make me sick,” she said. She ripped it in half and threw the pieces to the dresser top. She sat on the bed, spine curving, head down. She looked as if she had run a very long way and could not catch her breath.
Stan Webelow had gone practically purple. He stood shirtless in the center of his mother’s bedroom, his fly gaping open. “You break my house open, hit me in the face, start asking me questions about some kid I never spoke to. What the hell?” he said to David. “That kid was never in my house.”
“Then where is Shelby?” Laurel said, mostly to David.
“Your Shelby? Why would your kid be here?” Stan Webelow said. He looked from Laurel to David, and then his lip curled under. “You’re twisted. She’s a child.”
“Excuse me,” said Thalia, still grinning. “You’re getting paid to sex up married ladies in your mother’s bed. I’d say you’ve got the edge on twisted, here.”
Trish was muttering to herself. She got her Lycra pants off the floor and then felt under the bed, pulling out ankle socks and tennis shoes. She jerked on the pants with an angry economy of movement. Laurel could see a lime-green bra strap poking out from the top. Trish had jogged down here, fancy underthings hidden beneath her running suit, and slipped inside, no one the wiser.
Trish pulled her socks on one by one. She said, “If you dare tell anyone any single bit—”
“Blah blah blah,” Thalia interrupted. “Shut it, Trish. We’ve got bigger problems than deciding who to call first on the Victorianna gossip phone tree.”
“You believe him?” David said to Laurel.
She nodded. Stan’s runs made sense now. He wasn’t jogging in the dead heat of the day. He was making rounds, tapping on back doors while husbands were at work, his incriminating car never parked in front of anybody’s house. Laurel’s stomach did a slow roll inside of her. She put her head down the way Trish had and took in a deep breath. She said to Thalia, “Do you believe him?”
“He wouldn’t have been messing with Molly,” Thalia said. “A teenager couldn’t afford him.” To Stan, she said, “Sorry about the window,” but she didn’t sound a bit sorry. She sounded interested. “How long will it take you to earn enough to fix it? In your line of work, I mean.”
Stan picked up his shirt and stuffed his arms through the holes. “Not long,” he said. His spine was stiff with anger as he jerked at his shirt, straightening it, but his voice had the edge of a smug, professional pride.
“How many clients have you got here?” Thalia said.
“In Victorianna? Three, but it’s not the only neighborhood I run in.” He glanced at Trish. “Maybe two now.”
“I feel ill,” Trish said. She was trying to tie her shoelaces, but her hands were shaking.
Laurel stood up and took David’s arm, pulling him toward the doorway. “We need to go home,” she said. “Start an AMBER Alert.”
“One sec,” Thalia said. She turned back to Stan. “I have to know. How come you never hit up on my sister?”
Stan was buttoning his shirt, but he paused long enough to dismiss Laurel and David with a glance. “That’s unbreakable. I can smell the ones who still like each other a mile off.”
“No, really?” said Thalia.
Laurel said, “We need to go meet the police.”
Trish said, “Oh, God! Who called the police? I told you no!”
The bedside table was cluttered with a clock radio, a teeny pink lamp, tissues, candles, and a grouping of blown-glass angels playing instruments. Trish rifled through the clutter, knocking over the flutist, muttering, “Where are my damn keys?”
“Relax,” Thalia said. “The cops are coming to Laurel’s, not here. We’ve misplaced Shelby.”
Trish stopped and looked up, puzzled. “Why the hell are you looking for her here? She was just at the duck pond.”
Stan kept stuffing his shirttail into his open pants, but everyone else in the room froze and stared at Trish.
“When,” David said.
“Not even an hour ago,” Trish said. “I passed her on my way over here.”
She was still hunting her keys. David took two strides toward her and grabbed her arm. “Where?”
“Ow! Watch it!” Trish said. She jerked her arm away. “By the duck pond, like I said, with that . . . relative you have staying with you. I need to go home.”
“Bet Clemmens,” Thalia said. “You didn’t think it was weird to see two thirteen-year-old girls at the duck pond with suitcases?”
Trish shrugged. “Shelby had a