Ophelia sighed and leaned against Cy’s car. “So, S has been disappearing regularly as well,” she mused aloud. “Think we should check his room to see if there’s any clues that would link him and Emily together?”

“It couldn’t hurt,” Cy responded with a shrug.

“Well, first, let me see if I can get in touch with one of the other pairs. They might have found out something.”

“Try AJ and Louie,” Cy suggested. “They’re probably goofing off and need a good kick in the rear to get them back to work.”

“Smart.” Ophelia called AJ and put her phone on the “speaker” setting, so that Cy could hear the conversation. AJ answered his phone. “Hello?” he muttered.

“AJ, this is Ophelia. Where are you?”

“Frederick’s of Hollywood.”


Ophelia and Cy exchanged amused looks. “Why are you there?” Ophelia asked.

“Because they wouldn’t let us into the strip clubs on Bourbon.”

“Why were you trying to get in there?” Ophelia asked, holding back laughter. Cy smirked.

“Well,” AJ began, sounding slightly offended by the amusement evident in Ophelia’s tone, “you know how in cop shows, they go into strip joints, and there’s usually some huge clue?”

Ophelia and Cy couldn’t take it any longer. They laughed hysterically for several seconds.

“Shut up!” AJ yelled.

“Dude, that’s a TV show. This is real life,” Cy choked out.

“So,” Ophelia snickered, “have you found any clues in the underwear shop?”

“No,” AJ replied, “but I saw a bunch of chicks with totally awesome racks. Like, this one chick, I swear, she must have, like, double-D’s or something--”

“Look, AJ, we’re looking for your sister, not for your next object of fantasy,” Ophelia scolded, trying to sound stern and failing.

“Can’t I do both?”

“No. Now, listen, we found out something.”

AJ became serious very quickly. “What is it?” he asked, concerned.

“S has been disappearing on the same days Emily has been, and around the same time.”

AJ gasped. “Oh my God, I bet I know what’s going on!” he gasped. “I bet… I bet they’re, like, running a drug ring or prostitution ring, and one of their clients threatened to turn them in to the cops, so they murdered him and chopped up his body and hid it in the foundation of a house that was being built nearby! Ophelia, we need to check out the foundations of the houses in the area!”

“No one will ever accuse you of having no imagination,” Ophelia remarked, rolling her eyes. “AJ, that is most likely not what’s going on.”

“Hold on, I’ve got a call coming through from Tiffani. As soon as I find out what this is about, I’ll call you up. Sounds good?” AJ asked.

“Yeah, great. This better be good, though.”

AJ ended his call from Ophelia and answered the call from Tiffani. “Yeah?”


“AJ,” Tiffani said slowly, “I have something weird to ask.”

“Not now, we’re in the middle of an investigation.”

“Nothing dirty,” Tiffani said dryly. “What kind of activities was Emily involved in?”

“When?”

“In previous years.”

AJ groaned. “Oh God, she did a lot. In elementary school, she was in the chorus and did a bunch of plays. I think she was even accepted into the official drama program for our state. Middle school… uh… did some plays, joined the chorus at a local community thing for a few years, was in the National Junior Honor Society at our school, and… uh… I’m pretty sure she was on the school newspaper team for a while. And in high school, aside from the news thing, she was on the school newspaper team for a while, was invited to the National Honor Society but turned them down, and… uh… damn. I think she might have tried out for basketball. She really used to like playing it, and she was decent, except, you know… she didn’t have the height for it. But for someone who’s, like, five-one or so, she was decent.”

“Christ, how did she have time to breathe?” Tiffani asked.

“No idea. She got a junk load of trophies for her grades and for being In all those programs.”

Tiffani grinned to herself. “Where are those trophies?”

“Living room or Mom and Dad’s room. Em made Mom take them out of her room. They were taking up too much space, apparently.”

“AJ, you’ve just helped out a lot. Thanks.”


“Yeah. Okay,” AJ muttered. He ended the call and then called Ophelia back up.

“Yeah?” Ophelia asked.

“That was Tiffani. She wanted to know what kind of activities Emily was involved in.”

Ophelia looked over at Cy, eyes wide. “What activities did she do?” she asked.

“Chorus, newspaper, NJHS, drama… lots of right-brained stuff that you’d be into.”

“Drama and music, hm?” Ophelia remarked.

“Yeah.”

“Thanks, AJ.” Ophelia ended the call and turned to Cy. “Let’s go get Tiffani and Angela. We need to check out S’s room. If we find what I think we will, everything should fall into place.”

“Great.”


Meanwhile, back at Frederick’s of Hollywood, Louie tugged at AJ’s sleeve. “Can we get out of here, please?” he begged.

“Why? I’m enjoying the view here,” AJ responded.

“I’m getting sick of people asking me if you and I are a couple,” Louie snapped.

“Fine,” AJ growled, rolling his eyes. “Ruin my fun. But you owe me big-time.”



“Hey, guys,” Ophelia greeted Angela and Tiffani. “Find anything good?”

Tiffani pointed to the stack of papers. “Drawings of clothes and rooms in houses. Also, a bunch of sketches of alleys and stuff.”

Ophelia flipped through the sketches. “They’re drawings, but not like you might have been thinking. This stuff isn’t very modern. This looks like stuff from… uh… somewhere between the 50s and 70s.”

Tiffani peered closer at the drawings. “Hey, you’re right.”

Ophelia smirked a little. “Does she have a bunch of books in here?”

“You know she does,” Tiffani replied, not getting what Ophelia was getting at.

Ophelia walked over to the bookshelf and scanned the shelves carefully. After a few minutes, she plucked out a book and tossed it to Angela, who clumsily caught it.

“Just flip to a random page and tell me what you see,” Ophelia directed.

Angela did. “Hm,” she murmured. “There’s an awful lot of comments in the margins. Parts highlighted.”

“And what is highlighted?” Ophelia continued, smirking.

Tiffani and Angela peered closely. It finally hit them. “OH!” Tiffani gasped.

“Right,” Ophelia replied.

“But how does S fit into this?” Cy asked.

Ophelia waved the book at Cy. “I bet that if we go to S’s house, he’ll have a similar book… and perhaps some related sheet music.”

“Right!” Tiffani cried out. “To the Cy-Mobile.”

“Yeah. But first… let’s go pick up your boyfriend. He’s up to no good.”

“What’s he doing now?” Tiffani asked.

“Hanging out in lingerie stores.”

“Again?”

“You mean he makes a habit of this?!” Ophelia asked. She raised an eyebrow. “You need to get a tighter reign on him.”