Eventually, Sophie noddedand Holly followed her lead."Still friends?" I asked, hoping the answer was yes."Of course," Sophie said. "But you're going t... have to dish the wholestory at some point." I will," I promised them. "But we'd better get back to the studiobefore Scott comes in looking for us."They smiled at my light-hearted joke. I hoped that this new knowledgewouldn't change our relationship. At least the two of them were in agood mood when we stepped outside to go back to work.---"I had. She knew exactly what Heather would say to their mother's brooding silence over dinner: their mother was upset at what happened, pained at what she was forced to do to prevent worse horrors from befalling her children."Bullshit," Melinda muttered as she rolled over to the side away from the door and fished under the bed. Melinda believed her mother was just in a quandary over how to keep hiding this from her father. He had been left bewildered through much of the meal as to why everyone seemed. He seemed to care about her and what she thought, in spite of knowing her only a few days. She thought of what must have lead up to his depositing such a lot of sperm on her panties; thought of how her knickers had probably felt so pleasureful against his hardness. She imagined him pressing her scent to his cheek as he listened to the sound of their lovemaking just the other side of the thin door.And finding the evidence of his arousal in her panties had been thrilling, not a turn-off. She had. I sensed a trap that I was powerless to derail, nolonger confident that Gloria had my best interests at heart. I donned a conservativegray suit, packed my service revolver and handcuffs, and headed off into thenight to carry out the instructions I dare not disobey. The GPS coordinates that Gloria had provided brought me to an old warehousebuilding near the waterfront. The late hour made the surroundings appear spooky,particularly since the building itself looked to be in a state of.