“We’re ahead fourteen to nothing,” Jonathan added as he picked up a plate and began loading it with a pulled pork sandwich and chips. “Hey, Red, where’s the coleslaw?”
Jonathan was the only person Camille ever let get away with calling her Red.
“In the fridge,” she hollered from the kitchen. “I can’t have it sitting out getting warm.” She grabbed it from the refrigerator and plunked it down on the table next to the pulled pork. “There you go.”
Everyone grabbed a plate and dove into the delicious spread Camille and the girls had laid out, carrying their food into the family room. Every seat on the sectional was taken, as well as the easy chairs, leaving some to take their seat on the floor or the ottoman.
Emily glanced around the room with a satisfied feeling, watching them eating and chatting—she loved the closeness of her friends, like a big family, sharing a meal together.
Conversation flowed easily, but eventually it came around to the dead girl found in the river the night before.
“What can you tell us about the body that was found in the river last night, Colin?” Peter asked, sitting on the ottoman, balancing his plate on his knees.
Colin leaned back into the sofa and swallowed his food. “There’s not much to tell yet. No more than the news has reported so far. We won’t know anything more until we get the autopsy and lab reports back.”
“I think she may have been a prostitute at one of those Thai massage parlors,” Emily blurted out. She glanced at Colin next to her, and his frown told her he wasn’t pleased with her reckless supposition.
“Really? What makes you say that, Emily?” Peter asked, his eyes and the tone of his voice showing his serious interest.
“Molly and I were at the Hilton Hotel a few weeks ago and ran into a young Asian woman crying in the restroom. She wouldn’t talk to us, but she was all dolled-up like a teenager trying to pass as a grown woman—a very sexy grown woman. Then an older woman came in, scolded her in some Asian language, and pulled her out of the room. At the time, I chalked it up to a teenage girl being caught by her mom dressing up to appear older for some guy.”
“Why would you think that?” Camille asked.
“Because that happened to me when I was fifteen,” Emily replied.
“But now you don’t think that’s what happened?” Peter questioned.
“Molly and I saw the girl again not long after that, in the backseat of a car leaving a house in this neighborhood. Molly saw her more close up than me, and she said the girl had the saddest eyes she’d ever seen.”
“She never mentioned that to me,” Camille said.
“What else, Em?” Isabel asked.
“I was on a case where the wife thought the husband was seeing a prostitute, because of charges showing up on their credit card bill. I followed him to the Jade Thai Spa and found out later he was getting a lot more than a massage.”
“What does that massage parlor have to do with the teenage girl?” Jonathan asked.
“I saw her again, not long ago, after I left here one day. She was in the backseat of the same car, with two other girls around her age. A stocky man was driving both times, and the woman from the restroom was in the front seat, the same as the first time Molly saw them. I had tried to tell Molly they were probably a family and the three girls in the backseat were sisters.”
“Sounds like you don’t believe that anymore,” Peter said.
“The last time I saw them, I looked into that girl’s face as they drove past me. She looked out the window, right at me, with her big brown eyes. Molly was right. They were the saddest eyes I’d ever seen. But more than sadness, I saw fear. So I decided to follow them.”
“You never told me that,” Colin said.
“Are you sure?” Emily asked.
“What did y’all see?” Maggie asked.
“They drove to the Jade Thai Spa, parked in the back, and they all got out and went inside. It was a little after four. The sign on the front door said they opened at five, so I banged on the door until someone answered.”
“Now I know you never told me that,” Colin insisted.
“So what happened?” Isabel asked.
“The older woman came to the door, but she wouldn’t open it except barely enough to stick her head out. I stuck my foot in