you.”
Trish clutched her pillow, outraged. “Mask?”
“Give my sister any crap about this, and a zipper mask will be the least of it,” Thalia said to them, unfurling her widest smile. “Trish’ll be suspended from the ceiling, getting spanked with a live monkey, before I’m done telling what we saw here. Still want to call the cops?”
The pillow still clutched across her front, Trish rounded on Stan. “Don’t you dare call the police. Not until I get out of here.”
“Shel’s not here,” Laurel said to David. She was relieved, of course she was, but so confused. She couldn’t reconcile all the objects in the room. She looked from Trish’s pale buttocks, hanging out the back of her fancy Victoria’s Secret underpants in two sad dewlaps, to Stan, coiffed and with a sheen on his bare skin as if he’d been oiled, to the garish sheets on Cookie’s girlish bedroom furniture. David looked equally at sea, but Laurel asked him anyway: “Do we go home now?”
David shook his head. “I don’t think we’re done here. This makes no sense.” He turned to Stan. “What was Molly doing in your house?”
Stan gaped at him. “Her name is Trish,” he said, jerking a thumb at her. “She’s here bungee jumping. Obviously.”
Trish had turned back around to face them. She picked up a Lycra jog top and tried to get it on over her head without dropping the pillow.
“Looky here!” Thalia said. She sounded purely delighted. She’d picked up a small blue rectangle of paper off the dresser. It looked like a check. As Thalia read the front of it, she let out a low whistle. She glanced at Stan with something akin to respect and said to Trish, “He’s worth four hundred bucks? A go?”
Trish stopped trying to get the top on and turned crimson, staring at Thalia. “Don’t be repulsive. That’s just a tiny loan. Between friends.”
“Really?” said Thalia. Laurel had never heard the extended E go quite so long before.
“Answer David’s question,” Laurel said to Stan, but Stan was stalking back across the room toward Thalia, his pants up but still undone.
“Give me that,” he said.
David stepped in as Stan tried to pass him. He was almost a foot taller, and Stan paused, one hand moving involuntarily to touch his swelling cheek.
“Focus, Stan.” David waved one hand at Trish and went on. “I know who that is. I meant Molly Dufresne. Why did you have Molly Dufresne here?”
“That little girl?” Stan Webelow said. He was staring at David, confused. “The little girl who drowned?”
Thalia, meanwhile, turned and slid open the top drawer of the dresser, peering at the contents. She jabbed one hand in, stirring around what looked to Laurel like socks and underpants, and then closed it.
Stan said, “That little girl has never been in my house.”
Thalia moved on to the next drawer, quick-searching it.
David took one stalking step toward Stan. “Our daughter saw her go in here. Bet Clemmens saw her.”
Stan shook his head.
“I was so sure,” Laurel said.
Thalia closed the second drawer, and then a jewelry box on top of the dresser caught her attention. She opened it. A small pink ballerina popped up and began spinning. A tinkling version of the theme from Ice Castles filled the room.
“What are you doing?” Stan was trying to push his way around David. David stayed in his path.
“Whoopsie,” said Thalia. “Haven’t made it to the bank yet, have you, Stan?” She pulled out what looked like another check. “Dated today. Quite a busy morning!” To Laurel, she said, “Who’s Jamie Gold?”
Trish’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, Jamie Gold? What is that?”
“Another tiny loan,” Thalia said. “Between friends.”
“Jamie lives in phase two,” Laurel offered. “They moved in last year. Her husband is a naval officer.”
Thalia chuckled. “Navy, huh? All those lonely months of him at sea. We’ve been hunting the wrong game, Bug.”
“Jamie just turned fifty-four,” Laurel said. “You can’t mean—” She broke off and waved her hands at Thalia, trying to push it all away.
“Your creepy guy is creepy all right,” Thalia said. “But I’m afraid he’s your basic garden-variety whore.”
“Get out of my house,” Stan said.
Trish scrambled over the bed in her jog top and underpants, bypassing Stan and David. She came at Thalia, reaching for the check, and Thalia relinquished it with a flourish. She leaned against the dresser again, watching Trish’s face. “A cool six hundred,” Thalia said. “I wonder what you get for that?”
Trish stared from the check to Stan, then back at the check. “You