I walked back inside the house. Grandma was eating cake, my father was looking lost, Val and my mother were crying, Mary Alice was running around neighing, and Angie was sitting primly at the table, probably wondering how this became her life.

Dickie followed me in and gestured. I sighed. "Why don't you take their bags in your car and go home, and we'll meet you there?" I said. "The girls can sleep in the guest room, and Val can have the fold-out couch in my office."

"Okay. I'll get it all set up. Good luck," he said, kissing me and disappearing into the hall to tackle the mountain of bags.

That man will do anything to get out of an emotional scene.

"But I thought that you two were perfect together," my mother said.

"I did too," Val cried.

I decided to take control. I managed to stop my mother and Valerie from their sobbing, and bundled Val and the girls into my car. My mother came after us with leftovers and cake, which I gratefully accepted. I think that Val and I were going to need a lot of cake.

The girls were quiet and I decided to go through the McDonalds drive thru on the way home since I wasn't sure that they'd eaten anything at my parent's house.

Angie and Mary Alice were looking tired. Mary Alice had even stopped galloping and was walking like a little girl. After they'd finished their Happy Meals, I took them upstairs and tucked them into our spare bedroom.

"Good night, Aunt Stephanie," said Angie.

"Good night, Aunt Steph, I'm glad we're with you," said Mary Alice. I gave her an extra squeeze. This had to be hard and confusing on the girls.

I checked on Dickie. He was hiding in his office.

"Is everything okay?" he asked me.

"I just put the girls into bed in the guest room. Thank you for getting it ready for them. Val is downstairs, I'm going to go talk to her."

"Okay. I've just got some work to finish off," he said.

I left him to his hiding and went downstairs to find Val. She was sitting on the sofa, staring off into the distance. I went into the kitchen for cake and brought us both out a piece.

"I'm sorry again about Steve," I told her.

"Oh Steph," she said. "I haven't even told you the worst of it. He left because he was cheating on me with our babysitter. Our eighteen year old babysitter. And then I got a call from the mortgage company saying that our payment failed, and there was no money left in our back account. Steve took all the money out of the account. He knew all about offshore accounts through our work and I think he's moved all our money to the Bahamas and gone over there."

"Oh no!" I said, appalled.

"So now I have to sell the house but I won't get anything back after the mortgage is paid back – Steve had mortgaged it for investing. And there's no money. What do I do? I haven't worked since the girls were born. I'm going to have to live with mom and dad forever." She burst into tears again. I didn't blame her. The thought of having to live with our parents forever made me want to cry too.

Val seemed like she had a perfect life California. I guess that no one's life was as perfect as it seemed. Val and I ate our cake while she talked.

"I had no idea that anything was wrong. I mean, Steve was at work a lot, at least that's what he said, but that wasn't unusual. He worked a lot. And he encouraged me to take the girls out and do things without him but – I later found out that was because he invited her over while I wasn't in the house, when he told me he was catching up on work from home. I feel like I should have known but I had no idea," Val said.

"You couldn't have known, Val, I mean Steve's a smart guy and he wanted to hide it from you," I said.

"I was so trusting. He handled all the money, I didn't pay any attention to it. Oh Steph. What will I do?"

"Why don't you go to bed now? There's a sofa bed in my office, you can sleep there. We can work out what to do in the morning," I said. While Val took a shower, I half tidied my office and pulled out the sofa bed for her, then went to get ready for bed myself. It wasn't late but it had been a long night.

I got into bed beside Dickie and snuggled up beside him. I gave him the update on what Val had told me. He was strangely quiet.

"I just can't believe it. How could Steve do that to Val and the girls? How could he do that to his family?" I asked. Dickie made a non-committal sound.

"You don't know why people do what they do, Steph," he said.

"It's just wrong, Dickie. I thought Steve was a good guy. Good guys don't do that to their wives," I said.

Dickie shifted, turning away. "I'm tired. I need to sleep," he said, turning his light off. I tried to sleep but tossed and turned for a bit. I felt so sad for Val.

The next morning, Dickie was already gone when I woke up, as usual. It was Saturday but Dickie didn't tend to do weekends and he definitely didn't do sleeping in. I reluctantly got out of bed, showered and went to check on the girls. They were still asleep. I went downstairs and got the coffee going.

I was sitting down with toast and coffee when I heard a noise on the stairs. I looked up, expecting to see the girls and not really prepared for what I saw in front of me. Val was coming down the stairs, dressed in a bright skirt and top, hair and make-up done.

"Good morning," she said chirpily.

I was still a bleary eyed and it took me a few seconds to focus.

"Uh… good morning," I said.

"I thought I'd come down and make pancakes. Doesn't it seem like a wonderful morning for pancakes?"

"It does?"

"I woke up and thought, now, Val, no point in being a gloomy gus. Things will turn out all right, you'll see. Now I just need to look on the bright side! Like, I get to be back in New Jersey with my family. And I don't have to clean that big house anymore. And… I can do anything I want! Like… wear purple nail polish! Isn't that great?"

