“You want to peep my tits, it’ll cost twenty.”

“Put on some clothes.”

“You got a warrant?”

“I’d like to keep this friendly.”

“If you’ve got no warrant, you can kiss my patootie.”

“Your call. We talk here or downtown.”

“Screw you.”

“Actually, you’re the one who’ll be screwed. I’ve got witnesses say you’ve been turning tricks.”

“Big fucking—”

“—deal,” Ollie finished. “That’s not why we’re here.”

“Yeah? Then how’d I get so lucky?”

“Buddy heard you singing, asked me to drop off a recording contract.”

An object smacked the door, then ricocheted onto the floor. Glass shattered.

Ollie looked at us, one brow cocked. “I’m coming in now,” he said.

“Suit yourself. I’ve got plenty more lamps.”

Ollie inserted and turned the key.

Nothing hit the door. No footsteps pounded the floor.

Turning his body, Ollie palmed the door open and stepped sideways as far as he could. Ryan and I drew farther back against our wall.

Aurora Devereaux sat propped among pillows and a chaos of bedding.

I fought to keep the shock from my face.

DEVEREAUX HAD ASTONISHING BLUE EYES AND BOTTLE-BLOND hair that started low on her forehead. Her dark brows arched high, then plunged to form a hairy patch over the bridge of a nose that was short and ended in upturned nostrils. Her thin lips were parted, revealing wide-spaced and very crooked teeth.

I recognized the combination of traits. Cornelia de Lange Syndrome, or CdLS, a genetic condition caused by a gene alteration on the fifth chromosome.

Inexplicably, I flashed on a name I hadn’t thought of in almost four decades. Born six days apart to women living in Beverly on Chicago’s South Side, Dorothy Herrmann and I were inseparable from the time we could walk until my relocation to North Carolina at age eight. We called each other Rip and Rap. Dorothy peoples all of my earliest childhood memories.

Dorothy’s younger sister, Barbara, had CdLS. In the old snapshots, Barbara is among us neighborhood kids, wearing a Christmas sweater too long for her arms, dressed as Bo Peep for Halloween. Always her face is split by a smile, shame over her odd features and her jack-o’-lantern teeth far in the future.

Except for the bad bleach job and the bad attitude, Barbara Herrmann would have grown to be Aurora Devereaux’s twin. Had she lived.

I was at university when I learned of Barbara’s suicide. Dorothy and I had kept in touch, but caught up in my own self-centered teen world, I’d been oblivious to hints of her sister’s growing depression. Or, wanting life to be rosy, I’d chosen to ignore them. Barbara was happy, always smiling. Nothing was wrong.

Should I have acted? Might visits, letters, phone calls have prevented Barbara’s death? Of course not. Her own family had been unable to do that. Still, my insensitivity haunts me.

Devereaux sat with her tiny hands resting on her upraised knees. From the length of her torso and legs, I put her height at that of your average middle-schooler.