"Just a minute," Candace called. "Who is it?"

"It's your mother, come to take you to lunch."

"All right! But you'll have to open the door because my nails are wet." When Dot opened the door Candace sat at the desk in the room, manicure supplies out in front of her. "Green glitter polish for Christmas. Isn't it cool?" She waggled ten shiny nails.

Dot smiled. "Lovely, dear. Do you need to wait for them to dry before we go to lunch?"

"Not for long. I can put fast-drying stuff on them and we can go in five minutes. I hope it isn't real cold out there because I don't want to put a jacket on yet." Candace looked at me behind her mother and waved. "Hi, Gracie Lee. Hi, Linnette. Do you want to borrow my nail polish?"

The thought of wearing green glitter polish made me giggle and I could hear Linnette reacting the same way.

"Not this time, Candace. My son, Ben, would think I was acting like a teenager if I came home with that on my nails. Do you have any silver? Maybe I can borrow that for New Year's Eve." Ben wouldn't be home next week and I could get a little crazy. Besides, since I had no plans to ring in the New Year with anybody, doing a manicure with the girls might be the most exciting thing I did next week.

"Lucy has silver. I bet she'd let you borrow it," Candace said. "I miss Lucy already. It's not much fun without her here."

"Well, she should be back soon. Maybe after Christmas she'll feel better and Estella will bring her back."

"I hope so. It's too quiet alone. And I'm tired of Tina's Barry Manilow Christmas alb.u.m already." Since I would have gotten tired of that after the first listen, I could sympathize with her. We went out to the cars, discussing the merits of various local restaurants for lunch. I had to defer to the others, because I didn't know much about Camarillo.

In the end we all piled into Dot's car and had a good time at a Chinese place not far away. They all laughed at me because I got so excited when I saw the appetizer section of the menu.

"They have crab rangoon. This is the first place I've seen out here that has it."

Linnette gave me an odd look. "Is it something special?"

"Yeah. They're delicious. Think of fried wontons with cream cheese and crab in them instead of meat. In St. Louis it's as easy to get as toasted ravioli."

Linnette started to say something but Dot laughingly waved her off. "Don't get her started on that. She described it to me once and it sounds revolting."

I shrugged. "Suit yourself. Maybe it's an acquired taste. There's nothing to compare it to in California so I don't try."

Now I felt really excited about lunch. I decided to get the appetizer instead of a lunch special. That meant I'd miss the cool sectioned rectangular dish lunch came in out here, almost as large as a cafeteria tray. The food on them is different, too; the first time I ordered egg foo yung in California it seemed to have been prepared inside out. By now I've gotten used to all the differences except the lack of crab rangoon.

Everybody ordered and we chatted and drank hot tea while we waited for the food to come. Dot asked Linnette if she knew where Tracy went. "Not a clue. She got a call and vanished. I wonder if she ever got in touch with either of the accountants Pastor George recommended."

"There's a girl with a lot of problems," Dot said. "I hope she doesn't lose the house."

"Why would that happen?" Linnette asked. "All she has to do is straighten out the business books and wait for Frank's insurance to pay out."

"That will cover the house payment, but what will she and those three kids do for living expenses now that Frank's gone? Her limited skills aren't going to do enough." Dot looked troubled, and I could see that the discussion was bothering Candace as well. She had her mom's soft heart for people.

Linnette gave Dot an odd look. "You're kidding, right? Frank Collins is probably worth a lot more dead than alive. Tracy shouldn't have anything to worry about."

Now I felt confused, too. "What do you mean? She's been acting like she didn't know where her next penny was coming from."

"That's odd. Frank owned his contracting company, didn't he?"

"For what it was worth. He was always one step away from losing everything the way he stiffed his suppliers and his subcontractors." Dot picked up her teacup as if she wanted to drown a bad taste in her mouth.

"Well, that's over now. To have his contractor's license as a sole operator, the state and his subs would have made him carry insurance to protect the business if he died. It would have to be in an amount big enough to cover any debts the business held, and pay a healthy sum afterward."

This had me thinking in a way that made it hard to enjoy the hot, crispy crab rangoon that came to the table just then. I imagine it was actually as good as Missouri crab rangoon, but I got too busy mulling over things in my mind to enjoy it.

