“I think the correct term is ‘uteri.’”

The two detectives emerged from the car. Duncan took a notebook from his back pocket as they approached the woman. Eve noticed that the notepad was curved by his buttocks.

Eve flashed her badge. “I’m Detective Eve Ronin and this is Detective Duncan Pavone with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Are you the woman who called 911?”

“Alexis Ward,” she said, nodding, her voice cracking just a bit with concern. “You’ve got to get in there. Something’s wrong.”

“We will, but we need more information before we can bust in,” Eve said. “Who lives here?”

“Tanya Kenworth. That’s her Taurus, just like her sign. Mine, too.” Alexis touched her necklace. A silver bull’s head dangled from the thin chain. “We’re astrological sisters, both born in April. I think that’s why we became friends the instant we started waitressing together at Rockne’s.”

“Oh yeah, up on Kanan,” Duncan said. “I thought you looked familiar. I go there a lot. They’ve got great tri-tip.”

“Tanya was supposed to pick me up at six this morning to make our seven o’clock call time at Paramount,” Alexis said. “She’d never miss that. Never.”

“Call time?” Duncan asked, looking up from the notes he was jotting on his pad.

“When we’re supposed to be on set for hair and makeup. We’re extras on Grey’s Anatomy. I went to the set on my own but I must’ve left a hundred voice mail and text messages for her. I came here as soon as we wrapped the scene I was in.”

Eve asked: “Does Tanya live here alone?”

“She’s got two kids, Caitlin and Troy,” Alexis said. “They’re ten and seven. This is her boyfriend’s house, but she’s moving out as soon as she can find a place.”

Eve felt the muscles in her shoulder tighten up, a common reaction to stress, specifically the kind caused by her mother. This house was a dead ringer for her childhood home in Encino and Tanya sounded just like her mom, a single mother on the fringes of Hollywood trying to raise three kids. She rolled her shoulders to loosen them up. “Does he know that?”

“Oh yeah,” she said. “It got ugly. That’s why I was worried when I couldn’t reach her. What if he hurt her? What if she’s inside there right now, bleeding to death, while we’re out here talking?”

The pitch of Alexis’ voice increased as she spoke and Eve held up her hands in a halting gesture to calm her down. “Okay, okay, wait right here. We’ll go check things out. You told the 911 operator that you peeked in the kitchen window and saw blood. Where was that?”

“Back of the house,” Alexis said.

At that moment, a sheriff’s department patrol car rolled up behind their Explorer and two uniformed deputies, Tom Ross and Eddie Clayton, got out. Ross was an ex-marine and everything about his body language screamed military. He could be dressed as Santa Claus and it wouldn’t fool anyone. People called Clayton “Shades” because he almost never took off his wraparound sunglasses.