"Yes," Mendez said, rolling his eyes as he raised his hands clear of Anne. "Bill and I went to talk to her and tell her the news. She demanded we bring her here to see Haley. She's the girl's scary G.o.dmother or something. The kid woke up and started screaming, but Mrs. Bordain is the closest thing we've got to a relative so far."

"She's not exactly having a calming effect," Vince said dryly. Milo Bordain, early- to mid-fifties, tall, blond, dressed to the nines, stood well back from the bed, horrified, one hand pressed to her chest as if to hold her heart in.

Mendez shrugged. "The woman doesn't know what to do. Like I said: The doc thinks the screaming could be a sign of brain damage. We know the girl was strangled unconscious. Who knows how long her brain was deprived of oxygen."

"Did you call Child Services?"

"Yeah," Mendez said, carefully avoiding Vince's stare. "No sign of them."

"Maybe you should call again," he said pointedly.

"Oh, for G.o.d's sake," Anne muttered. She pushed past them both and went into the room.

Vince poked Mendez in the chest with a finger, p.i.s.sed off. "I don't want her involved in this."

Mendez shrugged, feigning innocence. "Then why did you bring her?"

"I ought to kick your a.s.s, Junior."

"Yeah, maybe Bill will hold your walker for you while you try that, Old Man."

"Ha-ha. You're a laugh riot," Vince said sarcastically. He glanced into the room to see his wife reaching out a hand to Haley Fordham. "You're not the one holding her after the nightmares," he said quietly.

Mendez had the grace to look contrite. "Jeez, I'm sorry. I didn't think of that. She seems okay."

"She's not."

"I'll call Child Services."

"You do that."

Mendez went in search of a phone.

Vince stared into the little girl's room, thinking it was already too late.

Anne stood close to the bed, her arms around the sobbing child clinging to her for dear life.

21.

Anne walked into the hospital room, Haley Fordham's screams piercing her eardrums. She went straight to the doctor standing at the foot of the bed, a small dark-haired man with a close-cropped beard. He was making notes in the chart, strangely calm, considering the state the child was in.

"Anne Leone," she said, holding out her hand. "I'm a court-appointed special advocate. Detective Mendez asked me to come."

That sounded very official, at least, she thought, even though there was nothing official about it. They were circ.u.mventing protocol in about eight different ways. There was no one from Child Services present. Anne had not been a.s.signed to Haley Fordham's case. She hadn't spoken to her supervisor to apprise her of the situation. She didn't know if relatives had been notified. The list went on. But in her heart her only concern was for the terrified child in the bed.

"Dr. Silver," he said, clipping his pen to the chart and shaking her hand.

"Why are you letting her scream like this?" she asked. "Isn't there something you can give her to help her calm down?"

"She's just coming out of a coma. She hasn't responded to anyone. It's as if we aren't here. This sometimes happens with brain injury patients," he explained. "She probably doesn't even realize she's doing it."

Anne looked from the doctor to the child and back. "I'm sorry," she said calmly. "You're an idiot."

She didn't bother to care that Dr. Silver was offended. She didn't bother to introduce herself to the well-dressed older woman standing frozen in shock along the wall. She went alongside the bed to the head of it, where Haley Fordham was curled into a ball, shrieking.

"Haley?" she said softly, reaching her hand out to the little girl. "Haley, sweetheart, you're all right. I know you're scared. You don't need to be afraid, honey. We're all here to help you."

Still screaming, the child looked up at her. Her eyes were entirely bloodred, petechial hemorrhages filling the whites of her eyes around the dark iris and pupils. It was a result of the strangulation, but even knowing that, Anne was startled at the sight.

"It's okay," Anne murmured, brushing the girl's damp dark curls back from her forehead. "It's okay, Haley. You're not alone. I'm here for you."

The screams subsided as the little girl looked up at her. Her breath caught and hiccupped and stuttered in her throat. She was trembling, dressed only in a flimsy hospital gown. White tape held an IV catheter in place in her tiny arm.

The bruises on her throat were purple. Anne felt her own throat tighten. She knew exactly how it felt to be choked, to look up into the face of the person trying to take her life away from her. Had Haley known the person doing that to her? How confused and terrified she must have been.

Her mother had to have been dead by then. No mother would have stood by and allowed someone to harm her child this way, no matter how dire the circ.u.mstances. Haley had been all alone with her killer.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart," she whispered, continuing to stroke the girl's hair. "I'm so sorry."

