The free-form pool centering the interior was big enough for exercising orcas. Bikinied women and men in swim trunks occupied ten percent of the seating. No one swam. The median age was midtwenties. Empty beer cans littered the fake lava-rock decking.

The Corey sisters lived on the third floor. One of two elevators was propped with a similar wooden block. The other failed to respond and we took the stairs.

Milo knocked on the door to 315. A male voice said, “Yeah,” and the door cracked. The bare-chested young man who stared at Milo’s badge said, “Uh.”

Twenty or so, six feet tall, he had long, curly, blond-tipped brown hair, square shoulders, and a patchily whiskered face. Good-looking kid if you discounted the confusion dulling every facial feature. Still, he’d do fine modeling in the kind of clothing ad that emphasized mental vacancy.

Milo said, “Police, may we come in?” and opened the door. The boy stepped aside, scratching his thigh. He wore white boxer shorts patterned with little red devil heads, nothing else. The area around his crotch looked starchy. The room smelled of sour sex, stale food, and weed. The cheap carpeting that came with the apartment was supplemented by an ankle-deep layer of wadded clothes, paper plates clotted with congealed food, empty cans, bottles divided between soda pop and vodka. The glass bulb of a bong protruded from a Jack in the Box take-out bag.

Milo said, “Are Ashley and Marissa here?”

“Uh …”

“Is it a tough question?”

The kid’s expression said he’d just been handed the physics SAT. Looking over his shoulder, he shouted, “Lo?”

From an unseen location at the rear of the apartment: “Wha?”

“Cops.”

“Wha?”

The kid stamped his foot. Unappealingly effete gesture. “Cahps!”

The third “Wha?” was accompanied by the appearance of a short, curvy girl towel-drying a mass of shiny black hair. She wore a flesh-colored bikini top and hip-riding shorts the color of scrambled eggs. A diamond that looked real pierced a navel that would have made any obstetrician proud. As she made her way through the detritus, a collection of bracelets circling her left ankle jangled.

Gorgeous girl with flawless bronze skin, petulant lips, ocean-blue eyes.

“Who the hell are you?” she demanded.

Milo asked to see the Corey sisters.

“They’re not here.”

“And you’re …”

“I’m not them.”

Milo smiled. “You’re Lo.”

“Laura,” the girl corrected.

Little Miss DUI, the incident in Daddy’s Bentley.

Milo said, “Laura what?”

“Laura Hot.”

The dull young man laughed. Milo’s glare silenced him. He sat down in the garbage.

Milo said, “You’re Ashley and Marissa’s friend—”

Laura jutted an adorable chin and bobbed her head. “I just seh-ed. They’re not he-ere.” Her speech cadence was rhythmic. Her father was in the record industry.

Sample a few seconds of her attitude, hand it to a rap-thug, and you might have a hit.

She rotated a hand. “La-ter. Buh-bye.”