"It's just a routine question, ma'am," Mendez said. "We have to ask."

The nurse elbowed Mendez from behind and whispered in Spanish, "If she was a Mexican, she would be drunk."

Mendez coughed into his hand.

"What's going to happen next?" Bordain asked Dixon.

Dixon sighed and tipped his head like he was about to ram it into a wall. "There isn't much we can do, Mrs. Bordain. With no license plate and no witnesses, there isn't anything to go on."

"Someone tried to kill me!" she said, tears spilling over her lashes.

"I understand that you're upset."

She turned toward the door. "Darren! Thank G.o.d you're here!"

Darren Bordain came into the room with rain beading up on his blond hair and on his expensive trench coat. He looked at Dixon and Mendez.

"Gentlemen, we have to stop meeting this way. People will talk," he said. "Are you finished grilling my mother? I'm sure she'd like to go home."

"I have to have a CT scan," his mother said. "I hit my head on the side window, and the airbag almost broke my nose. Someone tried to kill me, but no one is taking it seriously!"

While Dixon rea.s.sured her that wasn't the case, Mendez nodded Darren Bordain into the hall.

"Why wouldn't you take that seriously?" Bordain asked. "Someone sent her human body parts in the mail yesterday."

"It's not that we aren't taking it seriously, Mr. Bordain," Mendez said. "There just isn't much for us to go on. She didn't get a good look at the other driver or the license plate of the other vehicle. No one else saw the accident."

Bordain's perfect brow knit. "Do you think she's lying?"

"I didn't say that."

"She's usually a good driver."

"She's had a lot of bad things happen this week," Mendez said. "She's been upset. I'm sure she's distracted, and she's probably exhausted. Things happen. People get embarra.s.sed. They don't want to admit they just went off the road on their own or that they might have had a drink or two. The deputy should have done a Breathalyzer test on her at the scene, but he didn't."

"She had a couple of gla.s.ses of wine with dinner," Bordain conceded, "but she was by no means impaired."

"All right. We have to check every angle," Mendez said. "There's no offense intended."

"I understand."

"You had dinner together?"

"Yes, at Barron's Steak House. My parents and I."

"What time did your mother leave the restaurant?"

"Around ten thirty. We all left at the same time."

"You came in separate vehicles?"

"Yes. I went home-to my house. My father had to go back to Montecito. Mother headed back to the ranch."

"She's staying out there alone?"

"No. Hernando and his wife-the caretakers-live on the property. And of course my father will come back now."

Mendez jotted his notes. Despite the fact that Milo Bordain was a racist sn.o.b, he couldn't help but feel a little sorry for her. Her husband didn't seem to be giving her much in the way of support after all she'd been through this week.

"Is everything all right with your parents' marriage?" he asked.

"Their marriage is no different than it's ever been. You don't think my father had something to do with this?"

"Like I said: We have to look at all possibilities."

Darren Bordain shook his head. "They have their arrangement. Neither of them complains about it."

"What arrangement is that?"

"They lead their own lives. My father has his businesses, he plays golf, he probably has a girlfriend here and there-although he is completely discreet. My mother makes a career of being Mrs. Bruce Bordain. She has her social circle and her causes. They still enjoy each other's company when they're together. It works for them."

He looked across the hall as an orderly arrived with a gurney to take his mother for her CT scan.

"You know Gina Kemmer, don't you?" Mendez asked.

"Yes, why?"

"When was the last time you spoke to her?"

"She left a message for me yesterday afternoon to ask if I know anything about a funeral date for Marissa. She's a mess," Bordain said. "Marissa was like a sister to her."

"Did she say anything about going out of town?"

"No, why?"

"We've been trying to get hold of her, that's all," Mendez said. "We want everyone who had contact with Marissa in the last week or so to come in and give us an interview so we can build a fuller, more accurate picture of the last week of Marissa's life. I'd like to schedule a time with you, as well."

"Sure," Bordain said. "Call me tomorrow. I'd better go be a good son now and do some hand-holding."

When he was halfway across the hall he turned back. "Is there anything new in Marissa's case?"

"No, sir. Not at this time."

"You'll keep my mother apprised, though, won't you? She may be a pompous sn.o.b, but she really is beside herself over Marissa's death."

"Sheriff Dixon will personally see to it," Mendez said as Dixon came out of the room and Bordain went back in.

"I will personally see to what?"

"Mrs. Bordain," Mendez said as they started down the hall.

Dixon gave him a look. "Jesus, Tony. What did I ever do to you?"

53.

Sara had spent much of the evening curled into one corner of the sofa, wrapped in an afghan her grandmother had made for her hope chest twenty years ago. Twenty years ago-when she had still believed in white knights and happily-ever-after.

