Flynn texted me before I was fully awake: an urgent acquisition meeting had come up, he would be tied up all day and probably overnight, don’t wait up.

We were, in fact, in the middle of a real acquisition — a company in Seattle, a deal he had been driving hard for months — so the lie had the great advantage of being wrapped around a truth.

He was very good at that.

It was, I would soon understand, the whole method of his life.

At noon my phone rang with a number I didn’t know, and a kind, harried woman introduced herself as a family liaison at St.

Catherine’s Hospital, and asked whether she was speaking with Mrs.