While we drove Candace back to Rose House, she and Dot discussed the rest of the week. "Maybe you can come get me after I get off of work tomorrow night. It's so quiet without Lucy. I'd rather be at your house with my Dixie dog and you and Daddy."

"That sounds like a good idea. If you're there you can keep your father from sneaking Dixie and Hondo Christmas cookies." The mental picture of Candace as the cookie police made me grin in the back seat. It sounded like a job she could really warm up to.

When we got back to Rose House Kirsten was standing on the front porch. Her forehead was creased with worry. "Good, you're back. Something weird is going on and I'm trying to decide whether to call the police."

"What happened?" The feelings of unease that I'd had at lunch came roaring back.

"Estella Perez called here about ten minutes ago in a panic. She demanded that I tell her where her sister was, that she had to have her back right away because of a medical emergency. She was sure that Lucy had come here."

Dot looked as worried as Kirsten. "How could Lucy have gotten from her sister's house to here? It's got to be ten miles."

"And Lucy's sick besides. When Estella took her home with her she looked like she was coming down with the flu or something."

"Was she feverish?" One of my growing concerns today made me ask the question even though Linnette and Dot looked at me strangely.

"Flushed, maybe but it was more her complaint that she just hurt all over that made me think she was getting something nasty," Kirsten said. "But I still can't understand how her sister could think she made it all the way here."

Candace had been silent through our conversation but now she gave a long low sound that was almost a moan. "I promised not to tell but now I've got to tell. Matt has a motorcycle. He came by Lucy's work with it one day. I bet he found her and took her away on his motorcycle."

Dot looked at Candace in dismay. "Call the police, Kirsten. In fact, let Gracie Lee give you the direct number for Ray Fernandez. I think he will want to hear all this."

Dot was right, but my biggest concern was finding Lucy right now. If my suspicions were right the last thing she needed was a trip on the back of a motorcycle.

Chapter Nineteen.

Dot knew Estella's address and had no problems, since Lucy was missing, in giving it to me. She and Kirsten pretty much figured that confidentiality was out the window at this point. I knew that if Ray thought we were heading to Estella's he would order us away, so I had Kirsten make the call to him. She had the most complete information anyway. We left Lucy there with her and drove back to Rancho Conejo.

"Knowing that Matt has access to a vehicle changes everything. Maybe we've been too quick to defend him," Linnette said.

"I hope not. I still don't think that Matt having a motorcycle means he is a murderer. In fact I think it could explain why he's looked so uncomfortable all along. He wasn't supposed to have a vehicle."

"We can pray you're right, Gracie Lee." After that we were mostly silent on the quick drive. Since the church parking lot wasn't all that far from the address Dot gave me, I dropped Linnette off at her car. "Are you sure you won't just join me and go home? It's probably the smartest thing to do," she said as she got out of my car.

"I know it's the smartest, but I'm not going to leave Dot by herself over there and she insisted on going." I also needed to see this through to a conclusion somehow, and had the feeling that might happen very soon.

I pulled up right behind Dot, who was standing by her car. Ray hadn't arrived yet. "Do we wait here or go knock on the door?" Dot asked.

"I don't know. We don't want to spook her, but she shouldn't leave, either. Maybe we can offer to help look for Lucy."

We agreed on that and went to Estella's front door. She nearly slammed it in our faces once she saw who stood there outside her small ranch-style house. It looked like it could be one her family had lived in before the accident that changed all their lives. Small and tidy, it could have used a coat of paint over the aging stucco.

"What do you want? This really isn't a good time for a visit right now," she said, glaring.

"We thought we'd offer to help you find Lucy."

She looked startled. "How do you know about that? I haven't told anybody but Kirsten."

"We took Candace out to lunch today," I told her. "We got back to Rose House just after your phone call when Kirsten was trying to decide whether to call the police."

"She didn't call the police! This isn't a police matter."

"Don't you think it's too late to decide that?" I asked softly. "You know we need to find your sister quickly before she loses a lot of blood."

Estella's shoulders slumped. "How did you figure it out? Was it that obvious?"

"No, not really. I just heard and saw things with a different perspective than anybody else." I could hear a car door slam behind us and footsteps on the brick walk leading to the house.

