Becca looked exactly the same as she had in elementary school, her Little Orphan Annie curls barely tamed. On through high school and college, she and Becca had been best friends, a pair of otherwise unaffiliated geeks whose friendship only grew from the days when they shared a trove of Barbie body parts and clothing and built a massive Barbie castle from cardboard boxes and tubes.

Emily grabbed her gear bag. She got out of her car, freezing for a moment as pain sparked across her instep. She locked her car and got into Becca’s. Becca watched, pointedly waiting until Emily buckled up. In a former life as an ER nurse, Becca had seen more than her share of needlessly maimed victims of car accidents. She still had a scrubbed-clean, nursey feel about her, and the inside of her car was spotless and smelled of Pine-Sol. Her Clutter Kickers shirt and pants were freshly ironed.

“You okay?” Becca asked. “You look—”

“I’m fine.” Emily really didn’t want to talk to Becca about her fight with Frank. Or their fertility test results. Becca was married to one of the kindest men on the planet and she’d pumped out two perfectly adorable children without breaking a sweat. Emily wasn’t proud of it, but at least she owned up to the jealous resentment she felt.

“And you’re limping.” Becca turned in her seat. “Is that a bruise?” She pointed to Emily’s cheek.

Emily pulled down the sun visor and looked at the mirror attached to the back. There was a black smudge on her cheekbone. She licked her thumb and wiped it off. “Schmutz. I was down in the basement.”

“I thought you were filming your closet.”

“I was. But I was in the basement, too. Frank’s piano guts assaulted my foot. You know, that thing inside a piano that looks like a harp? Weighs a ton? It wasn’t his fault. Really.”

“Really?”

Emily looked at her watch, though she knew what time it was. “Let’s go. We’re running late.”

Emily was grateful that Becca let it go at that. They were out of the parking lot and on the highway when Emily said, “So tell me about this client.”

“Ruth Murphy,” Becca said. “Retired bookkeeper. Says she’s friends with Mrs. Arnoldy.”

Susan Arnoldy had been one of their first clients. A friend of Becca’s mom, she’d rated just shy of moderate on the Hoarding Rating Scale. Becca and Emily had stacked and sorted a few hundred empty plastic containers in her kitchen. Poor Mrs. Arnoldy had broken down in tears when it came time to actually throw them away. What if she needed them?