Chapter 6: Sunday Dinner

Dwayne stood in Cleo's doorway and looked at my bare chest.

"Don't let me interrupt," he said. "I only came to drop off Sunday's seating chart."

"You came at six in the morning, with a key," Cleo said.

"You know the family rule, cousin. Anyone can be reached in an emergency."

"That rule is from when I was twelve."

"And nobody ever repealed it."

He put a folded paper on the counter and tapped it with one finger.

"Uncle Cliff is expecting you both for dinner at five," he said. "He heard about the clay. He was very upset."

He looked at me one more time.

"He'll be even more upset when he hears the rest."

He walked out, and the door clicked shut behind him.

Cleo put down her coffee.

"He's going to tell my father before we do," she said.

"Then we should get there first."

"Nick."

"I'm not hiding. I'll stand in front of him and say it."

She stared at me for a moment, and her mouth tilted up.

"You're really something," she said.

The Rainey house in Grosse Pointe was a big brick colonial with a lawn that ran down to the lake.

A housekeeper let us in, and the smell of pot roast hit me in the front hall.

Clifford sat at the head of a long dining table with a napkin tucked into his collar.

Dwayne was at his right, with a glass of wine and the look of a man who had already said his piece.

"Sit," Clifford said. "Both of you."

We sat.

Nobody picked up a fork.

"My nephew tells me my daughter spent the night with the man I hired two weeks ago," Clifford said. "Is this true?"

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