“Not really,” she said. “But truthfully, I never got very far in the process. My questions were mostly the exploratory variety. And a couple times, I know I just slipped them into conversations I was already having with Steven.”

“Steven?” A.L. asked. He was, quite frankly, surprised that she’d offered up the connection.

“Steven Hanzel. He’s a loan officer at the bank and was my cochair for the Fourth of July Activities Committee. So we were going back and forth on that.”

He had some familiarity with Baywood’s Activities Committee. If they’d been cochairs, there would be some public record of that. “That was convenient for you,” he said.

“Very.”

She was one of the best liars he’d ever interviewed or she was telling the truth. He just didn’t know. He decided to poke her with a stick.

“Do you happen to know Shana Federer?”

“I know that she has a child at the learning center. But not in my class.”

“But you’d recognize her if you saw her.”

“I think so.”

“And she’d recognize you.”

“I don’t know, Detective. I really don’t understand the question.”

“No question,” he said easily. “Just conversation. Let’s go back to the Activities Committee work that you were doing with Steven. Most of your communication done on the phone?”

“Yes.”

“All of it?” A.L. asked.

“Well, no. We met in person sometimes. Our whole committee did.”

“Oh, sure. That makes sense,” A.L. said. “Probably some emails, too.”

“I guess. I don’t really recall.”

“Texts?” A.L. asked.

“I... I don’t really know. I do text a lot. Everybody does, right?”

“Phones, an extension of our hands. You have just the one cell phone, Kara?” A.L. asked.

“Yes,” she said. Then she yawned. “I really am sorry,” she said. “It’s just that I’m so tired. Is there anything else?”

Rena shook her head. A.L. stood. “I’ll walk you out.”

When he got back to the conference room, Rena was on the phone. Listening intently. All the color had drained from her face. And her hand was shaking. “Thank you,” she said. “Appreciate the call.” She carefully put her cell phone on the table.

“Fuck,” A.L. said. “They found her and she’s dead.”

“No. No,” she said. “It’s not about Emma. It’s...”

“Gabe? One of the Morgans?”

“No.”

“Tell me what the hell is going on, Rena. You look as if you’re about to slip out of that chair.” He wasn’t exaggerating.

“Remember that I told you that we had selected somebody to be our carrier for the pregnancy? And that she lived with a lowlife?”

“Yeah.”

“I put a tag on the lowlife, so that I’d get notified if something came in on him.”