Ray growled a couple words in Spanish that I was sure weren't in the beginner's book, even in an adult ed cla.s.s. "Mrs. Morgan, how did she involve you in this?" he asked. "Neither of you belong here."

Estella Perez stood straighter and her chin jutted out. "I'm glad they're here. In fact, Detective Fernandez, I don't think I'll agree to talk to you inside my house unless they stay." Judging from Ray's expression it was the last thing he expected to hear.

Ten minutes later we sat in Estella's living room, grouped on a sofa and love seat that had been new about the time Reagan left the White House.

"Am I the only one taken by surprise by all this?" he asked, waving a hand over the scene.

"Not totally. I thought about it early on, but pretty much dismissed the idea when Estella backed her sister up about not being able to have babies."

"Am I going to face criminal charges?" Estella wasn't the confident woman we'd seen before. She looked worn and far older than thirty.

"We'll have to talk about that later. It depends on how much you've concealed. Did you know that Seavers had a motorcycle?"

Estella sighed. "It's not a cycle, it's only a scooter. Just an old beat-up Vespa that's barely street legal. I made Lucy promise not to ever ride it with him when she told me about it."

"Still, that changes the entire focus of our investigation into Frank Collins's murder. Even if you don't face any charges regarding your sister, there will probably be some for withholding information during a murder investigation." Ray looked tired and even older than Estella. "Do you know the license plate number of the scooter?"

Estella shook her head. "I haven't ever seen it myself. But I bet if you ask my neighbors you'll find out that it was here in the twenty minutes I was gone to the grocery store at noon. I shouldn't have risked leaving her alone but she was asleep and I'd run out of several things I had to have."

"I hope your mistakes don't cost your sister her life." Ray looked like he was going to keep on with his lecture but his cell phone rang in his jacket pocket. "Fernandez." He listened for a few moments and asked a couple questions, nodding when he got the answers. Closing the phone and putting it back in his pocket, he scowled.

"That was Jeannie, reporting in after making phone calls. Seavers is not on the construction site like he should be. When his boss went to lunch Seavers got a phone call and he split. So much for Chambers being responsible for him."

"Now what do you do?" Estella looked even more worried than she had before.

"We put a description of Seavers, the motor scooter and your sister out to all black-and-white units and the citizen patrols. And we spread out through the neighborhood from here looking for them."

He gave me a sharp look. "And that 'we' I'm talking about refers to the county sheriff's department, not the other people in this room. Got it?"

"I hear you, Ray. Am I at least allowed to drive home?"

He sighed. "Make it a very direct route, Gracie Lee. I don't want you in trouble again."

Ray made more phone calls posting the information on Lucy, Matt and the scooter with a dispatcher. He cautioned Estella not to leave the area. "In fact, I'd recommend you stay right here in case your sister comes back. If that happens, call 911 first and me second."

Estella agreed that she would, and we went out to our cars. "Do you think he'll follow us to make sure we go straight home?" Dot asked me quietly.

"I wouldn't put it past him. But if we go in two different directions he can only follow one of us. Don't you have to go back and get Candace?"

Dot's eyes twinkled. "Actually, I do. Should I tell Detective Fernandez that?"

"It would explain why we aren't going the same way. That way he won't think right away that we're ignoring his directions." Dot went over to Ray's unmarked unit and stood by the driver's side door until he opened the window a bit. While she talked to him, I got in my car and headed in the general direction of my apartment. I didn't use the most direct route possible, but I didn't stray much, either. I have to admit I was driving rather slowly, using a few more side streets than usual and keeping an eye out for a blue motor scooter.

Down a street that seemed familiar for a reason I couldn't quite grasp, in the middle of the block in front of a house that looked much like its neighbors with its tan stucco front, clay tile roof and a straggly looking olive tree out front, I almost missed it. Close to the side of the house behind a rusting iron gate, parked on one of those swaths of concrete they called RV pads out here, there was a blue scooter. I drove past the house and parked two down, coming back on foot to investigate.

