"I'm sorry, honey," he said, following her back into the room. "You should lie down. Please lie down."

"I don't want to lie down," she said, her big brown eyes filling with tears. "I want you to hold me!"

"Oh, sweetheart."

Vince took her into his arms as if she were made of spun gla.s.s and held her while she cried. His heart was pounding so hard he thought it might burst.

"Tell me what happened."

The story came out in fits and starts. Vince did his best not to react the way his brain wanted to react. He wanted to fly into a rage. He wanted to find Dennis Farman and beat his brains out against a wall. He swallowed all of that down so as not to upset Anne, who was more upset about Wendy and Haley than about herself.

"All I could think was that I was supposed to protect her and here I was making her relive that attack all over again!" she said.

"It wasn't your fault, Anne."

"Of course it was my fault!" she said angrily. "You warned me not to stay involved with Dennis, but I couldn't listen to you. I had to try to help him, and look what's happened!"

"Baby, you didn't tell him to burn the hospital down. You didn't tell him to kill people. You didn't arm him. You didn't tell him where we live. How did he find out where we live?"

"Don't even ask me that right now. I'm so upset!"

"Shhhh ..." Vince held her and rocked her some more. "Where's Wendy?"

"Down the hall somewhere with Sara. How am I ever going to face Sara again? Her daughter comes to visit me and ends up having to beat a kid in the head with poker! Why do these things happen to me?"

"I don't know, sweetheart," he said, holding her close again. "I guess they happen because you care too much. If you didn't give a s.h.i.t about Dennis Farman he would have gone off to juvie a year ago to begin his lifelong career of incarceration. If you didn't care about Haley, she'd be with Milo Bordain, for G.o.d's sake."

He pulled back a little and stroked his hands ever so carefully down the sides of her face. "If you didn't care so much ... I wouldn't be so crazy in love with you that I would go out of my mind like I just did and make a big a.s.s of myself in a public place."

Anne tried to smile a little, but the tears were right there to threaten. "I just feel like I've made such a mess of things. Now what's going to happen with Haley? She was put in danger because she was in our home! Maureen is going to get her taken away from us!"

"Over my dead body," Vince promised. "Or hers."

"Milo Bordain will be pet.i.tioning the court tomorrow for custody."

"Don't you worry about the Bordains. They've got problems of their own tonight."

Someone rapped on the door. Vince scowled at the doctor that came in.

"It's about d.a.m.n time."

"Vince ..."

He shut his big mouth and stood back, barely resisting the urge to lose his temper every time the doctor touched Anne in a way that caused her pain. He was almost sick at the sight of the wounds Dennis Farman had inflicted on her. Only one was very serious, thank G.o.d. But several would need st.i.tches and bandages, and would have to be watched for infection.

Anne excused him from the room for that part, and he didn't argue, knowing he wouldn't be able to take watching the love of his life being poked with needles.

He walked out the doors to the ambulance bay, needing the damp, chilly air to clear his head. He had forgotten his coat at the SO, and was still in the same shirt he'd been wearing when Zander Zahn had lunged at him with a knife. He wanted to wash the day off with a hot shower and crawl between the sheets naked with his wife.

The adrenaline had all drained out of his system, leaving him weak and shaking. He sat down on a bench, leaned his arms on his thighs and hung his head down, working at regulating and becoming more aware of his heartbeat and breathing.

With a clearer head, the realization of what he might have lost tonight was sharp and stark. For the second time in a year, his love, his second chance at life, his precious Anne had almost been taken from him.

Finally able to have one quiet moment to appreciate that, he allowed himself to feel that fear and cry.

Having been poked and washed and st.i.tched and stuck with needles, Anne was finally able to dress in a pair of surgical scrubs borrowed from a nurse. She sat on the exam table waiting for Vince, petting Haley's hair.

The idea of CPS taking her away was unbearable. The idea of her going to live with Milo Bordain was unthinkable. The idea that Anne herself had put the little girl through a second living h.e.l.l tonight was devastating.

What would this trauma bring to Haley, so close on the heels of losing her mother and almost losing her own life? Anne was terrified at the possible psychological damage this might have done. She was going to have to think hard about her future as an advocate if there was any chance of putting her loved ones in harm's way.

Of course, if she hadn't been an advocate, Haley would probably have never come into her life at all.

The little girl blinked her sleepy eyes open and looked up at Anne.

"Mommy Anne? Are you an angel now?"

"No, sweetie," Anne whispered. "I'm fine."

"You fell down," Haley said, tears coming. "That boy made you fall down!"

"But I'm all right now, sweetheart, and that boy will never ever come to our house again."

"He's mean like Bad Daddy!" she said, the anxiety building in her expression and her voice. She started to cry. Scrambling up onto her knees, she reached for Anne, and Anne pulled her close.

"Is that what Bad Daddy did to your mommy?" Anne asked, hating the need to do it.

Haley nodded against her shoulder, crying harder, edging back toward the hysteria that had gripped her earlier.

"Bad Daddy knocked my mommy down and hit her and hit her!"

"Oh, no. I'm so sorry, honey. I'm so sorry you had to see that. You must have been so afraid."

