“Probably no one, with Lily gone.” Darlene looked down. “Dear Lord, what I’m telling you. Opening myself up to a dandy lawsuit…not to mention the hospital. I’ll probably never work in the city again.”

“I’m not going to sue anyone. Lourdes Rodriguez is another story. So the babies were left alone?”

“They may have been. Chris and a few temps were helping me. Marie had a few temps as well. Maybe one of the temps was watching the nursery.”

“Either way, that’s understaffed to me.”

“That’s true. If it’s any consolation, Sergeant, I assure you that’s not our standard procedure.”

Decker didn’t answer.

“I know. I must seem like a negligent person. I also should have told you about Lily. It just never dawned on me that Lily could be involved. You must think I’m the stupidest person on earth.” Her cheeks became wet. “Another road to hell paved with good intentions.”

“I’ve had a few of them myself, Darlene.”

Darlene wiped her face. “That was a nice thing to say.”

“We’re all too human.” Decker tapped his pencil on his notebook. “Do you know a nurse named Tandy Roberts?”

“Tandy? Is Tandy involved?”

“You know Tandy?”

“Not well, but I knew her. She used to be very close to Marie. They had some kind of falling out. Poor Marie. She felt very hurt, though she didn’t say much. But I could tell.”

“Did you happen to see Tandy at the hospital the night of the kidnapping?”

“No. Why?”

“I don’t know. I’m grasping at straws now. It’s hard for me to imagine Marie murdering Lily…if the body is Lily…and kidnapping a baby all by herself. I’m assuming she had help. And this Tandy Roberts was at one time a close friend of Marie’s.”

“I haven’t seen Tandy in a couple of years.”

“You’re sure she wasn’t at the hospital that night?”

“I’m not positive. But Tandy’d be a hard woman to miss.”

“Did she ever work at the hospital?”

“Marie got her a part-time job at Sun Valley, but Tandy only lasted a couple of months. I thought she was a dull girl, but Marie was wild about her. Like I said, Marie always took pity on the underdog. But she really took a shine to Tandy. Like she was her own kid or something.”

Her own kid—a weird choice of words. Decker did some quick calculations. Roberts was around twenty-five, and Marie was forty. He frowned. Marie’s friend Paula had said that Marie had been around twenty when she had “lost” her baby. But maybe Paula was wrong. Maybe Marie’d had a baby at fifteen and had given her up for adoption. Maybe Tandy was that baby—the “lost” baby.