“Where are you?” Becca sounded breathless. In the background, Emily could hear a piano laboring.

“The Murphys’ storage unit. How’s ‘Für Elise’?”

Becca ignored the question. “Listen. I’m glad I caught you. I just talked to a potential client. She said she called last week but no one got back to her. I don’t know how we missed that. She asked if we could go over and see her. Now.” Becca paused. “I told her no. We don’t work Sundays and we don’t work nights. She said there were extenuating circumstances.”

“What extenuating circumstances?”

“Reading between the lines, I think it’s about her husband. Right now he’s out of the house. I told her no. Sorry. I mean, we can’t turn on a dime. Then, after I hung up, I get a call.” Becca lowered her voice, “This is Ryan Melanson the third.” It was a pretty good imitation of Frank’s law partner’s resonant bass. “He was calling on that woman’s behalf, begging us to reconsider. He says she lives in Mandarin Cliffs and she’ll pay double whatever we usually charge, and that he personally vouched for us.”

“Ryan recommended us?” Emily was shocked, because she and Ryan Melanson had barely spoken since the last time she and Frank had had Ryan and his then-wife over to dinner. Emily had been in the kitchen chopping onions when she smelled Ryan’s whiskey-scented breath and felt his hand cup her behind. She’d whirled around and jabbed the knife point into his belly, nicking the fabric of his black silk shirt, and told him to back off or she’d rip off his testicles. Surely even thick-skinned Ryan would know that his personal recommendation wouldn’t cut any ice with her.

Maybe Becca’s desperate caller was a new woman in Ryan’s life. Or perhaps an old flame. He’d had a bonfire of those. Whoever she was, it sounded as if she shared his sense of entitlement. On the other hand, she and Becca did need more clients. Just the other day, Frank had suggested that they market their services to a wealthier clientele. Post ads on the community bulletin board at their nearest Whole Foods. Wealthy clients could be more demanding, but they’d be less likely to balk when it came time to pay.

“She’ll pay double?” Emily said.

“Exactly. Plus, bird in the hand. So I thought I’d better run it by you before I left it at no.”

With its fancy homes and winding lanes, Mandarin Cliffs might as well have been another universe, but it wasn’t all that far from Emily’s neighborhood. And a house in Mandarin Cliffs was likely to be air-conditioned, Emily thought as she wiped her face and neck with her shirttail. “Well, we didn’t say when on Monday we’d get back to Mrs. Murphy.”