Slowly Haley came up on her knees and reached her arms out. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. She tried again, croaking out a scratchy sound.

"I can't hear you, honey," Anne said, bending down close.

Haley wrapped her arms around Anne's neck and the word came out in a whisper as the tears began again.

"Mommy."

Anne's heart broke for the little girl. She held her close and rubbed her back and kissed the top of her head, offering as much comfort as she could.

Finally the woman draped in Gucci and reeking of Chanel moved forward.

"Thank G.o.d someone has a magic touch," she said softly. "I had no idea what to do. I've never seen anything like that."

"She's terrified," Anne said, irritated that neither this woman nor the doctor seemed to have been able to figure out something so simple.

"She wouldn't even look at us," Bordain said. "It was like she was in her own world."

In her own world where she was watching her mother be butchered and was helpless to escape the killer, Anne thought.

"Did you know Marissa?"

Anne glanced at her. "No. I never met her."

"But Haley went to you," the woman said, bemused.

Milo Bordain, Anne realized, doyenne of Oak Knoll society. Anne had seen her picture in the paper many times-photographs from various charity fund-raisers and the summer music festival. She was a tall, handsome woman in her fifties. Her features were just a couple of steps this side of masculine, but perfectly made up. Marissa Fordham's sponsor, Vince had said.

A woman who had probably spent time with Haley-at least in proximity to her. But not quality time, Anne guessed. She had not one hair out of place, but sc.r.a.ped back against her skull and pulled into a flawless, tight chignon at the base of her skull. She wore a beautifully patterned silk scarf draped artfully around her broad shoulders over the top of her camel-hair blazer, pinned in place with a jewel-encrusted brooch. Chocolate brown kid gloves and a pair of perfectly pressed black slacks completed the picture.

"Mommy!" Haley wailed, burrowing her face into Anne's shoulder.

Anne rocked her and shushed her, and stroked her hair.

"I don't understand," Bordain said, hurt. "I've known Haley since she was a baby. She's like a granddaughter to me. It was like she didn't even recognize me."

Haley's cries were building toward another crescendo.

Anne cut the woman a look. "If you don't mind," she said. "I'm a little busy here."

Offended, Milo Bordain drew herself up to her full height-she had to be six feet tall, if not a little more-and looked down her patrician nose at Anne.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Yes," Anne replied. "I just don't care. This isn't about you."

Bordain left the room without another word. Anne watched her through the gla.s.s wall as she marched up to Cal Dixon and Vince to file her grievance.

Later, Anne thought, she might feel a little guilty for being rude to the woman. But for now, she cared only about the child in her arms.

22.

It was well past midnight before Mendez climbed into his own car and drove out of the sheriff's office parking lot. He and Hicks had hung around the ICU, hoping for a chance to have Haley Fordham make all their lives easy by simply telling them who had attacked her and killed her mother. No such luck. His clever call to bring Anne in had backfired on him in more ways than one.

Vince was p.i.s.sed off at him. And once Anne had connected with Marissa Fordham's daughter, there had been no getting near the child.

He should have foreseen that. Anne had been like a tigress with cubs protecting her students who had discovered the body of Lisa Warwick. She wouldn't let anyone-not him, not Vince, not the kids' own parents-push them. She would be no different with Haley Fordham. Her first priority would be the child, not the investigation.

Still, it seemed the smartest way to go-to keep Marissa Fordham's daughter within the law enforcement family, a more controlled environment with the watchful eyes of trained professionals on her. If Child Services fostered her out, they would lose control of her to a certain extent.

Of course, the woman from Child Services who had finally showed up at the hospital had been furious at the breach of protocol, and had demanded a meeting with all concerned parties and a family court judge the next day regarding the placement of Haley Fordham. Dixon himself would go to represent the interests of the SO. Which meant Dixon was p.i.s.sed off at him too.

All would be forgiven if Anne could get the little girl to tell them what they needed to know. In the meantime, Mendez was feeling restless and anxious for some kind of progress, some small lead, anything that could point them in a direction.

Instead of going home to crash for a few hours, he prowled the empty streets of Oak Knoll, thinking, reviewing the day, making a mental list of the people he needed to speak to the next day.

They had to find out the details of the death of Zander Zahn's mother and what role he had actually played in it. Had he meant he literally murdered his mother with a weapon, or had he been speaking in the abstract? Maybe she died giving birth to him. Or maybe she had committed suicide when he was a child. Children often blamed themselves for things like the suicide of a parent or the divorce of parents.

