They were met at the front door by a pretty if harried-looking woman who seemed a little nervous when they introduced themselves. Erin Denning, Carson’s second wife, was petite with short reddish hair, an upturned nose, and wide, worried eyes. She could only have been five or six years older than the twins, her stepdaughters, and, Bentz already had learned from Selma, was raising Carson’s two sons, Carson Junior, “CJ,” a rambunctious four-year-old with red hair, and his little brother, Jayden, whom Erin carried on her hip. She led the detectives through a spacious foyer with inlaid marble to an office with double doors and a glass desk, where her husband sat before three computer monitors and two television screens. These days Carson Denning was a day trader and worked from home.

“Detectives,” he said after introductions. Though he grinned widely, there was barely a trace of happiness in his eyes. “Tell me you’ve found my girls.”

“Not yet,” Bentz said, and he saw what little light there was in Carson’s pale eyes fade. “We have a few questions about your daughters.”

“I see. Let’s step outside.” His lips folded in on themselves and he motioned the two detectives to walk out a side door that opened to a veranda where a variety of lush ferns and palms offered shade. Overhead lights had been strung to create ambiance in the evening. Water spilled from a stone waterfall into a basin where goldfish and koi swam slowly, their scales catching the sunlight. Bentz looked up, noticed a screen stretched between the wings of the house so that no bird could fly in and make a meal of the brightly colored fish.

“Look,” Carson said, “whatever it takes, whatever I can do, just say the word. You have to find my daughters. My divorce from their mother was not amicable; it’s hard for us to be civil to each other, but my Zoe and Chloe . . .” He let out a shuddering breath and stared at the fish darting beneath the water’s surface. “They’re special. I’ll do whatever I can to help find them.” He sat on a bench and clasped his hands between his knees. “That being said, the less my wife, Erin, has to do with this, the better.” He looked up quickly, frowning. “I mean, she’s fond of Chloe and Zoe, of course. They’re, well, they’re contemporaries of hers, but because she’s related to Selma, it’s . . . touchy.”

I’ll bet, Bentz thought, though didn’t admit that he, too, had been through a messy divorce where family members were compromising partners. That, however, had been long ago; water under the emotional bridge.