“I promise I’ll stay out of the way.”

“You never stay out of the way.”

“I knew these people, Sam. Don’t make me stay home.”

He looked so uncharacteristically vulnerable that her heart went out to him. She understood all at once that more than anything he didn’t want to be alone just then. “Okay, but you will stay out of the way.”

“I promise.”

On the way to Belle Haven, Sam arranged for surveillance on Elin Svendsen’s apartment building in case Patricia showed up there looking to make Elin her next victim. To Nick, she said, “Can you call Christina? I need the full list of every woman John dated during the years she worked for him.”

“All of them?”

“Every one. I want names, addresses and phone numbers. Patricia has been gathering the same info we have. She’s had someone digging into his past. I want to know what else she found—or rather who else.”

“Christina might not have all that.”

Sam shot him a withering look. “She was in love with him. You think she doesn’t have the full lowdown on all the women he dated? Give me a break. She’s probably got every detail down to their bra size in a spreadsheet. Tell her to e-mail the list to me.”

While Nick made the call, Sam ordered first shift to be called in early. Rounding up all of John’s Barbies was going to take some serious manpower. Her cell phone rang, and Sam took the call from Detective Jeannie McBride.

“We’ve checked every hotel in the city,” Jeannie said. “No hits for a Patricia Donaldson. Do you want me to start checking the burbs?”

Sam thought about that for a moment. “Try Patricia O’Connor, and get some extra people on it. I need that info ASAP.”

“You got it, Sergeant.”

Sam ended the call, but clutched the phone as they sped toward the Jordans’s house. “I can’t believe I didn’t get to her sooner.”

“She was the love of his life. Why would you think it was her?”

“He was the love of her life. Not the other way around. If a guy loves a woman the way she told us he loved her, he’s not banging everything he can get his hands on when he’s not with her. I think maybe she was still caught up in their teenage Romeo and Juliet romance, but he’d moved on. I’d sure love to talk to their kid. Thomas.”

“He must be somewhere local with the funeral the day after tomorrow.”

“If he is, we’ll find him—and his mother. I just hope we get to her before she gets to another of John’s girlfriends.”

By the time they arrived, the Jordans’s Belle Haven neighborhood was overrun with emergency vehicles.