'No, I'm a private investigator. I need to ask her some questions about Evan.'

'Like what?'

Clay hesitated. 'Like if she's seen him lately.'

Parker's expression became shrewd. 'You don't believe he's dead either.'

Clay played dumb even though he knew that Nicki had fabricated Evan's demise, an accident in a rented catamaran off the coast of Mexico. The boat was found floating aimlessly, no Evan to be found presumably lost at sea. 'He's dead?'

'That's what we were told. I don't buy it. Evan was too good a sailor. Man don't work his way through college on a fishing charter and get swept off a catamaran. But as long as the SOB stays away from Sandy and the kids, I don't care.'

Parker stepped outside and closed the door. 'She's been through hell. It's taken five years, but we can finally hug her without her flinching. The kids are settled. They've made new friends and don't cry themselves to sleep. Please, just leave her alone.'

Five years? Evan had told Nicki his wife had left him months ago, not years. And because he'd cheated. But Parker was talking like Sandy had been battered. Clay felt sick. This wasn't the picture he'd gotten from Nicki's report. They didn't help just anyone wipe out their past. There had to be a very strong case. After talking to a crazed and threat-spewing Margo Winchester, Nicki had been satisfied that Evan's was.

Nicki's interview with Sandy Reardon had been short and to the point. Sandy's anger had been cold, her demeanor reserved. She'd answered only the questions Nicki had asked and had volunteered no more information. Yes, I left Evan. No, I do not intend to take him back. The children are safe with me. They will stay here. With me.

There had been no indication of abuse, of a flinching wife, of crying children. The bad feeling plaguing Clay intensified. 'I really need to know why she left Evan.'

Parker narrowed his eyes. 'Last time an investigator came, she told my daughter she was checking out Evan's references for some job, but we knew better. That woman didn't take my grandchildren and neither will you, by God.'

'I am a private investigator. I work with the woman who came here before. Why would Sandy think we wanted to take her kids? That doesn't make sense.'

'Because the state office called Sandy, dammit. Told her that Evan had reported her for neglect. That they'd be sending someone to interview her. Then that investigator shows up, asking her if her kids are okay. What should she have thought?'

'Hell,' Clay muttered, wondering who'd made that call. He'd asked about the kids' safety because he'd been worried that Margo would hurt them as she'd threatened. Now he wondered about the veracity of that threat, too. 'Why did your daughter leave Evan?'

Rage burned in Parker's eyes. 'He beat her years ago, back when he lived here in town. If I'd known, I'd have torn his fucking head off. But she stayed then, because she was too proud to tell us. She didn't leave until he got mean with the kids. Still hasn't divorced the prick. But he kept up support payments until he "died", so I didn't push.'

Clay briefly closed his eyes, the scenario becoming all too clear. 'Did your daughter report the assault to the police?'

Parker's jaw clenched hard. 'No. I wanted her to, but she said no. Evan's got a friend in the police department and Sandy was afraid he'd make trouble for her.'

'Evan's got a friend in the department?'

'That's what I said,' Parker spat. 'Are you deaf?'

'No, sir. I was just led to believe that Evan was afraid of the police.'

'Like hell. He only left town because I threatened to blow his balls off.'

'Where did he go?'

'Eastern Maryland. Cambridge, I think. He got a job in a hospital there, but the support checks he wrote were off a bank in DC. Which stopped coming after he "died".'

Hell. This was majorly fucked up. Nicki had talked to a cop when she'd been here before. A real cop, with real credentials. The cop had given her the same story as Evan had about Margo Winchester being a cop's daughter and that Margo's daddy wasn't to be crossed. But now Evan's friend was a cop? Please don't be the same guy.

'What's Evan's friend's name? The cop, I mean.'

'Ken Pullman.'

Hell. Same guy. Either Evan had lied or Parker was now. My money's on Evan for the lie. Still, somebody had died in that house fire. Clay stood for a moment, trying to decide what to tell this man. Something was very, very wrong here.

'I can't say much, but Evan is missing and that's no lie. It appears there's been foul play. If you have a gun, keep it handy and loaded. Watch your daughter and the kids.'

Parker paled. 'What the hell is this?'

'I really wish I knew,' Clay said. 'And that's no lie either. One more question. When was the last time any of you saw Evan?'

'Three months ago, at his mother's funeral. He came back for it. Sandy thought it was important for the kids to go. I went to make sure Evan stayed away from them. Evan was in a mood, mad at everyone. Worse than we remembered. After that, he went through his mama's things, then left. Next we heard, he was "dead" in Mexico.'

