Tears welled up. Vince held his breath.

“You’re not playing right!” Haley insisted, lower lip quivering. “You’re the daddy! You have to read the story!”

“Okay. All right, honey. Don’t cry.”

He could only imagine the consequences if Anne came home and Haley told her he had made her cry.

She settled in against him as Vince turned to the first page of the book, her body tense at first, as if she were still trying to ward off the bad feelings he had stirred up with his questions. But as he began to read the story about a princess who wanted to be a fairy, he felt her let go. Before he had read three pages she was asleep, dreaming of a place where bad things couldn’t happen, he hoped.

Chapter 49

49

“There’s no sign of Gina Kemmer, no sign of her car,” Hicks said. “One neighbor said she saw her leave her house sometime between five and six o’clock last night. She was alone. She didn’t have a suitcase. Everything looked normal.”

Back in the war room for the end of the day, someone had ordered pizza and sodas. Chicago-style pizza. That meant Vince had put the call in. Mendez was glad. He was starving. He couldn’t remember the last meal he’d had—or decent night’s sleep for that matter.

They sat on all sides of the long table eating like they would never see food again. The room was filled with the aroma of herbs and tomato sauce—almost, but not quite drowning out the smell of frustration.

“If she left town of her own accord, she did it without taking so much as a change of clothes or a makeup bag,” he said. “What woman does that?”

“None,” Dixon said. “If she was snatched from the supermarket parking lot, her car would still be there. If she went to stay with a friend, her car would be parked on the street or in a driveway.”

“She could have gone off the road into a canyon,” Hamilton suggested. “Or just plain got out of town. Maybe she has a friend in Santa Barbara or someplace else.”

“Or somebody has her,” Trammell said.

“Or she’s dead,” Mendez said. “To me this strengthens the blackmail angle.”

“Even if there was no blackmail,” Hicks said, “Gina probably knows something someone doesn’t want her to.”

“What do her bank records look like?” Dixon asked, swiping a napkin across his chin to catch a dribble of tomato sauce.

“She has her accounts at Wells Fargo, same as Marissa Fordham,” Hamilton said. “The only odd thing is every month she deposits a check for a grand from Marissa Fordham.”

“Payoff?” Dixon said. “Or was Marissa just a generous friend sharing her good fortune?”

“A payoff could give Kemmer a motive,” Campbell said. “If the generous friend tried to cut her off.”