Other times she had come home from work to find something barely edible simmering on the stove while he tended to the pots. At the sound of her footsteps, he had looked over his shoulder, then, in mock surprise, threw his hands high into the air. “I’m innocent, Detective,” he would say, appearing guilty as sin, his eyes flashing dark.

“I doubt it,” had been her usual response. And, as if on cue, he had always turned around, hands extended behind his back, his neck twisted so that he could pin her with a wicked gleam in his eye and suggest, “Cuff me anyway.”

Again, they had ended up in bed.

So how had they gone from that lighthearted crazy-in-love banter to this—total mistrust and simmering fury?

The answer was simple:

Camille.

Val met his gaze and wondered if he, too, was tripping down the painful cobblestones of memory lane. “There’s a beer in here, too.”

“That’ll work.” He followed her into the kitchen, took the bottle of Coors from her outstretched hand, and twisted off the cap. He took a long swallow and followed her into the living room where he landed on the small sofa, she in her chair. Tucking her legs beneath her, she decided that it was probably safe to confide in him about Cammie.

“I talked to Detective Montoya a little while ago.”

“Any news?”

“No answers,” she admitted, “just more questions.” She told him that the police were looking for a cell phone or BlackBerry and a diary or notebook. “I know she had some kind of phone, and I guess I never really thought it was odd, but I have no idea where it is. And I don’t know anything about a diary.” Ignoring her rapidly cooling tea, she added, “The oddest thing he brought up again was that Camille had been looking for our birth parents. I heard it earlier but couldn’t believe it. We’ve always known that our parents were killed. They were relatives of Nadine and Gene, our adoptive parents, who took us to visit their graves.”

“You never questioned it.”

“Never.” She was shaking her head slowly as she picked up her cup. “We were adopted out of St. Elsinore’s when we were really young, and I never had a reason to doubt they had really died.”

“But Camille did?”

“I guess.” Valerie was still processing the information. “But that’s crazy. I mean, it was never hidden from us. We knew we were adopted and where we’d come from all our lives,” she said.

“You sure of that?”

“Of course.”

“How can you be so sure?”

She took a sip from her tea, not liking the conclusions she was drawing. “From everything I’ve been told . . .”