'Thank you,' Clay said. 'Take care.' He got into his car and called Alyssa. 'What have you found on the old lady, Mrs Klein?'

'She did have surgery two months ago.'

'When Nic was here. How do you know?'

'I called the local florist, pretending to be the granddaughter of one of Mrs Klein's friends. I told them my grandma had made a mess of her checkbook and I was trying to figure out what one of the checks was for, that it looked like it had been written to them. They confirmed that Mrs Klein had been in the hospital then and had received other flowers, but none sent by sweet granny. I chatted them up some more and found out Mrs Klein has a granddaughter. Wild child, always in trouble, causing her sweet granny a lot of heartache. Maybe that's the girl Nicki saw with Margo.'

'Nice work, Alyssa,' he said. 'I just found out the real reason Sandy left Evan.'

'From the tone of your voice, you're not happy about it.'

'No. He beat her and hit the kids.'

'Oh God. Evan was lying?'

'So it would seem. Add in the fire at the house he was not really renting and the fact that Margo was only squatting at Mrs Klein's while she was in the hospital . . .' And the cop who'd corroborated Evan's story. This is very bad.

'What have we done, Clay?' she whispered.

'You've done nothing. Nicki should have checked harder, but everyone she talked to backed up Evan's story. Now that I look at it this way, I can see how she was manipulated.'

'Somebody died in that fire. What if it was Evan?'

A dull, vicious throb had started at the base of his skull. 'What if it wasn't?'

For a minute neither of them spoke. Then Alyssa sighed. 'What should I do?'

'I want you to start calling hotels in Ocean City. It's where Nic goes when she goes to the beach. Find out where the hell she is.' He hesitated. 'If you reach her through her hotel and she sounds drunk, call me right away. She's been sober for a few years now, but this has happened before.'

Alyssa was quiet a moment. 'Okay. I will. What will you do next?'

'I'm going to pay a visit to the morgue. I need to know if that body is Evan Reardon. Then I'm going to Margo's dance club. I want answers and I want them now.'

Monday, May 3, 6.30 P.M.

Dropping the tracking device in Lucy Trask's handbag had been the smartest thing he'd done. He now knew where she was at any given moment, day or night.

At the moment she was on her way to Anderson Ferry and he wondered why. After disposing of Janet's body, he'd returned home, cleaned up, then checked his tracking website. The little blue dot was east of the Bay Bridge. If she was bolting, he was going to be majorly pissed, considering she was supposed to find Janet later tonight.

Maybe it was because of Russ Bennett. His murder was all over the news, but they weren't releasing his name until the family had been notified. Maybe that's where she was going. Bennett had told him that Lucy kissed up to his parents.

He doubted she was bolting yet, but if she did, he'd be able to find her. She can't hide from me. For now he'd keep one eye on the little blue ball on his tracking screen while he kept the other on the home of Detective Mazzetti. Luckily there weren't many Mazzettis in Maryland. It had taken him all of five seconds to find her home address.

He was looking for insurance, in case the unexpected happened and the detectives got too close. He needed a distraction to throw in their paths if he needed to bolt. There were few better distractions than family.

Five seconds after parking on Mazzetti's street, he knew he'd picked the right detective to distract, should the need arise. Not only was she the more experienced of the two homicide detectives, but there was a swingset in her back yard and a small kid-sized bike on the front porch. A mom would get mighty distracted if something were to happen to her child. The kid was a girl, if the Disney Princess stickers on two upstairs windows were any indication.

The front door opened and a little girl raced out. Cute kid. She stood by the van, dancing in place on the curb, a backpack slung over one small shoulder.

'Mommy!' she shouted. 'We're gonna be late. Hurry!'

Mazzetti appeared at the door, wearing a pretty dress, an indulgent frown, and curlers in her hair. 'Come inside, Cordelia. I need a few more minutes to get ready.'

Mazzetti disappeared from view and he knew he might have no more perfect time. He slipped from his car and up the sidewalk where Cordelia was dancing her way back to her house. A well-placed foot had her stumbling forward.

'Oh dear,' he said, catching her before she hit the sidewalk, nudging the backpack off her shoulder. Deftly he slipped the zipper open an inch and dropped the tracker from the tissue in which he'd wrapped it so he'd leave no prints. He crumpled the tissue in his hand. 'I'm sorry. I'm so clumsy. Are you okay?'

The child looked down at her pretty dress to make sure she hadn't dirtied it. 'Yes.'

