Another wave. “Wherever. Mexico, Europe. Once she even made it to Tahiti. That’s what I meant by stupid. She’ll find a cheap flight on the Internet, do no planning whatsoever, and just fly off in gay abandon.”

“By herself.”

Silence.

“Mrs. Hedges?”

“There are men, I suppose,” she said. “If she doesn’t travel with them, she’s certainly capable of finding them along the way. She makes a point of telling me when she comes back.”

“Telling you what?”

“That she behaved in a way I wouldn’t approve. She does it purely to rile me. The exceptions are those times when she neglects to take enough money for expenses and calls me in desperation. When that happens, she’s like someone from the Travel Channel. Going on about the sights, museums, quaint old churches.”

She smoked greedily. “I love my daughter, Lieutenant, but she can be trying.”

“How long has it been since you last saw her?”

Hesitation. “A month give or take. We weren’t fighting, nothing like that. But Katrina had convinced herself she needed to be independent. In other words, no contact with Mother until finances deem otherwise. I’d never have known she was gone if her friend hadn’t called to ask if Katrina was with me.”

“Which friend?”

“A girl named Beth Holloway. Never met her. She was out with Katrina at that club, they split up, she hasn’t heard from Katrina since.”

He read off the Van Nuys address on Katrina Shonsky’s driver’s license. “Is that current, ma’am?”

“It is.”

“Does Katrina live alone?”

“Yes. In a dump.”

“Any current men in her life?”

“Not that I know,” said Monica Hedges. Losing volume by the end of the sentence, as if she doubted her own veracity. “Katrina tends to guard her privacy.”

“How long has she been at this address?”

“Fifteen months.” She stubbed out her cigarette, watched the diminishing trail of smoke.

“In terms of guarding—”

“She kept me out of her private life.”

“Don’t be offended, ma’am, but do you think she was hiding something?”

“Could be, Lieutenant. If she was dating someone high-caliber I have no doubt she’d be showing him off just to show me I’m wrong.”

“Wrong about what?”

“She’s a gorgeous girl, I keep telling her she needs to elevate herself, run in a different circle. Royal and I are members of the Riviera Country Club. There are socials all the time. When I call Katrina to inform her of an event, she laughs and then her mood turns ugly.”

“She prefers doing things her own way.”

Her eyes shifted toward the front door. “I just know she’s going to run out of cash and come waltzing in any minute.”

“Do you have a recent photo we could keep?”

Reaching for a new cigarette, she marched across the living room, turned a corner. Muffled voices filtered back. Inflections that suggested tension.