How common was a blue Vespa? I didn't want to call the police if this was somebody else's motor scooter. I could only imagine how Ray would react if several black-and-whites screamed up to this house only to find some poor, unsuspecting scooter owner. The gate stood slightly ajar, so I wasn't really trespa.s.sing by walking through, was I? A touch of the scooter told me it was still warm. If it wasn't Matt's, then somebody else had been out for a ride on a similar scooter.

I heard a woman's voice from the back of the house. She was yelling at someone. "Frankie, no! Where did you get that? Put it down." The name was familiar and so was the voice. When I looked around the corner of the house, Tracy Collins stood over the p.r.o.ne form of Matt Seavers. Between them on the ground lay a silver aluminum baseball bat. That frightened me, but what was even more frightening was Frankie, a gun in his hand, pointing it at his own mother.

Before anyone saw me I pulled back to the side of the house. For once I decided to follow Ray's advice. I pulled out my cell phone and called 911. It was only when the operator answered that I realized I didn't know the street address. Praying that it was on the front of the house, I got there as quickly and quietly as I could. One of the faded metal numbers hung by only one nail, but they were all there. I gave the address to the operator and told her to relay the message to Ray as well. I hadn't ever memorized his phone number, something that I promised myself I'd do at the next opportunity.

Going back to the corner of the house, the tableaux in front of me hadn't changed. Matt lay stretched on the concrete, not moving. Tracy, talking feverishly, stood very still while her son pointed a gun at her.

Frankie interrupted her. "You hit him with that bat before he even said anything, Mom. Why? What's going on?"

"I was protecting you and your sisters. Just like I have been all along. He's a bad man, Frankie. He's the one who killed your father."

"Is that why you called him on the phone and told him he had to come here or you'd turn him in to the police?" Frankie's slender shoulders trembled so that I could see the movement from twenty feet away. "I heard you call. And I heard the other call to Uncle Mike, the one where you told him that with Dad's insurance you could send all of us through college. I don't think he killed Dad, not unless you paid him to do it." Frankie choked out the last few words on the ragged note of a kid whose voice was changing almost as fast as his world.

"That's ridiculous. He's the one the police arrested. Either shoot him or put down the gun." Tracy took a step toward her son, who waved the gun at her and gave a strangled cry.

I could hear the slight sound of well-tuned cars on the street in front, and several car doors opening. Then the gate squealed open and I pressed my back against the rough stucco of the house to let three uniformed officers past. They were all shouting as they rounded the corner. "Police. Put the gun down. Don't shoot." Ray charged just steps behind them and I held my breath.

"Thank heavens you're here," I heard Tracy say in a loud voice. "This man tried to attack me and my family. He said something about finishing what he started. He was like a maniac."

"That's not true!" Frankie shouted. "He didn't say anything. You hit him with a bat. You killed him!"

"Whatever happened, holding that gun in front of four armed police officers won't help anything, son. We'll sort things out. You just put the gun down." Ray's voice was amazingly even and calm. I couldn't bear to look around the corner and see what was happening. Instead I prayed, fervently, for everybody involved. "Come on now. Put your arm down and take your finger away from the trigger. n.o.body wants to shoot or get shot here."

A clatter of something heavy on concrete relieved me so much I couldn't stand upright any more. The RV pad felt cool beneath me as I sat there long enough to draw several breaths. Then I got up on shaky legs and finally looked to see what was going on. Tracy, protesting loudly, was being restrained by one of the officers, while Frankie had been dragged away from where the gun lay on the pavement and pressed against the back wall of the house by another officer.

"Why are you doing this? I'm the victim here," Tracy shrieked. "My son is hysterical. He doesn't understand what he's saying. That man threatened to kill us!"

"That's not what happened," I said. "At least it isn't what Frankie said he heard and saw."

Ray knelt beside Matt's body where the young man still lay in the same position I'd seen him in ten minutes ago. He looked up at Tracy. "We'll know soon enough what really happened here. Seavers is still alive, even though somebody tried to brain him with this baseball bat. Once he's treated at the hospital we'll know who's telling the truth."

The officer who wasn't restraining anybody pulled a crackling radio off her belt and called for an ambulance. Tracy sat in an Adirondack chair on the patio, breathing hard and glaring at everyone now. Ray took a step closer to her. "I don't know whose story is true here, but you can help things by telling me the truth on one issue, Ms. Collins. When Seavers got here, was he alone?"