3 -We should turn around and go home because we would not be admitted to the patient’s room outside of visiting hours, and it was now after midnight.

I informed her, just as tersely, thank you very much, that we would be there within forty minutes and we were going to see Lillian. Not the next day at 2:00 p.m., but now.

The receptionist hung up with a bang. The phone was on Speaker, and Jolie had heard the whole thing.

“That woman is probably calling security at this moment,” my sister observed practically. “Hanging around with you, I’ll be lucky if I don’t get fired from the department before I set foot on my first crime scene.”

I would have rubbed my hands together in anticipation of a knock-down-drag-out confrontation if I hadn’t already been dialing Greer’s number. “Security? Please. I’ve seen the day guy, and he’s at least a hundred and fourteen years old. We can take him easy.”

Jolie smiled at the prospect. “I should have brought my makeup. Now I’m going to look bad in my first-ever mug shot.”

Greer didn’t pick up on her landline, so I tried her cell.

She answered with a blurted, “Mojo! Lillian is—”

“I know,” I broke in quietly. “Jolie and I are on our way to Sunset Villa now. ETA, about thirty-five minutes.”

“I just pulled into the nursing home parking lot,” Greer answered.

I raised an eyebrow. “It would have been dandy if you’d called us,” I said evenly.

Jolie, concentrating on the relatively light traffic, slanted me a sidelong look. The message was clear enough: Not now.

“Well, I assumed you knew,” Greer said, with a sort of impatient desperation. I heard her car door slam, the sound bouncing, night-muffled, from her phone to the satellite to my cell. “I’ll meet you in Lillian’s room.”

“Look out for security,” I said.

“Security,” Greer countered, sounding breathless now, as though she’d run part of the way from Scottsdale, “had better look out for me.”

I clicked off. “I wonder if they do group mug shots. You, me and Greer, booked and fingerprinted, holding up our little letter-boards. We could scan the picture and use it for a Christmas card.”

“I would appreciate it,” Jolie said evenly, “if you would not make jokes.” A tear slid down her cheek, glittering in the freeway lights. “Lillian could die. She might already be—”

“Sorry,” I said, for the sake of the peace. I loved Lillian as much as Greer and Jolie did, and I was only trying to cope. Sometimes my methods leave something to be desired, though, when it comes to sensitivity.

Jolie dashed at her cheek with the back of one hand. “I didn’t mean to snap, Moje,” she said. “I’m just scared.”

“Me, too,” I replied.