carver realized he didn’t really feel like going into the bedroom with Edwina. He was still thinking about the old woman in the rocking chair. About all the misdirection in his world. Well, none of it’s true. Not much about Sunhaven was true, he suspected. The smiles, the soothing designer “up” colors, the lulling sense of bureaucratic routine. Something about the place . . .
    “Fred?”
    “Sorry,” he said.
    His abrupt change of mood puzzled her.
    “I think I’ll take time out for a drink myself,” she said, stalking to the refrigerator in her high heels. She was of average height but appeared taller. She had a marvelous walk. “You want another beer?”
    “No thanks.”
    She gazed into the refrigerator for a while, then poured lemonade into an on-the-rocks glass. She never drank alcohol when she was working, so she didn’t add gin, as was sometimes her practice. She didn’t even bother adding ice.
    After closing the refrigerator door, she stood where she was and downed half the lemonade, as if she’d been parched and hadn’t known it until she’d touched the glass to her lips.
    “You don’t realize what it means to grow old until you visit someplace like Sunhaven,” Carver said.
    Down went the rest of the lemonade. The tendons in her throat worked beneath the smooth flesh as she swallowed. “Tell me about it. Cheer me up.”
    Carver smiled. “Sorry, didn’t mean to be glum. But you go to an old-folks’ home, the experience stays with you for a while.”
    “Retirement home,” Edwina corrected. She put the glass down on the sink counter.
    “Well, that’s the most favorable if not the most accurate thing this one could be called,” Carver said. “You know how voodoo works?”
    “I think so. Someone you believe in tells you you’re cursed and going to die. So you accept it and slowly kill yourself from the inside.”
    “That’s how it seems to be at Sunhaven. The residents are already chalked up, crossed out of life, and it’s only a matter of time before breathing stops and it’s official. Death with a capital D, looking for a place to lie down.”
    “Not everyone’s relatives think of them as already dead when they get past seventy,” Edwina assured him.
    “But too many do,” Carver said. “Too many give them up to time because they know time always wins.”
    “ ’Scuse me,” Edwina said. She left the kitchen and returned a minute later carrying the listing book she’d gotten from the bedroom. “I don’t think I want to hang around here while you’re in this melancholy mood.”
    Carver smiled at her. He knew he was too cynical; he was trying to change that in himself. A lot had happened to him in the past three years. His divorce, the maimed knee and his new occupation, the death of his eight-year-old son. And on the plus side, Edwina. “I don’t blame you for leaving,” he told her. “I’m sorry. Maybe I’m not the right man for this case.”
    “You’re not,” she said, “but you’re the only man. Desoto’s your friend and he trusts you.” She walked over to Carver and kissed him on the mouth. She tasted like lemonade.
    “See you tonight,” she said, and turned and swayed out of the kitchen.
    He heard the side door open and close, and he waited for the sound of her car starting.
    Instead, the side door opened and closed again, and someone walked across the carpet toward the