“I had a meeting with the Quinn family, as I promised I would.” Sybill uncurled the hand she’d bunched into a fist and spoke evenly. “I’d given them my word, Gloria, that both of us would meet them to discuss Seth.”

“Well, I didn’t give mine, did I? What’d they say? What’re they going to do?”

“They say you were working as a prostitute, that you abused Seth physically, that you allowed your clients to make sexual advances toward him.”

“Liars. Fucking liars. They just want to kick me around, that’s all. They—”

“They said,” Sybill went on, coolly now, “that you accused Professor Quinn of molesting you nearly a dozen years ago, intimated that Seth was his. That you blackmailed him, that you sold Seth to him. That he gave you more than a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

“All bullshit.”

“Not all, but part. Your part could be accurately described as bullshit. Professor Quinn didn’t touch you, Gloria, not twelve years ago, not twelve months ago.”

“How do you know? How the hell do you know what—”

“Mother told me that Raymond Quinn was your father.”

There was silence for a moment, then only Gloria’s quick breathing. “Then he owed me, didn’t he? He owed me. Big-deal college professor with his boring little life. He owed me plenty. It was his fault. It was all his fault. All those years, he didn’t give me dick. He took in scum from the street, but he didn’t give me dick.”

“He didn’t know you existed.”

“I told him, didn’t I? I told him what he’d done, and who I was and what he was going to do about it. And what does he do? He just stares at me. He wants to talk to my mother. He’s not going to give me a fucking dollar until he talks to my mother.”

“So you went to the dean and claimed he’d molested you.”

“Put the fear of God into him. Tight-assed son of a bitch.”

She’d been right, Sybill thought. Her instincts when she’d walked into that room at the police station had been right after all. It was a mistake. This woman was a stranger. “And when that didn’t work, you used Seth.”

“Kid’s got his eyes. Anybody can see that.” There was a sucking noise, a hiss, as Gloria dragged on a cigarette. “Changed his tune once he got a look at the kid.”

“He gave you money for Seth.”

“It wasn’t enough. He owed me. Listen, Sybill . . .” Her voice shifted, whined and trembled. “You don’t know what it’s like. I’ve been raising that kid on my own since he was a baby and that prick Jerry DeLauter took off. Nobody was going to help me. Our dear mother wouldn’t even accept a phone call from me, and that prissy freak she married and tried to pass off as my father wouldn’t either. I could’ve dumped the kid, you know. I could’ve dumped him anytime. The money Social Services doles out for a kid is pitiful.”