and looked up. Finally he turned back. "After Dad . . . and everything, I had trouble sleeping. I know you didn't think it got to me, but it was like some bad force had taken over my mind, haunting me. I became obsessed with death. I took off two months and went to Colorado, camping. Out there, under the stars, I did a lot of thinking. Dad had died suddenly, but maybe that was a blessing in disguise. The rest of us, we all die a little every day. Why does time do the things to us it does? Why do we have to grow old and repulsive?" He drew on his scotch again, then continued. "When I came back, I started doing research on aging. That's when Karl Van de Vliet's name popped up on the Internet. Some paper he'd given in Vienna years ago. It was about the physiology of aging. But then Tanya came along and I sort of forgot about him. Then when I went to work for Winston Bartlett, there he was. The very same guy. It was weird, but it was as though God had delivered him." "Is this shaggy-dog story going to end up being about why he looks so young?" "I'm getting there." He smiled. "I kept wondering too, and then finally I saw an opening in his schedule and took him to dinner here in the city, down at Chanterelle. A social thing. Eventually, after a couple of bottles of serious wine, it came out that once upon a time he had done an unconventional experiment. On himself. It was sort of an accident, something about melanoma research." "So he--" "You asked me why he looks so young. Well, some procedure he did apparently stopped his skin from aging. But then he changed the subject and wouldn't talk about it anymore. So do I think he's a miracle worker? I'd say he's walking proof of something. That you can cheat nature." "And?" "There is no 'and.' That's all I know." He came back and settled onto the couch. His scotch glass was empty and he yearned for another, but that small voice inside was urging discretion. This was the moment that could be make or break. "But to get back to you, Ally, you really should meet him. I can't talk specifics about the actual clinical trials, but let me just say they've been very positive. There's every reason to think he can help you. And Mom too." He studied her, trying to read her mind. He wondered if she could detect the anxiety he felt lurking just beneath the surface. Was she seeing through him, the way Nina, for all her mental debility, had seemed to? "Grant, has this doctor Van de Vliet gotten into some kind of medical experiment that's turned into a Faustian bargain? Is his skin rejuvenation a signal that this research has gone over into The Twilight Zone'! When a sixty-something man looks forty-something, there's got to be an unnatural act going on. What does it mean?" "Maybe it means he's found the thing Ponce de Leon was looking for. The Fountain of Youth or whatever."