It had been a d.a.m.ned strange revelation for Zahn to make no matter what the truth was. Why tell homicide detectives he had killed before?

Arthur Buckman had been as shocked at the revelation as Mendez and Vince had been. There was nothing in Zahn's personnel file to indicate he had ever been in prison. If it had happened when Zahn was a juvenile, the records would likely be sealed. A court order would open them.

Zahn seemed to think of Marissa Fordham as some kind of perfect, ethereal creature. But Marissa Fordham had dated a number of men, according to Don Quinn. Zahn might have gotten jealous, might have seen his perfect woman turning into something else before his eyes.

Disappointment and rage could drive people to do terrible things.

He drove down the Morgans' street, parked the car and killed the lights. The landscaping lights were on, casting a soft amber glow. The windows were dark. Steve Morgan's black Trans Am was parked in the driveway.

It was a pretty yellow house with white trim and blue shutters, the kind of house the ideal American family should live in. But despite the fact that they were beautiful, successful people with a beautiful, bright child, the Morgans did not have the ideal family. The perfect picture was skewed and out of focus.

He didn't like Steve Morgan. He had never liked Steve Morgan. The guy was a little too calm in the face of accusation. He had been that way during the investigation of Lisa Warwick's murder.

Morgan had known Lisa Warwick. He had worked closely with her on several family court cases for the Thomas Center. Mendez would have bet the farm Morgan had been sleeping with her, but they had never gotten him to admit to anything. When confronted with their suspicions, Morgan had been as cool as a cuc.u.mber. He never blew up, never got nervous, never really reacted.

That wasn't normal. Innocent people are usually quick to react in outrage to a false allegation. Not Morgan.

For a while, Mendez had liked him for See-No-Evil. Steve Morgan had been woven into the stories of those murder victims almost as well as Peter Crane had been. Crane and Morgan were friends and golfing buddies. There had been more than a little speculation that Peter Crane had an accomplice ...

When they had told Morgan they had s.e.m.e.n on the sheets of Lisa Warwick's bed and would be able to get a blood type from it, he hadn't reacted at all. In the a.n.a.lysis of the s.e.m.e.n they had discovered the donor was a nonsecretor. His bodily fluids did not contain the antigens of the ABO blood group. They couldn't get a blood type. Had Steve Morgan known that would happen? Was that why he had been so calm?

Lisa Warwick's sheets were still in the property room at the SO. If they could get DNA a.n.a.lysis on the s.e.m.e.n. What? The science wasn't as sophisticated as it would eventually become. They would need a blood test or another s.e.m.e.n sample from Morgan to get a match. They had no legal reason to compel him to give them samples.

Morgan had known Marissa Fordham, had worked with her on the project for the Thomas Center and on the trust for her daughter. She was a beautiful, s.e.xy, single woman. If he had been tempted before-and succ.u.mbed- True, this murder was different from the others. The See-No-Evil victims had been held somewhere and very systematically tortured. Eyes glued shut, mouth glued shut, eardrums pierced. The wounds had been identical from body to body-very specific cutting wounds of the same length and the same placement. The women had ultimately been strangled to death, each in exactly the same manner.

Marissa Fordham's death had been frenzied, not studied; full of rage, not systematic. But then if Crane had an accomplice, the accomplice was now free to kill however he wanted. Maybe the ritual had been strictly Crane's.

Could he picture Steve Morgan slicing a woman's b.r.e.a.s.t.s off?

He thought of Sara Morgan and her reactions that morning. She had been upset. Marissa Fordham had been a friend. He tried to recall her face and her body language when he had asked her if Marissa had a boyfriend or an ex-boyfriend or a lover.

She hadn't looked at him. She had looked down at her hands and said no. It was none of her business. She wasn't one to pry. But they had been friends. Women talked about men-even if only to say they didn't need or want one. Mendez had sisters, his sisters had friends. He was around women enough to know the subject of men was always a hot topic.

He wondered how long Sara Morgan had been friends with Marissa Fordham. Had that friendship begun before or after Fordham had gotten to know Steve Morgan?

Sara didn't look well, he thought. She was thinner than a year ago. Pale. Drawn. There were dark smudges beneath the cornflower blue eyes. She seemed preoccupied, though a murder scene did have that effect on people who weren't cops.

He would go see her in the morning. Just checking on her. How was she doing? After her husband left for work and Wendy had gone to school. He would press her a little bit. See what happened.

He didn't like Steve Morgan ...

23.