There has to be at least one other person involved. A person in a position to interview family members, find those who are amenable to a little murder to help the money flow from generation to generation more rapidly. A person who procures the victims to be delivered to Wanda’s kind ministrations.

Who could get to Flynn, Daniel, or Nancy, as well as the not-brother and/or Barbara Boster? Did the victims have a geriatrics specialist in common? A therapist? Psychiatrist? Car mechanic? Someone who routinely worked with, and was trusted by, elders and their family members?

Too many questions. Fatigue catches up with Rose. Closing her eyes against the pale orange, she relaxes her body.

Rose is sound asleep, the iPad on her stomach, when a scratching sound claws her into terrified wakefulness. Her first unworthy thought is that she wishes she hadn’t left the gun behind.

“Gigi? You better be in there.”

A moment of sleep-fog robs Rose of her short-term memory. It clears. Her night out with Eddie floods back. She renews her conviction that, lie though she must, she will not infect Mel with the truth about what she has done.

Mel opens the flap. At least, a creature with Mel’s voice shines a blinding cell phone flashlight in Rose’s eyes. From the clashing beams and the trampling of feet, Rose surmises Royal is with her.

Mel sits down with an audible thud. “You are in so much trouble, Gigi. I told you not to go anywhere without us.” Mel is much aggrieved. Angry, but not curious. Maybe she is miffed because Rose didn’t call her to let her know she was safely home from her fictional date with Brian the Lyft driver.

“What?” Rose says, hoping to sound innocent and slightly annoyed at being awakened. She glances at the glowing screen of Mel’s phone, flashlight now blessedly turned off. Ten forty-seven. She’s slept for over an hour.

“Dad’s coming home. Grandma Nancy is on the warpath. Uncle Daniel is stoned. The police are all over with lights and stinking badges.”

Rose’s mind whirls. Has she told them and forgotten?

“It was all on TV,” Royal explains. “They had hidden security cameras. They showed you doing … all that stuff.”

“Hidden security cameras?” Rose gasps. “That’s a trespass on patients’ rights to privacy,” she says indignantly.

“Maybe they thought they needed them now because somebody kept breaking in, drugging the night nurse, and snatching old men,” Mel retorts. “Oh, Gigi! How could you? That poor nurse—you held a gun on her.”

“Poor nurse, my aunt Fanny!” Rose flashes in self-defense. “That ‘poor nurse’ shot at me six times!”

“The gun wasn’t loaded,” Mel snaps.