"This is so exciting." Mom craned to see the screen. "Now what?"

  "Now we wait for an answer," Mrs. Rosenblatt said. "We have to be patient. It might take a while."

  "Slow Wi-Fi," I added pointedly.

  Marco glanced up at the wall clock. I studied my nails. Mom remained fixated on the screen. Mrs. Rosenblatt gnawed on her lip.

  "There!" Mom said suddenly. "I think it's doing something!"

  We closed in on the phone again.

  "Someone write this down," Mrs. Rosenblatt said.

  I pulled a pen and an old receipt from my purse.

  Mrs. R frowned at the screen. "S, L…" She sighed impatiently.

  My pen hovered over the scrap paper, waiting.

  "O, W," she said finally. "Slow!"

  "No kidding," I muttered.

  She ignored me. "It's not done. B."

  "Write a B," Mom directed me.

  "L," Mrs. Rosenblatt said.

  "B, L," Mom said.

  "I think I need another shave," Marco remarked.

  "O," Mrs. Rosenblatt said. "Huh. This doesn't make sense."

  "What's it say?" Mom demanded.

  Mrs. Rosenblatt swallowed. "Blob."

  "Blob?" Mom repeated.

  "Slow blob?" My lips rolled inward to suppress the laughter.

  Marco giggled. "Maybe that's what she called her stud muffin. You know, like a term of endearment. Oh, Slow Blob, you're the best!"

  "That can't be right," Mom said. "Can it?"

  "I wouldn't think so," I said.

  Mrs. Rosenblatt dropped her arm in disgust. "I should've listened to Albert. He told me to go see Bart again."

  "It was such a good idea," Mom protested, still frowning at the screen. "Can't you ask her what slow blob means?"

  "And have her think I'm an amateur?" Mrs. Rosenblatt tapped the app closed. "Sometimes the departed can be shy or have trouble coming through. At least I have Albert. And he says Bart knows more than he's letting on. Maybe I should pay that guy another visit."

  While I agreed that Uncle Bart probably did know more than he was letting on, Mrs. R visiting him had bad idea written all over it. Mrs. Rosenblatt, Uncle Bart the babe magnet, and Albert from the other side. What could go wrong there?

  I was about to put a kibosh on the whole thing, when yelling from the main salon floor interrupted our sorta-psychic circle.

  "Uh-oh," Marco said, standing quickly. "I think I left the desk for too long."

  I was a short step behind him as he hurried back out on the floor.

  Only, he stopped short as soon as he saw who was doing the yelling.

  "There he is!" Ling stormed across the disco floor, Jerome jostling in his carrier on her chest with an expression of alarm.

  "Uh-oh," Marco repeated, shrinking into me.

  "You!" Ling pointed at Marco. "You take this monkey back right now. He's your problem, not mine." She thrust Jerome into his arms. "Thief!" she spat.

  Jerome's monkey eyebrows rose.

  "What happened?" Marco inspected the monkey. "Are you okay, little man?"

  "Your little man is a big fat thief!" Ling repeated. "He stole tips from dancers and chased all the customers away. He even drank someone's G&T!"

  Marco stared at Jerome with huge eyes. "You were drinking? You're not old enough to drink! What if you'd gotten carded?"

  "Yeah, that's the problem," Ling said. "Not the Board of Health." She pointed at Jerome. "He's not allowed within two hundred yards of Glitter Galaxy."

  I stared at her. "He's been banned from a strip club?"

  She nodded vigorously. "You bet he has. And he deserves it." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Thief!"

  Jerome bared his teeth at her in a grin. Now that he was back in calm hands, Jerome was enjoying himself.

  "Hey!" Fernando flapped a drape at us. "I heard all that. There's no way that monkey is staying here. You get him out of here right now, Marco."

  "But I—"

  "Out!!" Fernando shouted with such force that the Real Housewife jumped in her chair.

  "Don't worry," Mom said, emerging from the back room. "I'll cover the desk. You go home," she told Marco.

  Marco nodded, looking a little like a kid who'd been sent to his room.

