I am tired of waiting for someone else to find an answer, to find evidence, to find my daughter, to find her body. I can’t wait for technology to advance. Waiting has gained me nothing but a simmering hatred that burned away what was good in me.

I used to be a good person, a good mother, a good wife. Now I am consumed with anger. Blinded by my obsession, I have put my youngest child in harm’s way. I have nothing left to give to anyone.

Winston Churchill once said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” I have been going, and have kept going. It’s time for that journey to reach its destination. I’ve been in hell too long.

The Walther was clean, oiled, and loaded. Seven in the clip, one in the chamber.

Lauren had cut the legs off a pair of control-top hose and fashioned a holster of sorts from the panty. She was able to slip the gun inside the stretchy waistband and have it held snugly against her belly. No chance of it falling from the loose waist of her jeans, which no longer fit.

She put on one of Lance’s old black T-shirts and tied the overlong tail up in a knot at her right hip. The shirt was baggy enough to hide the outline of the gun and allow her quick access to it.

She had a drink to steady her nerves, then got behind the wheel of her car and headed toward the home of Roland Ballencoa.

“That’s crazy,” Hicks said.

Mendez looked at Danni Tanner. She’d had a hand in this case from early on. She knew Lauren Lawton better than any of them.

“That’s Lauren,” she said with resignation. “Oh, man . . . She really is stalking him.”

Mendez went to the whiteboard and tapped a finger under the name Greg Hewitt. “A week’s pay says he’s a PI—license or no. He found out Ballencoa was moving here. Lauren followed him.”

“That’s at least three different kinds of crazy,” Hicks said. “She bought a house here—”

“She didn’t buy a house,” Mendez corrected him. “The place belongs to friends.”

“She brought her daughter here,” Hicks said with more gravity.

Mendez replayed the conversation they had had as they sat in his car that first day when he had pulled her over:

Do you have any reason to believe Ballencoa is in Oak Knoll?

Would I have brought my daughter here if I did? she challenged.

“If she came here with a plan, she felt in control,” Tanner said. “If she came here knowing exactly where Ballencoa was, she probably felt safer than not.