“Why hasn’t anybody in New Mexico contacted your father or me to find her? Or Gracey Group? Have you spoken to anyone from the sheriff’s department?”

“So far I don’t think they’ve identified her as the woman with Calvo that night.”

“Then she can come home. Why doesn’t she? She’s not a suspect.”

“Wendy thinks it’s a matter of time until someone comes forward and leads them to her. When that happens, she wants to be able to give them Kearns. She thinks that’s the only way she’ll be safe.”

“Do you believe this?”

We’d come to the hardest part. “No.”

“Why?”

I wasn’t about to go into all the sordid details—Jonah, the attempted break-in, the safe and the photos. Instead I sorted through what I knew and ended up with the common denominator.

“Wendy can’t be trusted, Mom. I’m sorry, but she’s lied, and I’ve caught her more than once. She’s done other things, worse things than lying. She claims she had nothing to do with Calvo’s murder, but I can’t take that as a given.”

She could have asked a dozen questions, most notably what I meant by “worse things than lying.” I’d fully expected her to, so the question she asked instead surprised me.

“And what will you do if you find out she’s lying about the murder? What will you do if she had something to do with it?”

I squeezed her hand—she had never moved it from mine. “I don’t know. She’s family. She’s my sister and my mother, and your daughter and the mother of two little girls I love, who are not my nieces but my half sisters. It’s as complicated as that. And I’m pretty sure she’s counting on our convoluted relationship to keep me from sharing what I already know with the police.”

Mom was staring into space. Her eyes were glazed, not teary. I thought she was in shock.

She finally met my gaze. “Your father.”

I squeezed her hand once more, then sat back and folded my arms. “He’s not like you. He never saw our flaws, and if he suspected we had any, he protected us. He always adored Wendy. She could wrap him around her little finger.”

“So could you.”

“But he was grooming her to take over Gracey Group. And that means everything to him.”

“His rehab’s gone better than anybody expected. He has more energy, and pretty soon he’s going back to work part-time, whether I tell him he can or not. I’ve asked the Gracey Group staff to stay away and not mention Wendy’s name if he calls them. But very soon I won’t be able to stop him from getting to the bottom of things. Maybe it is time for some professional intervention.”

“If a private investigator found her, what would you do? Try to talk sense into her? Threaten her if she doesn’t come home? Help her escape somewhere she’ll never be found again?” I paused for emphasis. “Turn her in to the authorities?”