“He’s not coming. He said he’ll take his kid’s statement himself. He said it was a waste of everybody’s time to come in here and talk to you.”

“The fuck!” Mendez caught himself too late and glanced over at Anne Navarre. “Sorry.”

“I could call Mrs. Farman,” the teacher offered. “Maybe she would come in with Dennis.”

“You’ve got to go now anyway,” the deputy said. “Some woman came into the office to report a missing person. Could be our victim.”

The woman waiting in Sheriff Dixon’s office was in her early forties, tall and slender, and dressed in jeans with dirty knees and a bright green T-shirt with an oversize denim shirt thrown over it and left open. Her long blonde hair was scraped back into a messy ponytail with strands falling loose to frame her pale oval face. She stood in front of the visitor’s chair with her arms wrapped around herself. She looked worried.

Cal Dixon was sitting against the front edge of his desk, head down, speaking quietly to the woman when Mendez walked in.

Dixon looked up. “Tony, I’m glad you made it back. I want you to meet Jane Thomas from the Thomas Center for Women. Ms. Thomas, this is Detective Mendez. He’s my lead investigator on this case.”

Mendez reached out and shook her hand.

“Jane is concerned the murder victim may be someone she knows.”

“One of our clients,” she said. “Karly Vickers. No one has seen or heard from her since last Thursday night.”

“And you just noticed her missing?” Mendez said. “Don’t you do a head count or something?”

Many of the Thomas Center “clients” were at-risk women from abusive situations. From what Mendez had heard, they ran a pretty tight ship for security reasons.

“We had recently moved Karly out of the center into one of our cottages. She was ready to transition to independent living.”

“What makes you think she didn’t take that idea to the next level and just split?”

Jane Thomas shook her head. “No. No. She was excited about starting over. She was a little nervous, but excited about starting her new job. Yesterday was supposed to be her first day.”

“But she didn’t show up,” Mendez said.

“No.”

“The employer is . . . ?”

“Quinn, Morgan and Associates. A law firm that helps us out with family court cases.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“I saw her last week—Thursday morning at the center. I helped her pick out her new work wardrobe. We have our own store in-house, clothing donated from working women here in town, from Santa Barbara, from Los Angeles.

“Thursday was Karly’s makeover day. She had her hair done, her nails, her makeup. I remember her saying she felt like Cinderella.”

“Could she have gone out looking for Prince Charming?” Mendez asked. “She had a new look, new clothes. She was feeling pretty—”