I arrived back at Emma’s before anyone else had returned, which was a good thing, because somebody would probably have seen fit to lecture me about the risks I took in leaving the apartment, and Hilary definitely would have mocked the wig. She didn’t believe in platinum blond for anyone but herself.

E-mail yielded no messages from Man of the People, nor did the Internet or TV provide any news of interest. I wanted to call Peter, but there wasn’t a safe way to reach him, even if I had known what to say. By the time my friends started drifting in, the sun had set, I’d finished the second bag of chips I’d started that morning, and I was alternating between eyeing the leftovers from the previous evening and eyeing the lonely pint of aging Häagen-Dazs in the freezer.

Jane’s timing was superb. I’d just concluded that cold pad Thai would add some much-needed carbs to my all-carb diet when her key turned in the door. She had stopped to pick up groceries and announced that she would be creating a Mexican feast. “We can have dinner and discuss what we all found out today.”

This sounded like a reasonable plan, but I realized with regret that I wouldn’t be able to do the promised meal justice if I started in on the leftovers. It was easier to make this decision once I saw that Jane had gone to the trouble of buying avocados and chilies for fresh guacamole. “Let me help,” I offered. “I can smush the avocados. It will be both productive and cathartic.”

She didn’t even stop to think before she answered. “No. Even though there aren’t any sharp objects involved, you carry some sort of food preparation hex around with you. Things always go wrong when you try to help.”

“Nothing went wrong the time that I helped with the-” I searched my memory for a time when nothing had gone wrong but came up empty. I changed tacks. “How am I supposed to get better if nobody will let me practice?”

“I don’t know. But you’re not going to practice on any of us, let alone my unborn child.”

Hilary came in right then and deposited her own collection of shopping bags on the table. “Speaking of unborn children, I picked up some tequila.”

“What does that have to do with unborn children?” I asked.

“Nothing, really. But the good news is that because of Jane’s unborn child, she won’t drink, so there’ll be more tequila for us.” She pulled some limes out of one of her bags. “Salt or no salt, Rach?”

I looked at her blankly.

“For your margarita?”

Emma and Luisa arrived as Hilary was lining up drink ingredients on the kitchen counter. “Margaritas-perfect,” said Luisa. “I think I’m going to need a stiff drink to get through all this.” She held up a stack of hand-labeled DVDs.

“What ‘all this’is that?” asked Jane, turning from the stove where she was doing something complicated with peppers and onions.

“Recordings of news programs on all of the major networks and cable news channels from six to seven on Tuesday night. It took the guy at my firm a while to dig them all up and put them on disk for me.”

“So I guess that means we won’t be watching The O.C. tonight?” asked Emma.

“It hasn’t been the same since the first season,” I said sadly.

“I know, but I still have such a crush on Seth.”

Jane began assembling chicken enchiladas with a tomatillo and sour cream sauce, Hilary mixed a pitcher of margaritas, and Emma was deemed sufficiently competent to make guacamole. Luisa retreated to the window at the far end of the loft to smoke, and I sat and waited for dinner to be ready.

The margarita Hilary handed me was tart but mostly just strong. It only took a few sips before I found myself coming clean about my day’s outing. I did get a scolding, as expected, with Jane tag-teaming Emma and Luisa. Hilary was more interested in the dark-haired stranger in the suede jacket, but this topic was quickly exhausted given how little I knew about him, so she turned back to Jake and Annabel.

“They were really an item? The same Jake from work, your Mr. Just-a-Nice-Guy-from-the-Office Jake?” she clarified.

“It’s a small world, and he is just a nice guy from the office,” I said. It didn’t seem worthwhile to mention his questioning look and the awkward moments after he noted the absence of my engagement ring-I was still processing that myself. “His relationship with Annabel was apparently nothing serious, not to mention a long time ago,” I said instead. “And it was actually sort of touching how embarrassed he was about getting dumped.”

“I think it reflects well on him that he’s able to stay friends with an ex-girlfriend, that she would turn to him when something terrible has happened,” said Jane. She had a tendency to see most glasses as half-full.

Hilary used a finger-down-her-throat gesture to indicate that this sort of talk was likely to make her ill. She had a much more cynical view of human nature.

I helped myself to some chips and guacamole. “Enough about Jake,” I said. “Jane, did you get anything on Naomi? Jake says Annabel’s scared of her, that she thinks Naomi’s the killer and is going to come after her next, but maybe she’s just trying to deflect suspicion away from herself.”

“I don’t know about Naomi going after Annabel, but she does seem worth exploring further,” Jane said. “I went up to Caldecott’s and was able to track down the teacher I know without too much trouble, and we arranged to meet for a late lunch. That place is quite the institution, by the way. I think I was the only person who didn’t arrive in a limo or a chauffeured SUV. And there was some serious bling going on with the mothers doing the dropping off.”

“That was probably just the nannies,” said Emma, herself a product of a Manhattan private school.

“Does anybody actually say ‘bling’ anymore?” asked Hilary.

“Nobody on the Upper East Side ever did,” I told her.

Jane cast a wistful glance at the pitcher of margaritas. “Anyhow, I met up with Alex-my teacher acquaintance-at one, and it was pretty easy to turn the conversation to Naomi. I guess Caldecott has a couple of scholarship students, but for the most part all of the kids’ parents are fabulously wealthy and are always trying to outdo each other at fund-raising events. Which makes Naomi Gallagher a bit of a rarity. Not only does she not have the resources to oneup anybody at the next school auction, this wasn’t the first time she was late with the tuition for her daughter, and she’s been pretty vocal about her ex-husband being the problem. She’s referred to him as ‘my ex, that stingy schmuck,’so many times in her conversations with the finance office that the term ‘stingy schmuck’ has become a running joke with the Caldecott faculty.”

“That strengthens Naomi’s motive,” I said. “Her needing him to cough up his child support was nothing new.”

“Wait, it gets better.”

“What could be better than ‘stingy schmuck’?” asked Hilary.

“On Monday afternoon, Naomi came in person to drop off the check she’d gotten from Gallagher. She must have come straight from his office. And guess what she said to the headmistress?”

“‘I’m going to kill the stingy schmuck by poisoning one of his stupid pencils, so you won’t have to worry about the tuition being late ever again, and then for good measure I’m going to push his secretary in front of a moving subway train?’” I guessed.

“Close,” said Jane. “She said that she was confident that there wouldn’t be any further problems with the tuition.”

“That is pretty good. But it would be better if she’d said the part about killing him and Dahlia.”

“Sorry, Rach. But I did find out where Naomi lives and also where she works. I thought I’d try to track her down tomorrow. She has a scary reputation-apparently the phrase used most in the faculty lounge is ‘total bitch’-but maybe I can sound her out a bit more about her ex and about Dahlia. And about you, to see if she knew enough about you to frame you.”