  "Just…" Mom looked down at Jerome. "Make other arrangements for him before you come in tomorrow morning, huh?"

  Marco promised her that he would before I followed him out the glass doors and back into the late afternoon sunlight.

  "You know," Marco said, "I'm starting to think it was a bad idea to play Papa Bear to the little man here."

  "You could always take him back to Moira DeVine's studio," I suggested. "I'm sure Chico would take care of him."

  His eyebrow arched. "Yeah. 'Take care of him' is what I'm afraid of. You heard him say he was calling animal control." He sighed. "I didn't realize how hard it would be to care for a—" He broke off when Jerome snaked his arms around Marco's neck and lay his head against his chest. Marco's eyes practically welled up. "Aw, isn't he just the sweetest little man? I'm gonna keep him forever."

  I could have been wrong, but I thought Jerome winked at me.

  "Jerry and I are going to spend a little quality time at the park. I think he'll like the swings."

  I wished him luck as we said our goodbyes and headed to our cars.

  Two blocks and ten minutes later, I was back in my minivan and slowly crawling down the 2, stuck in traffic for the third time that day. Which was enough times that I was wishing those Jetsons flying cars would become a thing. As I merged into the left lane, moving marginally faster as we passed Fairfax, my thoughts inevitably drifted toward Beth Montgomery and Moira DeVine, and how their lives had intersected in their deaths.

  The more I learned about Beth Montgomery and the events leading to her death, the more convinced I was becoming that her demise might not have been a tragic accident or random arson. Infidelity, missing money, mobsters…there were more than enough reasons for someone to want her gone. Exactly who was still a question mark, but I was feeling more and more like Moira DeVine might have been right about Beth having been murdered.

  Which also begged the question—how had Moira known? Even if she'd had informants feeding her info instead of spirits, the police reports Ramirez had seen had been sparse and had included nothing about Beth's death possibly being a homicide. So how had Moira known what had happened twenty-six years ago? Unless Moira had actually talked to the killer himself and he'd let something slip.

  Or she had, I thought, my mind flitting to Lillian.

  Of all the possible suspects in Beth's death, Lillian seemed to be in the right position to fit all angles. She'd been losing Robert to Beth—until Beth suddenly died and Lillian gained a family. Lillian had known ahead of time about Moira DeVine's session with Ricky. She could have feared what Moira was going to bring up about his mother. Both Lillian and Robert obviously had wanted to withhold the truth about their affair and possibly other details of their past life together. Maybe Lillian had worried Moira might have stumbled onto the truth.

  Tapping my fingers on the steering wheel absently, I let that thought play itself out. What if Lillian or Robert, or maybe even both of them, might have visited Moira DeVine at her studio before the reading to flesh out exactly what she knew about Beth? Having witnessed Moira's penchant for drama, it wasn't hard to imagine her bragging, claiming full credit for knowledge that had been fed to her by an informant. She might not even have given details but dangled the suggestion that those details were in her possession. That alone might have been enough for a killer intent on keeping his or her crime hidden. It's even possible they'd gone to her with that intention and had the poison ready to deposit in her tea when opportunity presented itself.

  I hated the completeness with which that scenario ran through my mind. I knew it would crush Ricky if his father or stepmother was responsible.

  Of course, there was a whole other dimension to the case, I thought, as traffic started to pick up to a lively pace again. And that was the possibility of Beth having had an affair as well. If what Robert had said about their reconciliation was true, Lillian might not have been the only person in the mix upset about being jilted. If Beth had broken it off with her lover, was it possible he'd been upset enough to kill her in a fit of jealousy and rage?

  And what about the missing money? Who had taken that? Which made me wonder if Beth's killer had, in fact, been the most likely culprit after all—Beth's brother Uncle Bart. He'd admittedly already been to prison, so we knew he hadn't been above breaking a law or two. He'd argued with and threatened Beth before her death. At his own admission, he'd been desperate for money. And he had been the one to pointedly steer us toward Robert, the Riccis, and Beth's affair.

  Only, how would Uncle Bart have known Moira was about to reveal his secret on national television?

