The bastard was a lawyer. He would know every way possible to screw her over in a divorce. He had probably been stashing assets for the past year. Keeping secrets seemed to be his specialty.

“Are you married, Detective?” she asked.

“No, ma’am—uh, no,” he said. He didn’t invite her to call him Tony. “No, I’m not.”

She seemed to think about that for a minute, as if she might have had a different idea about him.

“We used to be happy,” she said. “Not that long ago. And then something changed and neither one of us seemed to know what to do about it. It’s hard to explain. It was like one minute we were standing toe to toe, and then all of a sudden there was a chasm between us.”

She sipped her tea and shrugged to herself. “Maybe I wasn’t needy enough. And now that I am, it’s too late.”

“When did he become so involved with the Thomas Center?” Mendez asked, steering away from the too-personal details. He didn’t need more reasons to want to put his arms around her and protect her. That wasn’t his job. It was his White Knight Syndrome, as his sister Mercedes called it.

“Steve has always been involved in women’s rights causes. He had a single mother. It was a tough situation for him growing up. She passed away when he was in law school, and he dedicated himself to helping disadvantaged women in her honor.”

She smiled an ironic little smile. “That dedication was one of the first things that attracted me to him.”

Dedication was one thing, Mendez thought. Lobbying in Sacramento for women’s rights was terrific. Donating services to the Thomas Center was admirable. But that dedication also put Steve Morgan in a target-rich environment of women to take advantage of.

Sara sighed and slid down off her stool. “And now that you know more about my life than you ever wanted to know, I’m going to take your advice and go to bed. I have car pool in the morning.”

Mendez watched her dump her tea in the sink and rinse out the mug.

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “You don’t have to stay. Really. I’ll be fine.”

He didn’t believe her—or he didn’t want to believe her.

“You should take your own advice,” she said. “Go home and get some rest.”

The hell he would, he thought. Her husband had as good a reason to kill Marissa Fordham as anybody. And he had even more motive to kill the wife who was about to divorce him and take half of everything he had—plus alimony, plus child support.

But he said none of that to Sara.

“You’ll lock your door behind me,” he said as they went down the hall to the front of the house.

“Yes, sir.”