“Did you know all that this morning when we talked?”

She nodded. “There are still a lot of unanswered questions right now and I’m—”

“Going on a fucking bike ride,” he interrupted, his voice tinged with disgust. “Have fun.”

“It’s not what it looks like,” she said, feeling as if she were standing in front of him naked instead of in her cycling wear. She had this ridiculous urge to cover her chest and crotch. “I was on surveillance. But that’s not important. Here’s what I know. There was some horrible violence in that house and your children are missing. It’s unlikely that we are going to find them unharmed . . . but I’m trying to keep an open mind.”

“You believe my children are dead but you won’t know until you find their bodies,” he said. “That’s what you’re telling me.”

There it was. She’d made him say it because she couldn’t. He had more guts than she did and she was ashamed, but still not enough to do the right thing when it counted.

“I’m very sorry, Mr. Kenworth.”

He looked as disgusted with her as she was with herself.

“I’ll be at the Good Nite Inn down the street until this is over.” He turned his back on her, got into his car, and drove off.

She watched him go, then got on her bike and started riding home. It wasn’t until she got to her door that she realized she’d been crying the whole way.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Eve was awakened the next morning by insistent knocking at her front door, followed by the distinctive ringtone of her iPhone. She reached out to her nightstand, picked up her phone, and looked at the screen. It said MOM.

She answered the call as she got out of bed in her T-shirt and panties. “I can’t talk right now. There’s someone at the door.”

“It’s me. You didn’t hear my knocking so I called,” her mom said. “Do you have a man over?”

“No,” Eve said, reaching for her bathrobe.

“That’s a shame.” Her mom disconnected.

Eve checked the time on her phone as she went downstairs. It was 7:00 a.m. She’d been asleep for twelve hours and probably would have slept for a few more if not for the wake-up call. She quickly checked her recent calls to see if she’d slept through Duncan trying to reach her and was relieved to see that she hadn’t. On the other hand, it meant the warrant still hadn’t come through.

She opened the door and Jen Ronin bounded in, clutching a brown paper bag. Her mom was dressed in a vibrantly colorful, busy blouse from Chico’s that looked like a Jackson Pollock painting and purple capri pants that could have been stolen from Mary Tyler Moore’s dressing room on the original Dick Van Dyke Show. Jen was beautiful once, but too much bad plastic surgery gave her face the sculpted edges of a mannequin and a pair of hard, upright boobs to match.