“She’s shy. She was still recovering emotionally from being beaten nearly to death by her boyfriend.”

Mendez dug his notebook and pen out of the patch pocket of his tweed sport coat and started scribbling. “Do you have a name for him?”

“Greg Usher. I have all the information available on him in Karly’s file at my office. He has a record.”

“And he’s walking around loose?”

“The last I heard.”

“Do you have a photograph of Karly?” Dixon asked.

“Not with me.”

“Do you know if he tried to contact her recently?” Mendez asked.

“She would have told us.”

“Maybe she was afraid to.”

She didn’t have an answer for that. She wasn’t sure.

“Does she have a car?”

“Yes, a gold Chevy Nova. 1974 or ’75. I have the license plate number in her file.”

“Where’s the car?” Mendez asked.

“I don’t know. It’s not at the cottage.”

“So she could have gone somewhere on her own.”

“No. She didn’t just leave.”

“You know as well I do, Jane,” Dixon said quietly. “How many of these women go back to their abusers?”

“Not our women.”

Dixon lifted one white eyebrow. “None of them?”

Jane Thomas scowled. She knew better. “Not this one. She wouldn’t. She would never just leave Petal.”

Mendez stopped writing mid-word. “Petal? Who’s Petal?”

“Karly’s dog.”

His heart gave a big thump then began to beat faster. “What kind of dog?”

“A pit bull. Why?”

He turned to Dixon. “The kids said there was a black-and-white dog at the scene. It might have been a pit bull.”

“Oh my God,” Jane Thomas whispered, sinking down onto the chair behind her. She covered her mouth with her hand as her green eyes filled with tears.

“Where is she?” she asked. She didn’t look at Mendez or at Dixon but stared at the floor as if her life depended on it. “Can I see her?”

Dixon sighed. “We’ll be sending the body to the LA County coroner for an autopsy, but it hasn’t left yet. But it might be better just to have you look at some Polaroids from the scene—”

“No.”

“Jane—”

“I want to see her.” She looked up at Dixon now in a way that made Mendez wonder just how well they knew each other. “I need to see her.”

Dixon started to say something, then clamped his mouth shut and looked out the window. The silence hung in the air like fog. The image of the dead woman’s face slid through Mendez’s memory. He wished he hadn’t had to look at it, and that was his job.

Finally Dixon nodded. “Okay. But I’m warning you, Jane, it’s going to be hard.”

“Then let’s get it over with.”