“Your teeth look great, Val.”

“I’m confused.”

“About Albert?”

Valerie rested her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand. “Do you think he’s boring?”

“He’s too funny to be boring. He’s like a puppy. Sort of floppy and goofy and wanting to be liked.” He could be a little annoying, but that’s different from boring, right?

“I feel like I need a hero. I feel like I need to be rescued.”

“That’s because you weigh four hundred pounds and you can’t get out of a chair by yourself. After you have the baby you’ll feel different.” Okay, so I was being a big fat hypocrite again. I felt the same way as Val. I wanted to be rescued, too. I was tired of being brave and semicompetent. Difference was, I refused to say it aloud. I suspected it was a basic instinct, but it felt wrong somehow. For starters, it felt like a terrible burden to dump on a man.

“Do you think Albert is at all heroic?” Valerie asked me.

“He doesn’t look like a hero, but he gave you a job when you needed one and he’s stood by you. I guess that’s sort of heroic. And I think he’d run into a burning building to save you.” Whether he’d get her out of the building is another issue. Probably they’d both die a horrible death. “I think you’re doing the right thing by not getting married, Val. I like Albert, but you don’t want to marry him just because Mom’s in favor of it, or because you need a second income. You should be in love and you should be sure he’s the right man for you and the girls.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s love and what’s only indigestion,” Valerie said.

I left Valerie with the macaroni salad and drove to the office.

Connie looked around her computer screen at me when I walked in.

“Well?” I asked. “Are you married?”

“No. It turned out to be a joke photo. I caught the ten o’clock out of Vegas.”

“And the room damage?”

“It all went on Vinnie’s credit card. Vinnie almost popped a vein when he heard. But then the reporters started showing up and Vinnie was distracted. The room bill got pushed on a back burner. You saved Vinnie’s ass. You even made him look good. The visa bond worked. The guy fled. We found him.”

“Actually, the Vegas cops found Singh.”

“Not when Vinnie tells it. Vinnie’s made some improvements on the story. So we all still have our jobs. Vinnie’s not going to be selling used cars in Scottsdale. Everybody’s happy.”

Everybody except me. I was being stalked by a lunatic. And it was possible that I was indirectly responsible for causing three murders.

“Now that Singh is off the books, I’ve got a backlog of skips,” Connie said. “What would you like . . . first-time rapist, repeat domestic violence, assault with a deadly weapon, or possession?”

“What’s the possession?”