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person.”
    Whoa! My mind scampered to gather up the information even as it tried to repel it. Then, just as quickly, my logical side put the brakes on my mental hysteria. Lots of people meet online, and if Brian was using a popular Internet provider and hanging out in regular chat rooms specifically to meet women, even with the millions of folks online, it stands to reason he might have come across these women. Especially if he frequented rooms that were geographically specific in their members.
    “Did he know the nurse?”
    “I don’t know. I haven’t asked him yet. He just said that he’d met one of the murdered women for coffee. He didn’t specify which or when, but it was before the nurse was killed.”
    A silence hung over us. I stared at Lil until she reluctantly looked me in the eye. “Don’t tell me—Perfect4u is a blond bombshell?”
    Lil’s nod was almost imperceptible, but it was a nod nonetheless. “Was, Odelia. Perfect4u was a blond bombshell. I think it’s time I put her to rest.”
    My brain did a quick U-turn and traveled from ewww to hmmm.
    “Not so fast.”

“He did what?”
    The question came from Greg, who was positioned in front of our patio grill, tongs in one hand, a beer in the other, his mouth dropped to the ground. There was a lot of that happening lately. The sizzle of cooking steaks filled the silence of disbelief that followed his question.
    “You heard me.” I was in the middle of shuttling place settings, condiments, and salad from the kitchen to the patio table as we talked. “Brian asked Lil to run away with him.”
    “That’s sick!” Greg drained his beer and put the bottle on the table. Knowing instinctively that this was not going to be a one- beer conversation, I twisted the top off another Sam Adams and placed it within his reach.
    “But Greg, he didn’t know Lil was his mother. He thought— thinks —she’s some hotsie-totsie sex kitten in her prime.”
    I was about to say more, but our back gate opened and in trotted Wainwright, towing Silas behind him at the end of his leash. Sometimes Silas and Billy would drop by and ask to play with Wainwright. Mostly they played in our back patio area, but once in a while Greg would let the boys take Wainwright to a nearby park. Not the one at the beach, but one just a block from the house that did allow dogs. Today, only Silas had come to the door looking for doggie company. Usually our back gate is locked, but in anticipation of Silas and Wainwright’s return, Greg had left it unlatched.
    “Hey, Silas,” Greg greeted him. “Did you two have fun?”
    “Yeah, it was awesome. There was a puppy there. A boxer, I think, named Amos. We played with him.”
    “That’s Ted and Sophie’s new dog,” Greg told him. “They live over on the next street.”
    I disappeared into the kitchen and came back with the last of the menu items, a couple of piping-hot baked potatoes. I plopped one down on Greg’s plate and the other on mine.
    “Want to stay for dinner, Silas?” I asked as the boy unleashed Wainwright. “We have plenty.”
    The boy shook his head. “Thank you. But I have to get home. My grandma is expecting me.”
    “You can call her,” Greg added as he pulled the steaks off the grill.
    The boy looked at the meat with hungry eyes but shook his head again. “Thanks, but I can’t.”
    I smiled at him. “Maybe another time you can plan ahead to stay and eat with us. Billy, too.” He smiled shyly back.
    Silas and Billy lived with their grandmother several blocks away in a run-down two-bedroom home. Greg and I weren’t quite sure what the situation was, and the boys never talked about their parents. When they started coming to our house to play with the dog a few months ago, Greg insisted on meeting the grandmother and giving her our address and telephone number. Marylou Smith was her name, and at the time she didn’t appear to be in the best of health, but the boys were always polite, clean, and cared for.
    As