I got up, fumbled my way through the dimly lit rooms and down the hallway. I didn’t have a peephole, so I had to hope mimicry didn’t number among my enemy’s many skills.

“Who’s there?”

“Jolie,” my sister answered. “Let me in. I need to pee like a racehorse.”

I opened the door. An attacker might have been able to do Jolie’s voice, but the urination metaphor was a throwback to when we were kids, and I doubted that my almost-Ph.D. sister used it in a public context.

Fortunately, I was right.

Jolie and I hugged on the threshold, and she came in, carrying a name-brand suitcase.

“The place is dark as a tomb, I don’t smell food and you look like you’ve been rolling around in the sack with a man all afternoon,” she observed.

“Good to see you, too,” I replied.

Jolie made for the bathroom, while I set her bag in my room. I was smoothing the covers when she appeared in the doorway.

“Lillian looks bad,” she said. “She didn’t even recognize me.”

I’d forgotten, with all that was going on, that Jolie had planned to stop off at Sunset Villa on her way to my place. I’d also forgotten, I realized with a start, that she and I were expected at Greer’s for supper.

I nodded sadly. “It kills me, seeing Lillian like this. She was always so—Lillian.”

Tears stood in Jolie’s eyes. “I think she’s dying, Moje.”

My throat constricted. “Probably,” I managed to say. The word came out sounding like a croak.

“I called Greer from the car,” Jolie said, deftly turning the conversation in a direction both of us could deal with. “She’s under the weather, and wants to get together tomorrow night.”

I frowned. “Is it serious?”

“It sounded like a bad case of too much vodka to me,” Jolie said. “Greer’s really unhappy, isn’t she?”

“Miserably,” I agreed. I was hungry, and I knew Jolie was, too. No way I was having anything delivered after the chow mein experience, so I suggested we head for the nearest IHOP.

On the way there, in Jolie’s Pathfinder, I told her about the attack on Bert, Russell’s near-miss with the chow mein and the recorded phone message from Distorto-voice.

She took it all in, in her thoughtful way, then asked, “So what about the sex?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Don’t go into your tap-dance routine, Moje. I saw the tangled covers on your bed, and you’ve got a certain glow about you. With all that’s been going on, there can only be one explanation, and that’s multiple orgasms in the very recent past.”

I blushed. “Did you learn that in your forensics classes?” I dodged.

Jolie chuckled. “No. I learned it having good times with bad men. Was it the cop?”