Rose worked as a waitress in the little Italian restaurant two blocks from Mel’s office. It had been easy to fall into a casual conversation—particularly since Rose did most of the talking—over a plate of spaghetti or a cup of cappuccino.

Mel remembered admiring the way Rose hustled trays, even though her pregnant belly strained against her apron. And she remembered Rose telling her how happy she and her Stan were to be expecting their first child.

Mel had even been invited to the baby shower, and though she’d been certain she would feel awkward and out of place at such a gathering, she’d enjoyed listening to the oohs and aahs over the tiny clothes and the stuffed animals. She’d taken a liking to Stan, too, with his shy eyes and slow smiles.

When David had been born, eight months ago, she’d gone to the hospital to visit. As she’d stared at the babies sleeping, bawling or wriggling in their clear-sided cribs, she’d understood why people prayed and struggled and sacrificed to have children.

They were so perfect. So perfectly lovely.

When she’d left, she was happy for Rose and Stan. And lonelier than she’d ever been in her life.

It had become a habit for her to drop by their apartment from time to time with a little toy for David. As an excuse, of course, an excuse to play with him for an hour. She’d fallen more than a little in love with him, so she hadn’t felt foolish exclaiming over his first tooth, or being astounded when he learned to crawl.

Then that frantic phone call two months before. Rose’s voice, shrill and nearly incoherent.

“He’s gone. He’s gone. He’s gone.”

Mel had made the mile from her office to the Merrick home in record time. The police had already been there. Stan and Rose had been clutched together on the sofa like two lost souls in a choppy sea. Both of them crying.

David was gone. Snatched off his playpen mat as he napped in the shade on the little patch of grass just outside the rear door of their first-floor apartment.

Now two months had passed, and the playpen was still empty.

Everything Mel had learned, everything she’d been trained to do and her instincts had taught her, hadn’t helped get David back.

Now Rose wanted to try something else, something so absurd that Mel would have laughed—if not for the hard glint of determination in Rose’s usually soft eyes. Rose didn’t care what Stan said, what the police said, what Mel said. She would try anything, anything, to get her child back.

Even if that meant going to a psychic.

*  *  *

As they swept down the coast to Big Sur in Mel’s cranky, primer-coated MG, she took one last shot at talking sense to Rose.

“Rose …”