“Thank you for your time, Mrs. Morgan,” he said. “I’ll let you go. Have a nice day.”

She laughed without humor, already on her way to her car.

“I spoke with Sara Morgan,” Mendez said, walking into the war room, where Vince had carved out a spot for himself at a small table in one corner.

He glanced up from making notes, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. “And?”

“It’s a good bet Steve Morgan was having an affair with Lisa Warwick. Mrs. Morgan was very uncomfortable with the topic,” Mendez said, pulling up a chair.

“She didn’t come right out and say he was cheating on her?”

“No. She couldn’t deny it fast enough. She’s trying to hold together what she has,” Mendez said. “It’s a sore point with her that he dedicates so much time to the Thomas Center.”

“With other women,” Vince said. “Vulnerable women, women in need of heroes. That’s a rich prowling ground for the wrong kind of guy.”

“Everybody says he’s a Boy Scout.”

Vince arched a brow. “What kind of merit badge do they give out for adultery these days?”

“A scarlet letter?”

“Good one,” Vince said. He pulled his glasses off and set them aside. “So, let’s say he’s having an affair with her. That’s a long way from doing what was done to her.”

“Maybe she was threatening to tell the missus, giving him an ultimatum he couldn’t live with.”

“Motive for murder, yes. But a guy murders his mistress in the heat of the moment. He gets rid of the body. He doesn’t carve it up like a totem pole and plant it in a public park for school kids to stumble on.”

“Maybe he wants to make it look like some maniac did it.”

“How much information about the Paulson murder was made public knowledge?” Vince asked. “The strangulation? The cutting? The mutilation? The glued eyes?”

“Almost none of it,” Mendez admitted. “And the wife couldn’t account for his whereabouts when Karly Vickers went missing, either. Guess we’d better find out if he ever met Julie Paulson.”

“She had a record, right?”

“A couple of old prostitution charges in another jurisdiction.”

“See if she got busted with a john. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”

“I’ll make some calls. Did you get anything from Quantico?”

“One of the agents knew a case in Ohio where a guy went away for killing a ten-year-old girl. When he got out, he switched to killing prostitutes of small stature—childlike. He figured when a kid goes missing, people notice. When a hooker disappears, c’est la vie.”

“Karly Vickers is small,” Mendez said. “But Lisa Warwick was pretty curvy. No mistaking her for—or pretending she might have been—a child.”