“How you live with yourself?” Missy yelled, and Yolanda glowered.

“I bet she’s dead right now because a you.”

Mary was stricken. Judy caught her eye. Anne cowered in the rear.

Bennie turned, her cheeks flushed. “DiNunzio, are these women speaking a language you understand, or are they merely delusional?”

“I understand,” Mary answered, miserably. Trish. Gone. “Don’t throw them out. I know them from high school.”

“You feel safe with them?” Bennie frowned. “Fine. DiNunzio, I leave this situation to you. I have a case to try.”

“Okay, sorry, thanks.” Mary nodded, and Bennie turned to Giulia.

“You. Go to the reception area. She’ll call you when she’s ready. Do what I say or leave.”

“Whatever.” Giulia turned away and pivoted on her spike heel, and Missy and Yolanda followed suit, all of them stalking off, trailing a crowd of perfume and adrenaline. Bennie and the associates watched them reach the reception area.

Judy couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Those girls are wack.”

“They’re girls?” Anne finger-combed her hair back into place.

“Sorry.” Mary picked up Judy’s clog and handed it to her. “Thanks for the help.”

Bennie shook her head. “Is everybody okay?”

“Fine,” Judy and Anne answered.

“Thanks.” Mary scooped up her purse, while Judy retrieved her briefcase. Anne got the Dunkin’ Donuts cup, mopping up the spilled coffee with the newspaper.

“DiNunzio, I’m surprised you agreed to meet with them.” Bennie frowned. “I wouldn’t reward that behavior. I’m still not sure you’ll be safe.”

“I’ll be fine. They’re just emotional.”

“Hormonal,” Judy said.

“Certifiable.” Anne looked up from the wet rug. “You shouldn’t be around them. You could catch really bad taste.”

“They’ll settle down.”

Bennie motioned to Judy. “Stay with her, Carrier. Don’t leave her alone with them.”

“Okay.”

Bennie put a soft hand on Mary’s shoulder and looked at her in a way that was almost maternal. “Don’t let them push you around, understand? They’re not worth one ounce of you.”

The boss never talked that way, and Judy and Anne looked over in surprise. But Mary barely heard the praise, engulfed by guilt. She flashed on Trish, crying in the office, her life dependent on a gun and the Pink Sisters.

Gone.

CHAPTER SEVEN

T he Mean Girls were no longer homicidal by the time they all sat down at the conference table, and Mary could see the individual differences in them that she’d missed when they were trying to kill her. Giulia looked Italian, with large, warm brown eyes, a biggish nose, and full lips, each feature a bold stroke on an olive-skinned canvas, like Botticelli on acid. Missy Toohey had small, light blue eyes, a little nose with the tiniest bump, and heavy foundation that obliterated a freckled complexion, as if she were erasing her Irishness. Yolanda Varlecki looked like a working-class Angelina Jolie, with round brown eyes in perfect symmetry with a lovely nose and lips like hot dogs.

Mary began, “So tell me why you say she’s missing.”

“How about you tell us why you blew her off?” Giulia’s eyes flashed with anger. “She came to you for help, Mare. You’re from the neighborhood. You too good for us now?”

Mary’s mouth went dry. “I didn’t blow her off. I told her I’d take her to court but she didn’t want to go.”

“She was worried he’d kill her. Now maybe he did. Ya happy?”

Judy raised a warning hand. “That’s enough. Whatever happened, it’s not Mary’s fault and you know it.”

Giulia shot back, “Shut up, you don’t know me at all.” Then she fixed her dark gaze on Mary. “Alls I know is, my best friend’s missing and I don’t know what to do about it. Her mother’s outta her mind from worryin’. We’re all sick about it.” She glanced irritably around the conference room. “What’s the deal? Can I smoke in here?”

“No,” Judy answered, and Giulia’s eyes glittered.

“I don’t like you, girl.”

“Love is all around.” Judy flashed her a peace sign.

“Giulia,” Mary broke in, “tell me what happened, as best you know. It was Trish’s birthday, right? And he had some kind of surprise?”

“Yeh. We thought he was gonna propose, and she was afraid because she didn’t want to say yes. The only way she’d accept is if he put a gun to her head.”

Mary felt a chill, bone deep. “Do you know if he was taking her out to give her the surprise? Or was he bringing it home?”

“They never shopped for a ring, but I dunno. Wait. Lemme think.” Giulia calmed down as she sorted out her confusion. “She called me at seven o’clock, all nervous that he’d be home any minute. Now that I think about it, she did mention they were going out.”

“Okay. Did she say anything else?”

“We set it up so she’d call me after the surprise, to let me know if she could go out to celebrate.”

“Would he let her do that?” Mary asked, surprised.

“No way, never. We only said it so she had an excuse to call me after she got the surprise, so I’d know she was okay.”

Mary’s heart ached at the scheme set up by these women, desperate to protect themselves.

“But she never showed up and she never called. We called her cell about a million times and her house. Then we went and stopped by her house and she wasn’t home. Neither was he. We chilled there awhile and-”

“Where? At her house?”

“Yeah, I have keys. I used to go over there a lot, borrowin’ clothes. So anyway we went to T’s house but she never showed up, and then we went home. She never even went on the computer. We IM each other at night but I didn’t get nothin’ from her. No e-mail, no IMs. Nothin’.”

Mary understood why the Mean Girls had behaved the way they had. This was the worst-case scenario.

“None of us slep’ a wink.” Giulia turned to the others for confirmation, and they nodded unhappily. “So we went back over her house this morning, and she still wasn’t home, so we called the cops.”

“Good,” Mary said.

“Not really.” Giulia snorted. “We told ’em what happened, and they said she mighta eloped, which we know she didn’t. They said they couldn’t do nothin’ about it because it wasn’t forty-eight hours yet. They said, what if they went on a vacation? Or a cruise?”

“You believe that?” Missy muttered, disgusted. “They were all about that baby girl who got kidnapped, Amber Alert.”

Mary didn’t enlighten her. “Giulia, did you tell the police that he was in the Mob?”

“Totally. We thought it would get them interested, but with that dumb baby, it’s like T don’t even matter.” Giulia threw up her hands, nonplussed. “They had like fifty million phones ringin’. The cop said, if she isn’t a little kid or an old guy, she has to wait the forty-eight hours.”

Yolanda shook her head, gravely. “T’s dead, I can feel it. I had a dream.”

Mary’s gut tightened, but she knew enough not to ask anybody from South Philly about their dreams. She wanted to finish today. “You called the salon, and she’s not there?”

“We didn’t have to call. We all work there. T got us our jobs. She didn’t show up today, and we didn’t either. The boss said it was okay.”

Yolanda sniffed. “On the other hand, if we don’t show, the world don’t end. We only do manicures, except for G, who’s gettin’ into waxin’. She’s movin’ up. Or down.”

“Shut up!” Giulia shoved her, but didn’t miss a beat. “Mare, if T didn’t go to work, something’s wrong. She’d never ditch a full book. Plus it’s not like her. No matter how hungover she was, she always went in. I’m scared, Mare. Real scared.” Giulia’s eyes glistened, and she wasn’t so streetwise anymore. She was just a girl whose best friend could be dead. She wiped her eye with the side of an index finger, and Mary handed her a Kleenex box from the credenza, but Giulia waved it off. “I’m not cryin’.”

“It’s to wipe your mascara, then.”