He smiled. 'Here's your backpack. You dropped it.' He put it on the sidewalk and walked away, whistling a tune softly, his pulse pleasantly racing.

'Cordelia,' Mazzetti called from the door. 'Come inside. I need to braid your hair.'

He didn't plan to hurt the kid, didn't even want to snatch her. But if the detectives got too close, he would take her in a heartbeat and stow her somewhere. By the time the cops found her, he'd be long gone. It paid to have insurance.

Monday, May 3, 6.30 P.M.

Lucy had fallen asleep a half-hour outside of Baltimore, her dead cell phone in one hand, the courier's list in the other. JD was afraid to take them from her hands for fear of waking her up. She'd looked up each Anderson Ferry woman using her phone's internet connection until it beeped menacingly, out of juice. JD imagined that Stevie had done the same thing, and more efficiently, but it kept Lucy's mind busy and the fear from her eyes.

And it kept his lust backburnered, a bit. Stevie had been right. Hyatt was watching. I shouldn't have kissed her. Not then, anyway. But her saying that getting involved with him depended on how exciting he was had tripped a trigger he'd thought himself well over. I guess not. He should have waited, but he couldn't be too sorry he hadn't. She'd responded in his arms like fire. There was nothing cold about Lucy. Nor boring.

At the moment she slept deeply, leaving him to study her, undeterred. Her hair was picking up the rays of the setting sun, going all gold within the red as it tumbled over her shoulders. The severe twist she'd worn all day had fallen down as she'd slept, making him want to reach out and touch. She was a beautiful woman.

With kind eyes. Actually that had been his very first impression. Now he knew there were layers to Lucy Trask that he could spend a very long time uncovering.

Except her layers weren't the only thing he wanted to uncover.

Do you always do what you want? she'd asked. Hardly. Since she'd smiled at him over a pile of smelly garbage, he'd had to struggle to keep a lid on what he really wanted, which was to see her out of that prim blue suit.

She wanted the same thing. Her body had revved like a finely tuned engine, and that was just with a kiss. What would she be like in his bed?

He reached out to touch her smooth cheek when the buzzing of his phone in his pocket had him jumping. 'Fitzpatrick,' he answered quietly.

'JD? It's Stevie. Are you okay?'

'I'm fine. Lucy's just asleep.'

'That's good. Doc's had a busy day. I checked the women on the courier's list who were from Anderson Ferry. None have records and none appear to be big enough to move Bennett's body unassisted.'

'The second part I knew,' he said softly. 'Lucy checked them out on Facebook. If their photos are real, most of them aren't taller than five five. She's by far the tallest of all of them.'

'Who needs fancy police databases when we have Facebook and a phone?' Stevie asked dryly. 'Don't hang up yet. Somebody here wants to talk to you.'

A minute later a little girl piped up. 'Hi, JD.'

'Hi, Cordelia.' He smiled. 'How's my girl?'

'I'm fine. Thank you! I love my locket!'

His smile became a grin. 'I'm glad. I wish I could have given it to you myself.'

There was a beat of silence. 'You mean you're not gonna be here with me?'

He winced at the disappointment in her voice. 'No. I have to work.'

'You always have to work, JD,' she scolded. 'You need to get some priorities.'

'I know. But I'm working tonight so that your mom can be with you. That's a good priority, isn't it?'

'I guess so.'

'Have your Aunt Izzy take lots of pictures.'

'She already has. She's making Mommy crazy. Oh, I gotta go now. I love you, JD.'

His heart squeezed as it always did when Cordelia said the words. She'd been the first female in his life who'd said them and meant them. 'Love you too, squirt. Have fun.'

Cordelia hung up and all he heard was the sound of the road. Then Lucy stirred, shifting in her seat so that she stared at him in a way that made him want to squirm.

'I think you must be a nice man,' she said, her voice throaty from sleep.

The huskiness in her voice wreaked havoc on his self-control. 'Not really,' he said. 'I can be a sarcastic SOB.'

'But a little girl loves you. Kids can spot the posers, you know?'

'Yeah. And Cordelia's a pretty smart kid.'

'Not that you're biased or anything,' she said, smiling at him and his heart nearly knocked out of his chest. 'What did you give Cordelia?'

'A locket. I put a picture of her dad in it. He died before she was born. I thought she might like it, but I didn't want to upset her.'

'Which was why you asked Stevie to check it first.'

He shrugged self-consciously. 'I never get those gifts right.'

For a couple of hard beats of his heart she said nothing at all. Then she cleared her throat. 'I imagine Cordelia will cherish it forever. I would have.'