She scooted back on the banquette to a more comfortable position with Haley sleeping against her. It was almost one o’clock. Sara Morgan had called and asked if she could bring Wendy over, a visit that would be good for both Haley and Wendy.

Anne knew Wendy was struggling, and Sara sounded stressed down to her last nerve. She and Steve probably weren’t going to make it. That was going to be especially tough on Wendy. Anne wanted her to feel like she had a safe haven if she needed it in the future.

Damn. She wasn’t going to have time to get to Dennis today. She would have to call and let the nurse supervisor know. And she would call Dr. Falk as well.

Guilt swept over her in a cold wave. She hated missing a session with him, especially when she had made a promise. She had stopped at the bookstore and picked out a couple of comic books for him for his reward. Of course, the odds that he had done the assignment she had given him were long. Still, she hated not being able to keep a promise to him. He had had too many people let him down in his short life.

You can’t save everybody every day, Anne, she told herself.

Chapter 60

60

“What do you mean Marissa Fordham isn’t the little girl’s mother?” Dixon asked.

Most of the detectives had come into the war room for lunch, to have a little ham and cheese with their homicide. Eight-by-tens of the Marissa Fordham crime-scene photos were plastered all over one wall.

Vince showed Dixon the photograph of Gina and Marissa in Cabo San Lucas in March 1982, and explained about the significance of the dates.

At the end of the story, Dixon just stared at him, dumbfounded.

“I’m confused,” he said at last. “If Haley isn’t Marissa’s child, then whose child is she?”

“I don’t know,” Vince said. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You think Marissa was blackmailing the supposed father, but the kid’s a ringer?” Dixon said. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I thought I’d heard everything.”

“Haley was an infant when Marissa moved here,” Mendez pointed out. “No one here ever saw her pregnant.”

“And yet everyone would assume the child was her child,” Dixon said. “Huh. So ... where did she get the baby?”

“That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,” Vince said. “You can’t just walk into a store and buy a baby.”

“But you can always steal one,” Mendez suggested. “Or she could have adopted.”

“The murder might not have anything to do with blackmail at all,” Hamilton said, flicking pickles off his tuna salad. “We haven’t really come up with any solid evidence to support the theory. There’s nothing fishy in her bank records. She could have been stashing money elsewhere, but everything looks legit so far.”