When she came back into the family room, the girls were tucked side by side on the couch watching a purple dinosaur on television, Haley with her thumb in her mouth and her eyelids at half-mast. Anne dropped down in her leather chair by the window and looked at Franny.

“I didn’t see that coming,” she said. “I should have, but I didn’t.”

“You’re a parent now. You’re officially sleep deprived.”

“How can I compete with a ranch?”

“You can’t, but you’ve got it all over that one in the warm fuzzy love department. The only thing fuzzy about that old tranny cow is her whisker stubble.”

Anne laughed wearily at the terrible remark. “She’s a what?”

Franny rolled his eyes. “Oh, please, Anne Marie. You ruin all my best lines by being tragically un-hip. T-r-a-n-n-y as in t-r-a-n-s-v-e-s-t-i-t-e! If she doesn’t have a set of balls under that skirt, she’s hiding them somewhere.”

“You are just awful.”

“Honestly!” He laughed. “How she hatched that gorgeous son of hers is beyond me.”

“Who’s her son?”

“Darren ‘You deserve a Mercedes’ Bordain! Don’t you watch television? He does all the ads. He’s gorgeous! And so well-dressed.”

“He sounds like the man for you.”

“Of course he’s totally in the closet. He’s so deep in the closet even last year’s fashion can’t see him in there.”

“That could mean he’s straight,” Anne argued.

“You want to spoil all my fantasies.”

“You think every good-looking man is secretly gay.”

“I don’t think Vince is gay.”

“Thank God,” Anne said. She breathed a big sigh. “Oh, Franny ... Please tell me it’s five o’clock somewhere.”

“Darling, it’s always five o’clock somewhere,” he said, producing a glass of red wine from behind the lamp on the end table.

Anne took a sip, savored it, swallowed, and sighed. “I love you, Franny.”

“I know, sweetheart,” he said. “Everyone does.”

Chapter 64

64

Vince sat in his car for a while just looking at the offices of Quinn, Morgan and Associates: Attorneys at Law. Theirs was a well-respected practice, specializing in family and civil law.

Steve Morgan hadn’t made partner by being reckless or an idiot. On the contrary. Vince knew him to be very intelligent, very closed, and very careful.

He had sat down across from Steve Morgan a couple of times during the See-No-Evil cases. The cops had all but had a photo of him having sex with victim Lisa Warwick, but he had never cracked. Not even the threat of DNA technology—which they didn’t exactly have yet, but made for a good bluff—not even that had rattled him. He never admitted the affair.

What he knew about Steve Morgan was this: He had come from a difficult background. Prostitute mother, no father figure in his life.