He went into the bathroom, called out, “Nothing sexy here, either.”

Returning to the dresser, he opened drawers, inspected the framed pictures. Stepped closer and held them out for my inspection.

Adriana and her church group, including the woman she’d known as Qeesha D’Embo but had come to accept as Simone Chambord because friends in need did what was expected of them.

The two women stood heads together, beaming.

Qeesha cradled a tiny brown infant.

The baby had a round face, inquisitive black eyes, a sweet mouth, graceful, long-fingered hands, a full head of dark hair.

Beautiful child.

Finally, the bones had a face.

Cordelia.

My throat clogged.

Milo raced out of the room.

Melvin Jaron Wedd’s quarters veered toward messy but smelled okay. Probably the Armani cologne in his medicine cabinet.

The fragrance shared space with Viagra for fun, Lunesta for sleep, five varieties of caffeine pills for energy. Tube of lube in the top nightstand drawer. In the second, a short stack of gay porn.

Nothing interesting in the dresser until Milo kneeled low and pulled a small blue leatherette spiral notebook out of the bottom, right-hand drawer. Stashed under a stack of beefy sweaters too warm for L.A.

The book bore the gold-imprinted legend of an insurance broker with an office in Beverly Hills. Probably one of those Christmas giveaways.

Inside was an appointment calendar, complete with holiday notations, dated the previous year. Wedd hadn’t used it to organize his schedule; the pages were unmarked.

Milo leafed through. Toward the end, several blank pages headed Notes contained just that.

Mel Wedd’s penmanship was impressive. Nice straight columns, too. Two side by side per page.

Cheryl, Jan 3–7: 1000.00

Melissa, Jan 6–7: 750.00

Shayanne Jan 23: 750.00

Forty-nine women’s names, fifteen of them occurring twice or more. Monthly totals approached ten thousand dollars but always fell slightly short.

“Simone” showed up sixteen times over a two-year period.

First payment: three hundred dollars. An increase to six hundred, then six notations of eight fifty.

Milo said, “Merit raise—whoa, look at this.”

Sudden boost on the eighth payment: $4,999.99. Seven more of those, each dated the first of the month.

Milo said, “She takes up a whole bunch of the ten-grand limit, leaving less for other girls. Guy’s a superstar, would have to come begging for dough, talk about demeaning.”

I said, “He’s Prema’s bad child.”

He looked at me. “Been carrying around that insight for a while?”

“Just thought of it.”

“She couldn’t raise him properly, moved on to real kids?”