Lizzie waited another minute before she responded. "That can't be true, Ms. Preston. Maybe she's booked under another name. If the police don't charge you, they have to release you. It's the law. It would help me to know what it is you expect, what it is precisely that you want me to do."

"Try telling that to the police. I'm sure casino security and the local police work in tandem. That's another way of saying the cops, at least some of them, are on the casinos' payroll. Everyone knows it, they just don't talk about it out loud. I want you to get me out of here and. . .take care of whomever is responsible for putting me here."

"What about the newspapers? Did you try going to them to ask for help? Did you file a missing person's report?"

"My daughter won a great deal of money at various casinos, but she doesn't come close to those math whizzes from MIT who reportedly took more than $10 million from the casinos in the nineties. They got away with it. My daughter just played slot machines," Beatrice Preston said defiantly. "When you have a gambling house, you are going to have winners, and you will have losers. She won, it's that simple, and those people are trying to. . .I don't know what they're trying to do, but she's in jail, so that has to mean something. Look, I'm desperate with nowhere to turn. I know that my daughter is in jail."

Lizzie's mind was racing. This was right up there with. . .no point in going there. No two cases were the same. If she took this case, assuming there was a case to take, it was going to be a challenge, she could feel it in her bones. "Like I said, Ms. Preston, I have to speak with your daughter, but I can't do that until I find her. Have you given any thought to speaking with your daughter? Perhaps the two of you could make amends."

"I think about it twenty-four hours a day, Miss Fox. My daughter refuses to speak with me. It's that simple. I cannot unring that bell."

Lizzie felt her eyes grow moist as she thought about Annie, and how she now had an official adoptive mother. Nothing in the whole wide world could replace a mother in a child's mind. Nothing. She said so.

"Yes, I know. I'm sure I will go to hell on a greased slide for what I've done, but I did what I thought best to spare my child what I had to go through. Perhaps someday, after I'm gone, she'll understand. I plan to leave a letter with my lawyer to read to her. It's all I can do.