"I've been thinking over all he was trying to say. I didn't get everything at the time, but I guess my feeble mind was recording it. Now it's all coming back. He was talking about Arthur and his suicide-- Ally, we both know that's what it was--and how he felt responsible and how he was finally going to be able to make up for all the harm he'd done to me, and to you. But he was worried you might not want to go along with this special treatment for me." She was studying Ally, as though searching for an answer. Maria had discreetly departed for the kitchen. "He kept talking about this doctor he knew. At this clinic. He swore this man could perform a miracle for me. He said I should do it, whether you approved or not." Ally looked at her, wondering what to say. This was getting too devious for words. Then Nina went on. "I'll probably not remember anything about this by tomorrow. But I just wanted to tell you. When you get as mentally addled as I am now, you compensate by developing your other senses, I call it your sixth sense. And Ally, I think he's involved in something that's evil. And he wants to draw me into it, maybe both of us." She stopped carefully framing her words. "I sensed a kind of desperation about him. I don't know exactly what it was." As Ally listened the Janacek quartet swelling in the room, scratches and all, she felt more and more like an utter dunce. She hadn't caught any of this in Grant's come-on, but now . . . Nina was right about that sixth sense. But what could the real story be? Grant was more a simple con artist than some embodiment of evil. Think the Music Man in designer threads, not Darth Vader. Evil was surely too strong a word He was just the consummate self-promoting hustler. The troubling part was, he was so damned good at it. "Mom, you're wonderful today. Why don't we all three go somewhere for brunch now? Right now. There's a new French place just down Columbus that needs checking out." She had an eerie foreboding it might be their last chance. "No, honey, you brought some smoked fish, didn't you? That's all I want." Nina dismissed the idea with a wave of her hand. "Besides, no one in this town knows how to brew a proper pot of tea." Then, the next thing Ally knew, she was back to musing out loud about Grant. "I can't stop wondering. He said this doctor he knows might work a miracle for me. What am I supposed to think?" Ally was trying to decide whether a glimmer of hope, even though it was almost certainly false, might be a healthy tonic for Nina just now. "Mom, Grant gave me some materials about that doctor. I'll read them tonight, I promise." She was listening to the Janacek quartet soar, and it was bucking her up. "Let me see what I can find out."