“You don’t have to be Dr. Phil to know why you became a cop. You’ve been trying to impose order on Mom and the world and take care of everybody since you were born. This case is going to play you.”

“Dr. Phil is an asshole,” Eve said. “His name, and the fact that he is on TV, should tell you all you need to know. What real doctor would drop his last name and analyze patients in front of a studio audience? Only an asshole.”

“I think you’re missing the point,” Lisa said. “Or purposely avoiding it.”

“Why did you become a nurse?”

“Probably the same reason you became a cop—to make up for something I was missing in my life. Someone to take care of me.”

“I took care of you,” she said.

“I was also emulating a terrific role model. People are complicated.”

“Not according to Dr. Phil.”

Lisa gave Eve a hug. “I’m going home to bed. You should get some sleep now, too.”

“I can spare three hours for a quick nap.”

“You just said the family is dead.”

Eve sighed. “But the killer isn’t.”

CHAPTER TEN

Lisa was barely out the door when Eve changed her mind about the nap. Sleeping wouldn’t move the case forward. All the talking about her mom made Eve think about family. It nagged at her that she hadn’t spoken face-to-face with Cleve Kenworth, Tanya’s ex-husband and the father of the kids. He was the closest relative to those dead kids. The Merced Police had talked to him but she hadn’t looked him in the eye. She decided it would be an investigative mistake if she didn’t meet with him as soon as possible.

Merced was 273 miles north of Calabasas in California’s Central Valley, a straight shot up Interstate 5 and Highway 99 and there would be almost no traffic at this time of night. If she drove at ninety miles an hour, it would take her three hours to get there. That was a much better use of her time than sleep.

So she got dressed, rode her bike to the Lost Hills station, checked out a plain-wrap Explorer, and headed for Merced. She lit up the flashers behind the front grille and put the magnetized swirling bubble light up on the roof so everybody, particularly any California Highway Patrol cars hiding in speed traps, would see her coming.

Eve slowed only to go down the Grapevine, the winding route out of the Tehachapi Mountains into the southern-most end of the San Joaquin Valley, because it was dangerous even at normal speeds and there was a big CHP weigh station at the bottom. Racing past the CHP station, unless she was in hot pursuit of a felon, would have been obnoxious and just asking for trouble.

Once she hit the valley, the freeway split off into a continuation of Interstate 5, heading up the sparsely populated western edge, and the older Highway 99, which went straight up the center and hit all the major agricultural communities, from Bakersfield to Sacramento. Eve took the 99, a journey through vast expanses of pitch-black farmland where half of the nation’s fruits, vegetables, and nuts were grown. At least for now, she thought. After years of drought, the underground aquifers were being sucked dry and the crops were baking. Soon, the valley could be a dust bowl.