Bless Val. I was glad that she was trying to look on the bright side but it was too early for me.

My phone rang. Morelli.

"Hello?"

"He's driving me crazy. And I need to go to work. You need to look after him."

"Bob?"

"No! Mooner! Bob is easy compared to Mooner. He keeps humming and he's all twitchy."

"He's twitchy? That doesn't sound like Mooner. He's usually more mellow."

"I flushed all his drugs down the toilet."

"That'd explain it then," I said.

"You need to babysit. I'm dropping him off," Morelli said, and hung up before I could say anything. Damn it.

"Morelli's going to drop Mooner over here for the day," I told Val.

"Walter Dunphy? I haven't seen him in years! Why is he staying with Morelli?" Val asked, stirring pancake batter. She'd also been humming. Maybe she'd get along with Mooner. She could bake and hum, and he could eat and hum.

I wondered where to start with explaining to Val why Mooner was coming here.

"Well, Mooner's friend Dougie is missing. And Dougie was working with Eddie DeChooch who Grandma is dating. Anyway, Eddie is a FTA which a Failure To Appear which is a fugitive because he was arrested for smuggling cigarettes, and we thought he might know where Dougie went. But then Morelli found a dead body in Eddie's shed, so now Eddie is on the run from that too. And we still haven't found Dougie. Then last night Mooner showed up outside the house saying that someone had shot him, so Morelli took him home for his own safety."

"I see…" Val said slowly. She looked like she might be taking "get to move back to New Jersey" off her list of good things. Probably things like that didn't happen in the gated community that she lived in with Steve. Probably only white collar crimes like emptying bank accounts into offshore accounts. Then she shook it off, perked herself up again and started cooking pancakes. You go, Val. Especially with those pancakes.

The pancake smell must have encouraged the girls to wake up, because they soon appeared down the stairs. Val gave them both a kiss, then poured them orange juice and put pancakes in front of them. She made looking after children look so effortless.

Val had just finished the second batch of pancakes and we were sitting down to eat when there was a knock on the door. I sighed.

"That'll be Detective Morelli, expert food blood hound," I said, and got up to let them in.

"Good morning," Val chirped as they came in the door. Morelli looked surprised. He probably didn't realise that chirpy and stoic run in my blood line. He dragged Mooner in behind him. Mooner looked like he was trying to escape or make himself invisible.

"Hello Val," Morelli said, pulling Mooner into a seat at the table. The girls stopped eating and looked up.

"Angie, Val, do you remember Joe from last night at Grandma's house? This is Joe, he's a friend of mine, and he's a police detective," I told the girls. Joe smiled at them. He could be alarmingly charming when he wanted to be, and he switched into unthreatening Uncle Joe mode. He'd had plenty of practise with his nieces and nephews.

Joe sat down next to Mooner and Val got up and served both up a plate of pancakes.

"Whoa, thanks Valerie," Mooner said, blushing a little. I guess Mooner had a leftover high school crush going on.

"This looks amazing, Val," Joe said. I thought about telling her that he loved any food that he didn't have to cook himself, but kept quiet. Val thanked them both, then sent the girls upstairs to wash their hands and brush their teeth.

"How much longer do you think we'll have to babysit Mooner?" I asked Morelli.

"Eddie DeChooch won't be out for too much longer," Morelli said. "Vinnie will get tired of Joyce not being able to find him, and Ranger is back now, so Vinnie will give DeChooch to him. Once that happens, we can try to get some answers out of DeChooch."

"Ranger is back?" I asked.

"Yeah, I think he got back yesterday. He's not big on details. But he agreed to let us question DeChooch if he brings him in," Morelli said.

"Who is Ranger?" Val asked. I looked at Morelli. How to describe Ranger? Tall, dark and handsome? That didn't seem to cover it. Tall, deadly and handsome? Possibly actually Batman? Someone who Morelli thought I should stay away from. Someone who I hadn't seen since he told me that my husband works for an arms dealer. Someone who doesn't get easily ruffled but was worried enough about me in Deal to call Morelli.

"He's Vinnie's bounty hunter," Morelli said. That too.

"Vinnie's good bounty hunter," I added.

"Yeah Joyce Barnhardt can't bring anyone in, everyone knows that," Mooner said, looking up from his pancakes. He looked a bit calmer after the pancakes.

"Joyce Barnhardt is a bounty hunter? Interesting," Val said.

"Well, I've got to get to the station. I'll be back to get Mooner later," Morelli said. He turned to give Mooner a pointed look. "No drugs, no leaving the house."

I got up to walk Morelli to the door.

Mooner relaxed as Morelli headed out the door. I'm guessing it was hard for him to be in the presence of a cop all the time. The girls came back down and we settled them and Mooner in front of the television. Val started rummaging through the cupboards – it seemed that her perky outlook on life involved a lot of stress baking. At least we had Mooner here to help eat our way through it all.