  A hard jolt from behind suddenly yanked me from my reverie, wrenching me forward against my seat belt.

  Great. Rear-ended.

  My eyes shot to my rearview mirror to see who hadn't been paying attention to the stop and go traffic, and I spotted a black sedan in the lane behind me.

  Close behind me. Way too close.

  I waved my hands, trying to get his attention, and pointed toward the right lane in an effort to get him to pull over so we could inspect the damage to my bumper and exchange information.

  But instead of putting on his blinker, he rammed forward again, crunching into me.

  Sudden panic gripped me. The driver wasn't just not paying attention.

  He was trying to hit me.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I tried to speed up as much as the car in front of me would allow, putting room between us. I couldn't make out a driver behind me, with the way the sun was glaring on the windshield, but I could see the car speed up to pace me.

  And then it surged forward again.

  I braced myself for impact as metal on metal crunched in my ears. I grimaced when my forehead smacked into the lowered sun visor, and I gripped the steering wheel to keep control of my minivan as I fishtailed sickeningly to the right.

  On instinct, I stomped on the gas, swerving to avoid hitting the car in the lane in front of me. The sun's glare still prevented a clear look at the driver or make of the car, but I could see them making the same quick right, keeping close behind me. I sped up, and so did they, surging forward so quickly, I feared impact again. Traffic had picked up again, and with throwing pedestrians and cyclists into the mix, a kiss on the bumper could easily be fatal.

  Which left me only one option.

  I slammed on the brakes, tugged right onto a side street, and held my breath, bracing for another impact.

  Only, the hard hit I feared didn't come. Instead, I heard the roar of an engine as the black sedan shot past me. It was a quick blur, but as it went by, I got a brief glimpse of the driver, and recognition set in immediately.

  Black hair, black suit, mirrored aviator glasses.

  It was one of Riccis' security goons at the wheel. Colt.

  My pulse sped up as I watched the sedan accelerate intentionally away from me, weaving between lanes as it disappeared down Santa Monica Blvd. I pulled to the curb and sat there, letting traffic go by me for I don't know how long, waiting for my breathing to stop sounding like a hyena in heat. Once I was only marginally shaking, I pulled back into traffic and took small side streets the rest of the way home. Which added at least twenty minutes to my trip, but the time allowed me to calm some before I pulled into my driveway. My heart rate had dropped out of the stroke zone, although my reflection in the rearview was still pale. I gathered up my bag and got out to inspect the damage to the car, trying not to think about the potential outcome had Max and Livvie been with me. I couldn't go there.

  Incredibly, there was nothing but a couple of scratches on the bumper. While the lack of damage didn't match the perceived force of the impact, I was thrilled not to have a glaring souvenir of the encounter. Bad enough it would be stuck in my mind for the rest of my life. Casting one last rueful look at the minivan, I went inside to pour myself a glass of wine and call Ramirez.

  He answered on the second ring. "Hey, babe."

  "Hey yourself," I said, feeling my tentative hold on my emotions start to crumble at the comforting safety in his voice.

  He must have heard the tremble in my voice, as he immediately asked, "What's wrong?"

  I let out a small laugh at how well my husband knew me. I tried not let tears creep into it, as I quickly told him about the incident.

  "Are you sure you're alright?" he asked when I paused for breath.

  "I'm fine," I told him. "I'm home, safe and sound. It's just a scratch on the bumper."

  "Did you get a look at the license plate?" he asked, his cop mode kicking in once he'd ascertained I wasn't hurt.

  I shook my head, even though I knew he couldn't see me. "No. Sorry. It-it all happened so fast."

  "Can you describe the car?"

  "Black sedan."

  "Make? Model?"

  I pursed my lips. "Sorry, I couldn't see it. The sun was in my eyes." I paused. "But I did get a look at the driver."

  "You saw the driver?" he asked, his voice tight.

  "Just for a split second, when he flew past me. But I think it was Colt. One of the guys who works for the Ricci Brothers."

  There was silence on the other end. Then he said slowly, "How would you know what anyone who works for the Ricci Brothers looks like?"