She sat there staring ... thinking ... trembling ... crying ... Funny how the cycle had become weirdly comforting after a while.

Steve hadn't come home the night before. Sara had gone to bed after Detective Mendez had left. She had taken a sleeping pill and hadn't stirred until the alarm had gone off at seven. When she opened her eyes, her husband was not in bed beside her-not that that was unusual.

Groggy from the pill, she dragged herself downstairs to put out breakfast for Wendy. There was no sign Steve had spent the night on the sofa, which he did more often than not lately-when he came home at all.

She had no idea where he went on the nights he didn't come home. He usually claimed he had slept at the office, but Mendez had told her there had been no sign of Steve at his office that night.

Mendez had come by to check on her. He had been concerned to see the garage light on in the middle of the night. He had offered her sympathy and protection. Mendez, a relative stranger, had acted like a husband, while her husband had become nothing short of a stranger to her over this past year.

Wendy came downstairs for breakfast.

"Where's Daddy?" she asked, pouring cereal in a bowl.

"I don't know," Sara said. "He didn't come home last night."

"Yes, he did. His car is in the driveway."

But he wasn't home. Wendy went through the house calling for him. Sara went into the garage to find no sign of him. When she went out to his car and saw blood on the driveway, she started to panic.

He wasn't anywhere in the yard. He hadn't fallen in the pool. He wasn't dead in the street.

Sara called the sheriff's office, then called another mother to take over car pool for the day. Distraught, Wendy had refused to go to school. She became convinced her father had been murdered.

A deputy had come to the house, looked at the car and the blood, and followed the same route through the yard and the garage and the house.

"Daddy's dead, isn't he?" Wendy said, crying, her arms wrapped tight around Sara's waist. "He's been kidnapped and killed! And now he's dead!"

"No, sweetie," Sara said. She wanted to say those things only happened on television, but she couldn't. Wendy had seen a murder victim herself. Her best friend's father was sitting in jail awaiting trial. One of her cla.s.smates had attacked her and stabbed another child.

"I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation," Sara said. "I'll call the office. Maybe Don knows where Daddy is."

While the deputy was in his car on the radio, Sara called Don Quinn to ask if he had heard from Steve.

Yes, he had. He had been Steve's one phone call from jail. Steve had been arrested for a.s.saulting a sheriff's detective.

"And it didn't occur to you to call me and let me know what was going on?" Sara said.

"Steve asked me not to."

"And you thought that was okay?" The tone and volume of her voice went up with her blood pressure. "To let me go out of my mind with worry. To upset Wendy to the point that she's sick to her stomach. You didn't see anything wrong with that?"

"I don't know what to say, Sara. I thought Steve would call you himself."

"You didn't think that," she said bitterly. "You didn't think about Wendy or me. Just like he didn't think about Wendy or me. The two of you can rot in h.e.l.l together for all I care!"

She slammed the receiver down and burst into tears, beyond the end of her rope. Wendy bolted from the room and upstairs.

That was it, Sara realized as the tears subsided, the last straw. She was done.

She dried her eyes and went outside as the deputy came up the sidewalk looking uncomfortable.

Sara held a hand up. "I know. I just spoke to my husband's partner."

"I'm sorry, ma'am," the deputy said.

"You don't have anything to be sorry for. Thank you for your time."

The adrenaline drained down through her, taking her energy with it as she went back to the house. She felt like she was eighty years old as she climbed the stairs to go to her daughter's room.

Wendy was busy putting her dolls into a garbage bag while tears streamed down her cheeks.

"Sweetheart, what are you doing?"

Wendy didn't look up. "I'm giving them away."

"Why?"

"Because they're stupid," she said angrily. "I'm too old to play with stupid toys for little kids."

Sara's heart broke all over again. Wendy was throwing away her childhood. She felt hurt and angry. No one seemed to be taking her feelings-the feelings of a child-into consideration. Maybe if she stopped being a child ...

"Don't," Sara said softly.

She knelt down by her daughter and took a baby doll gently from her hand. She remembered the Christmas she and Steve had given that doll to Wendy. She had been five and covered in chicken pox. Sara had put red dots all over the doll so Wendy wouldn't feel so alone, sequestered away from her cousins for the holiday, missing out on all the fun. She and her new baby had chicken pox together, and Steve had played doctor and Sara had played nurse, the two of them devoted to their child, the three of them a wonderful family.

She looked down at Wendy and touched her face, and said, "Do you know how much I love you?"

They held each other and cried for a long time, letting go the emotions both of them had been trying to bottle up for too long. When the emotions had run themselves out, Sara took her daughter by the hand and led her over to the window seat.

"We need to talk," she said.

"You and Daddy are getting divorced," Wendy said flatly.

"I'm so sorry, honey," Sara said. "This isn't what I ever wanted for us."