She looked like she hadn’t slept or eaten in days.

“Detectives,” she said, pulling the gloves off. Her hands were raw with cuts and scratches. She had given up on the Smurf Band-Aids. The sculpture she had told him about was taking a hard toll on her.

“What a surprise,” she said with no surprise in her voice at all.

“Mrs. Morgan,” Mendez said. “Is your husband at home? We need to speak to him.”

“What about?”

“It’s of a sensitive nature, ma’am,” Hicks said.

“Are you going to accuse him of sleeping with Marissa again?” she asked bluntly.

“Uhhhh ... well ...”

“Don’t bother,” she said. “He’ll only deny it. That’s the first three things they learn in law school, you know. Deny, deny, deny.”

“It sounds like you’ve already had that conversation with him,” Mendez said.

Sara Morgan let his statement hang. “He isn’t home,” she said. “He called to say he’d be late. Again.”

Wendy came down the stairs then, her eyes widening a bit at the sight of two detectives in the foyer. She’d grown since Mendez had last seen her. She was going to be a knockout like her mother in another few years.

“Hey, Wendy,” he said, smiling. “How are you doing?”

She shrugged with one shoulder. She didn’t smile back. “I’m okay. Why are you here?”

Sara Morgan turned to her daughter. “They have some questions about Marissa, about ... what happened.”

Wendy huffed an impatient sigh. “Why don’t you just say it? Her murder. Marissa was murdered. Somebody took a knife and killed her.”

“Wendy—”

“I’m not a baby, Mom. I know what goes on in the world. People get murdered. People die. It’s nothing new,” she said with a bitterness in her tone that made Mendez frown.

Wendy looked up at him with unblinking blue eyes. “Do you know who killed her?”

“No,” he said. “We’re still gathering information. Your mom and Ms. Fordham were friends. We thought she might be able tell us something about Ms. Fordham we don’t already know.”

Satisfied with that answer, Wendy moved on. “How’s Haley? Is she going to be all right? Where is she?”

“She’s going to be fine,” Mendez said. “Anne Leone—Miss Navarre—is looking after her in the hospital until we can find some relatives.”

Wendy’s demeanor lightened considerably at that. She turned to her mother. “Oh, Mom! Can I go see her? Please!”

“Wendy loves Haley,” Sara Morgan said, her own expression softening as she looked down at her daughter.

“Can I go see her in the hospital? Please, please, please!”

She turned to Mendez again. “I was going to get to be her babysitter next year. After I turn twelve. I could have handled it this year because it’s not like I’m a regular eleven-year-old. I’m very mature for my age.”

“I know you are,” Mendez said.