“Where is she?”

“I sent her with her friend Wendy Morgan and Wendy’s mother.”

“Sara Morgan?” he asked.

“I don’t know where they live,” she admitted. As if she didn’t already feel like a bad mother. Not only had she sent her daughter off with a gun, she had sent her daughter home with a woman she’d only just met, not even knowing where the Morgans lived.

“I do,” Mendez said.

They rode in silence. Lauren had no interest in small talk or breaking the uncomfortable feeling that hung in the air. She didn’t care what he thought about the way she had spoken to his boss—or to him, for that matter. She was long past caring what people in law enforcement thought about her.

She was more worried about Sara Morgan. What must the woman think of her? Hauled away for assault before they could even have dinner. Wendy was Leah’s only friend here. If her mother put an end to that friendship on Lauren’s account . . .

And why wouldn’t she? If Leah was a target of a predator, then Wendy could be in danger too. Almost certainly Ballencoa would have been photographing both girls at the tennis courts. And according to Anne Leone, Wendy had already been through more than any child should have been subjected to—involved in a murder investigation, attacked by a schoolmate . . .

In her mind Lauren kept going back to Ballencoa. It was his fault. He had chosen to photograph the girls. She had only put a stop to it. He had chosen to stalk the Lawton family. She couldn’t be held responsible for his choices . . . only her own.

She had chosen to come here. She had put them all in jeopardy.

“Just so you know,” Mendez said, breaking the silence, “we are working on Ballencoa. We’re not just sitting around with our thumbs up our asses.”

“Yeah. I could see that tonight while he was photographing my daughter,” she returned sarcastically. “You were all over it.”

“I want him off the streets for something we can prosecute him for,” he said, holding his temper. “If we can connect him to an actual crime and put him away, we get a warrant to search his property, and maybe we find something that links him to your daughter’s case. Maybe he’s locked up long enough that the DNA technology advances and the Santa Barbara PD can test the blood sample.”

“But in the meantime he’s free to do whatever he wants. Forgive me if I don’t seem enthusiastic for your plan.”

“That’s the system we have,” he said. “We can’t lock people up just because we don’t like them. There were plenty of people in Santa Barbara who thought your husband killed your daughter. Nobody locked him up either.”

“Yeah. Look how well that worked out for me.”