“I threw it away,” she said, annoyed. “Why would I call you? What would you have done about it? Nothing. You probably would have told me it’s not your jurisdiction and maybe I should call a postal inspector.”

“If we can prove he’s harassing you—”

“He didn’t sign it, for Christ’s sake! He didn’t even address it. He just left it. And now he’s taking pictures of me and my daughter in a public place, in front of witnesses, but that’s not proof he’s stalking me? That’s ludicrous!”

“I know you’re frustrated, Lauren—”

“You know?” she challenged. “You know? You don’t know jack shit!”

“What I meant—”

“You don’t know what this monster has cost me,” she said angrily. “You don’t know what it is to carry a child inside you for nine months, give birth to it, nurture it, love it, then have someone take that child away from you for their own perverted pleasure.”

“No.”

“You don’t know what it’s like to watch that man walk around free while your child is gone, while your husband is dead.”

“No.”

“You don’t know what it’s like to have him claim his rights while I have none,” she said bitterly, tears now streaming down her face. “I have no recourse. I have nothing left except my only remaining child, and I’m supposed to just stand there and watch him take her picture for his catalog of victims?”

In that moment Mendez felt so ashamed of the system he was sworn to protect that he couldn’t even meet Lauren Lawton’s eyes. What was wrong with a world where a predator had more rights than the people he preyed upon?

He could feel the hot contempt in her stare.

“Don’t tell me you know my frustration, detective,” she said. “I am trapped in this fucking nightmare and you are part of the problem, not the solution!”

She turned away from him then, putting her hands and her forehead against the wall as if perhaps she might be able to push her way through to the other side. Or maybe it was that the world was reeling so beneath her feet, she needed the wall to remain upright.

“I can’t believe this is happening!” she cried with such raw despair it cut through Mendez like a knife.

He went to stand beside her and spread one hand between her shoulder blades in some stupid feeble attempt to offer her comfort.

“I want to help you, Lauren,” he said quietly. “I do.”

She gave him a cutting sideways look. “You can’t help me.”

She was trapped in a hell he could only imagine. What good was he with his platitudes and his empty promises? She was locked in an epic battle between good and evil, and he was little more than a spectator, ineffectual and impotent to help her.