  Oh boy. Had I neglected to tell my husband that I'd been chatting with Ricci and Ricci?

  "I may have possibly visited their offices briefly," I said, my voice high and sounding alarmingly like Livvie did when confessing to having eaten her brother's share of Goldfish crackers.

  There was a loud sigh on the other end of the phone. Then a couple of choice swear words. And another sigh, before my husband spat out two commanding words. "Tell me."

  I was already in as deep as I could get, so I did, confessing everything from Dana and me lying our way in to see Dominic and Giovanni, to Robert's admissions about their shoddy business practices, to Ricky's insisting we visit Gavetti. It all came out in a steady stream without interruption from Ramirez, until I ended with, "I'm afraid the Riccis might not be very happy with me."

  "I told you to stay away from those guys," Ramirez ground out. "I told you I would look into it."

  "I know, but you're all tied up in probable cause and warrants and stuff. I mean, Dana and I just wanted to talk to them. No harm in that?"

  "Except my wife being chased down the 2!" he yelled, the anger in his voice clearly directed at the person who'd done the chasing and not me.

  At least I hoped.

  "I'm sorry," I said softly. "You're right. I should have left it to you."

  I heard a little deep breathing on the other end as the admission calmed him some. "Can you describe what the guy looked like?" he asked finally.

  I thought about it. "He was wearing sunglasses, so I couldn't see his eyes. But he had dark hair, and he was wearing a dark suit. He looked like one of the Men in Black." I hesitated. "That's not much to go on, is it?"

  "No." Ramirez sighed. "And it could describe any number of people in LA. You're sure it was the guy you saw in Riccis' office?"

  I bit my lip. Now that he was pressing me for details? Not totally. While it had been my first instinct, I had only caught a fleeting glimpse of the man. And it's possible my fear had gotten the better of me in the situation. "I thought it was him. But hearing myself now, I-I guess I'm not positive."

  "It's okay." Ramirez's tone was soothing. "You might remember more once the shock wears off."

  "Sorry," I said again, not really sure what I was apologizing for but feeling sorry for myself at the very least.

  "It's okay," Ramirez said again. "Tell you what, I'll pick up the kids from school today. Give you some time to calm down."

  "I'll be calmer when you're home," I told him.

  "I won't be long," he promised.

  After a couple I love yous, we hung up, and I felt the weight of being alone again. It was possible the attack on my bumper had been accidental by LA's worst driver. Possibly it was random. But it was also possible mobsters knew who I was and where I lived.

  After double-checking the locks and checking the windows for any black sedans cruising the street, I poured another glass of wine and dialed Dana's number to fill her in.

  She picked up on the first ring. "Hey," she said softly, and I had the vague idea I might have caught her napping.

  "Hope I'm not interrupting anything," I said.

  "No, no. I was just resting my eyes for a bit. Been a long couple of days." She paused. "You okay? Your voice sounds shaky."

  "Is it that obvious?"

  "What happened?" she asked, sounding more alert now. "Maddie, are you alright?"

  "Thankfully, yes," I said. "But it could have turned out very differently." I quickly told her about the car that had tried to run me off the road and my suspicion that it had been one of the Riccis' goons at the wheel.

  Dana gasped. "Are you alone right now? You shouldn't be alone. I can come right over."

  There was no such thing as right over in Los Angeles. "Ramirez is on his way home," I told her. "But thanks anyway."

  "I'm calling my security guy," Dana said. "I'll send him over to install a system on your house in the morning."

  "It's fine," I reassured her. "We have a security system."

  "Well then, I'm paying to upgrade it," she said. "This is all my fault, and now mobsters are after you!"

  "No one is after me," I assured her, the words sounding hollow. "I'm fine, and Ramirez will be home soon."

  "You could have been killed," she said.

  While I'd had much the same thought, it wasn't one I wanted to dwell on. "Even if it was the Riccis' guy," I reasoned, "I'm sure it was just a warning."

  "Yeah, that's what we thought about Beth's death, too."

  Well, that was a disconcerting thought.

  "I'm coming over there," she said again.