“Then we’ll let you get on with the rest of your day,” Vince said with a soft smile.

Jane Thomas looked worn-out and stressed out. The Thomas Center was her namesake, her baby by the looks of the framed photos on the walls: Jane Thomas receiving awards from women’s groups, photos with politicians, photos with various members of her staff and clients. Her work was being attacked via Lisa Warwick and Karly Vickers, and she had to be worried what—or who—might be next.

“My day is consisting of fretting,” she confessed.

With good reason, Vince thought. The center’s clients made for a perfect victim pool: women with patterns of abuse in their backgrounds, vulnerable women, women with self-esteem issues. These were the kinds of women predators sought out as being easy to prey on, easy to control. A sufficiently twisted mind would see these women as being less than women living in traditional settings with traditional families, and therefore it was not a loss to society to dispose of them.

Vince had interviewed a number of serial murderers of prostitutes. They had all felt that they had practically done a public service in taking whores off the streets.

“Do you really think this Alfano guy could be behind these murders?” Mendez asked as they walked down the hall to the front doors. “I can see him targeting Lisa Warwick because she helped his wife get the kids back. But we have two other victims before Lisa Warwick.”

“It’s not likely,” Vince said. “But, like you said, follow all leads to the end. I know of a case where an estranged wife’s parents stalked and murdered her husband to ensure she would get custody of their granddaughter. “

“Or the guy doing life for a freeway shooting, and his mother builds a pipe bomb, sends it to the key witness against him, and blows half the family to kingdom come,” Mendez said.

“People are un-fucking-believable,” Vince said, and like every cop he’d ever known, segued from talk of murder to food. “Where are we going? Lunch, I hope.”

“The beauty salon,” Mendez said. “I thought we could get manicures and bond.”

“Very funny.”

“Karly Vickers had an appointment the day she went missing,” Mendez said. “And there’s a sandwich place down the block.”

Karly Vickers had spent three hours at Spice Salon on the afternoon in question. She had a haircut and a perm, a manicure and a pedicure. One of the “beauty technicians,” as they called themselves, had spent half an hour showing her the latest makeup tricks.

Three hours of listening to disco’s biggest hits pumping over the speakers, Vince thought as he sat in a vacant stylist’s chair. The woman had probably killed herself afterward.