“Me too, then,” he said. He brushed his lips across the shell of her ear. “And after dinner, I am going to make such sweet love to you, Mrs. Leone ... Remember that the next time you start to feel a little tense.”

Anne smiled up at him. “Do you know how much I love you?”

He shook his head, a grin tugging up one corner of his mouth. “I think you’ll have to show me later.”

“That’s a promise.”

Vince walked her back to the front door of the hospital and kissed her good-bye. Anne watched him walk back to his car, then went back inside, ready to face Dennis Farman for Round Two.

Chapter 6

6

Mendez was on his fifth cup of coffee by the time the hearse crept down the long driveway with the body of Marissa Fordham inside. It was after ten. He had been on the scene more than three hours.

Dixon had overseen the processing, asking for extra photographs, video of every room of the house. It wasn’t his habit to take over a scene, but for something like this there was no question. He had worked homicide for the LA County Sheriff’s Office for years. He had run more homicides than Mendez hoped to ever see.

The struggle between victim and perpetrator appeared to have started in Marissa Fordham’s bedroom, where lamps had been toppled, furniture shoved around and tipped over. Dresser drawers had been pulled open, the contents vomited out onto the floor.

A large bloodstain dyed the flowered sheets of the bed. Cast-off blood stippled the ceiling, indicating the viciousness of the stabbing.

Some of the dresser contents had fallen on top of blood streaked on the floor.

“He came back and looked for something,” Dixon muttered, directing the deputy with the camera to get a close shot.

“Hell of a vicious attack for a robbery,” Bill Hicks commented.

“He killed her first,” Mendez said. “Anything that happened next was an afterthought. He took too much time with the body for the murder not to have been his priority.”

“And he left the jewelry,” Dixon said, pointing at some expensive-looking pieces casually strewn across the top of the dresser. “He was looking for something in particular.”

“I wonder if he found it,” Hicks said.

“I don’t know, but he cleaned himself up before he looked for it. There’s no blood on the stuff that came out of the drawers. He washed up before he looked.”

“That’s cold, man,” Mendez said. “The little girl was laying in there half dead while he was cleaning up, having a look around.”

“He probably thought she was dead. No witness, no hurry to leave.”

Dixon gave the directive to clean out all the drain traps in the bathrooms and kitchen, in case they might yield some trace evidence that might later be matched to a suspect.