Anne held her tight as the terror of that night came back over Haley like a terrible black wave. She could see the picture in her mind's eye-the black figure knocking Marissa Fordham to the floor, the arm rising and falling again and again as the killer plunged the knife into her body over and over and over.

"Were you afraid, sweetheart?"

Haley nodded, sobbing. "I-I-I w-w-a-s hi-ding!"

"That was a good thing to do," Anne said.

"B-but then I-I said no!" Haley cried. "I said, 'No, no, don't hurt my mommy!'"

Oh my G.o.d, Anne thought. She could easily imagine Haley running from her hiding place, rushing to her mother's side. The killer couldn't leave her there alive to tell the story. Thank G.o.d he hadn't turned on her with the knife.

Had she been able to see his face? Had it been too dark? Was he someone she had known and trusted or a stranger she had never seen before?

"Did Bad Daddy say something to you?" she asked.

"Noooo!" Haley wailed. "I want my mommy!"

Now the grief came, howling and tearing out of her like a wild animal. Anne held her tight and rocked her and offered what comfort she could. When a nurse stuck her head into the room to ask if she needed help, she shook her head no. She let Haley release the emotion instead of stopping it short.

It didn't take long to run out. Her energy store depleted itself quickly, and she gave up and settled against Anne. Anne whispered to her and stroked her hair and told her she was safe, feeling like a liar in the wake of what had happened with Dennis.

A sense of security would be a long time coming for Haley ... and for herself. She felt as if what strides she had made in her own struggle with the aftermath of crime had been taken away from her, and she had been pushed backward down that long tunnel. The sense of despair that came with that was so heavy, all she wanted to do was lie down and escape into sleep, and pray that the nightmares wouldn't follow her there.

85.

"How long have you and Darren Bordain known each other?" Mendez asked.

For the first time since he had met Mark Foster, he saw a little crack in the man's stoic good nature.

"Not this again," Foster said, closing his eyes and heaving a sigh. "Darren didn't kill Marissa."

"That's not what I asked you."

"I've known Darren five or six years."

"And how long have you been involved?"

"Involved in what way?"

"How long have you been lovers?"

"Oh my G.o.d." He looked at Hicks. "You dragged me down here for this? What's wrong with you people? Why are you so hung up on the idea that I'm gay? I'm not gay-not that it's anyone's business. Darren is not gay. And will you make up your minds? First you think he's Haley's father, but now you think he's gay? And what would it matter? If he was gay, he really wouldn't have any reason to kill Marissa."

"He would if he didn't want her spreading his little secret around," Mendez said. "That information would be very valuable to him, I would think."

"You know his mother," Hicks said. "How would she react to news like that?"

"I have no idea."

"You told us you know her really well," Mendez said. "I barely know the woman at all and I can tell you she's a narcissistic, racist sn.o.b. h.o.m.ophobic wouldn't be much of a stretch."

Foster ma.s.saged the back of his neck, literally trying to rub out the pain that this experience was. "Is there a point to this?"

"Oh, yeah," Mendez said.

"Will we get to it anytime soon?"

"What about his father?" Mendez asked. "He seems like that kind of macho man's man who wouldn't be too pleased to hear his son really doesn't have his same interest in strippers and hookers."

"I don't really know Mr. Bordain."

"You don't run in the same circles."

"No," Foster said. "Really. Why are you asking me these questions? Why don't you ask the Bordains? Why don't you ask Darren? He's here, isn't he?"

"What would make you think that?" Hicks asked.

"He called me and told me before you brought him down here."

"Why would he do that?"

"Because a bunch of us were going out to dinner. He called to say he wouldn't make it."

"Thoughtful."

"Yes. Is that a crime now?"

"No," Mendez said. "Did he happen to mention to you that he's wearing one of your shirts?"

"What?"

Mendez ran a forefinger along the breast pocket of his own shirt. "Monogrammed. M-E-F."

"There must have been a mix-up at the laundry."

"Mmmmm ... I suppose that could have happened. Or maybe you left it at his house the night Marissa was killed."

Foster wasn't quite sure what to do with that. He waited to see where Mendez would go with it.

"Here's the thing, Mark," he said. "We have Haley Fordham's birth certificate with Darren Bordain listed as being her father."

"That's impossible."

"Why would you say that?" Hicks asked. "If Darren is straight, why wouldn't that be possible?"

"Because Haley was already born before Darren ever met Marissa."

"He says," Mendez stipulated. "The problem with Darren's story is that he doesn't really have an alibi for the night Marissa was killed, and he potentially has two very strong motives to want her dead. Now, he says he was home alone, which doesn't help him out. I don't believe him. I think there's someone who could corroborate his alibi. I don't believe he was home alone. I think he was with someone, and he's trying to protect that person."

"If you're that person, Mark," Hicks said, "you can clear this up right now and everyone moves on with their lives."

"Why would you believe me?" Foster asked. "Darren is my friend. I could lie for him. You would have to corroborate my story, and you'll do that by going around asking everyone I know if I'm gay and if Darren is gay. Since you're going to do that anyway, I might as well go home now and leave you to your work."

"You're not going to back him up," Mendez said.