over and let him take a whack at it? So to speak?”
“God, no,” Laurel said, aghast.
Thalia grinned. “I don’t think Gary wants to do you a solid anyway, Bug.”
They had reached the porch. Thalia tried to move past Laurel, but Laurel stopped her. “Stay out here a sec. Bet Clemmens is skating around the hardwood spooky-quiet with her shoes off.”
Thalia nodded, stopping by the steps. She dropped her arm off Laurel’s shoulder and took a step back. “Did you call your friend?” she asked, and when Laurel nodded, she asked, “So are you allowed to come to the funeral?”
“Of course,” Laurel said. “Mindy was saying she thinks it’s important to Bunny that Shelby go, although I’m not sure how I feel about that. Then Mindy said the strangest thing. She said no one was blaming me.”
“Shit,” said Thalia, and she sat down hard on the porch steps, her long arms dangling between her legs. Laurel sat, too, one step lower than Thalia.
“That means something to you?” Laurel asked.
“Yeah,” Thalia said. “Their kid is dead, Bug, and unless they know damn well it’s their own fault, they are going to blame someone. You’re a good target. It was your pool. They ought to be saying to themselves, why didn’t that bitch wake up, how could she not know this was happening in your own yard?
“If Bunny isn’t pointing a finger at you, we need to find out which way she’s pointing. If she’s not pointing anywhere, she’s guilty as all hell. Her or Chuck. I was hoping to rule out either your pervo or the family today, but I’ve got dick, and I don’t just mean sticking my face in your creepy neighbor’s limpy. We’ll have to get to Bunny tomorrow.” Thalia paused and then added, “As for tonight, there’s always the mysteries of the Ouija.”
She said it correctly this time, so it sounded like “Wee-juh.”
Laurel looked away, her insides cooling, her blood slowing, though it had to be over ninety on the porch. She didn’t believe in submerged memories any more than Thalia believed in ghosts, but Molly Dufresne had already come to Laurel once, uncalled. She wanted to be heard. If Laurel’s moving shadow had been Stan Webelow, this was one way to confirm it.
“We could try,” Laurel said, and her stomach felt like a small, cold stone, dense and heavy at the very pit of her. “Tonight, after dinner, after everyone else has gone to bed. We could try.”
“There’s my brave little testicle,” Thalia said, and Laurel turned and knuckle-punched her in the arm, fast and hard, before she could think.
Thalia chuckled. “Ow! That’s quite a right, Buglet.”
Laurel wasn’t laughing. She felt sick and trembly and had to fight the urge to hit Thalia again on pure principle. Thalia was right; they might get answers. But Laurel had spent the second half of her childhood rolling away when Marty came, closing her eyes, wiping his footprints from her rug.
Given a tool, Molly might speak. But Molly had left a door open somewhere when she came, and Mother had used it. Molly Dufresne was not the only ghost in Laurel’s yard.
CHAPTER 10
It was going on eleven when Thalia slipped back into the keeping room through the glass door.
“We’re set up out there. Those candles stink,” she said.
“They keep the bugs away,” Laurel said from the kitchen. “Anyhow, I like how they smell.” She wiped her damp hands on the dish towel. The kitchen was clean, the dishes were loaded, and the girls had gone to bed. Shelby had asked to sleep on the trundle bed again, so they might well be awake, whispering back and forth. Laurel hoped so. Better if Shelby talked to someone, even if it was only Bet Clemmens. She was certainly not talking to Laurel. She’d hardly spoken at dinner. “Maybe we should wait. Give the girls time to fall asleep.”
Thalia stared right through Laurel in a way that let Laurel know she saw all the way down to the cowardice at her roots. “Shelby’s in the guest room. That window faces the front yard.”
Laurel nodded, squaring her shoulders. “I saved one of the brownies out for David.” The rest were packed into a Tupperware for the Dufresnes. She peeled the Saran off the dessert plate. “Let me run this down to him, and I’m ready.” Ready as she would ever be. Though she’d just wiped her hands, her palms felt damp again.
“David’s home?” Thalia said. “When did that happen?”
Laurel raised her eyebrows. “A couple