The nurse, a short woman with smoker’s skin and dyed-black hair, waved a hand in dismissal. “She’s insisting on a CT scan, but she’ll be fine. She’s shaken up. More scared than hurt. She’ll have a good goose egg on her forehead tomorrow, but there’s no sign of a concussion.”

She motioned to a door and left them. Dixon knocked twice and opened it.

Milo Bordain sat on the exam table, an unimpressed nurse tending to a small cut and abrasion on the left side of Bordain’s forehead.

“Cal! Thank God you’re here! Someone tried to kill me!”

She did look worse for wear, Mendez thought. Her blond hair was escaping the usually perfect tight bun she wore, and her makeup was mostly gone, showing her age in the harsh fluorescent lighting. In a hospital gown and wearing a paper blanket for a stole, she seemed much less formidable than in her usual layers of designer wear.

“We’ll do our best to get to the bottom of it, Mrs. Bordain,” Dixon said.

“Ouch!” she cried out and snapped at the nurse who was dabbing something at the cut on her forehead. “That stings!”

“Yeah,” the nurse said, unapologetic. “Good thing you don’t need stitches.”

“If I need stitches, I’m calling my plastic surgeon. I’m not letting anyone here touch my face.”

“Can you tell us what happened, Mrs. Bordain?” Mendez asked, pen in hand.

“I came in to town this afternoon to see how things were going with the tip line. Then I came to the hospital to try to see Haley, and she’d been released.

“Nobody told me she was being released today,” she complained, irritated. “I wanted to have a chance to see her and tell her I’m thinking about her. And I brought her a little present—”

“About the accident ... ,” Mendez prompted.

Bordain turned to Dixon and spoke as if Mendez weren’t there. “He is so rude. I don’t understand why you would bring him here with you, Cal. You know he upsets me.”

“I can step outside if you’d like to talk about me,” Mendez said.

“I need him to take notes,” Dixon said smoothly. “So you were on your way home?”

“Yes. And I was already upset about Haley, and still thinking about what happened yesterday, and about Marissa. I want to have a memorial service for her, but I don’t know when her body will be released. Then someone told me only a relative could claim the body, but Marissa has no relatives here other than Haley—”

“And the car ... ,” Mendez said pointedly.

She huffed another sigh.

“Suddenly I see these bright headlights coming up behind me,” she said. “I knew the car was going too fast for that road in the rain. People drive like maniacs out there—especially the Mexicans.”

Mendez exchanged a glance with the nurse, who was also Hispanic