Wendy, wielding a poker from the fireplace in the family room, struck at him again, hitting him on the shoulder, and once more, hitting him in the side.

Dennis fell sideways and over, dazed.

The deputy called from out on the lawn. “Mrs. Leone? Is everything all right in there?”

No, Anne thought as she lay there on the floor, cut and bleeding. Everything was not all right.

Nothing was right at all.

Chapter 83

83

Darren Bruce Bordain.

The name had been in the family for generations, alternating generations using the first name Darren or the second name Bruce as the name they went by.

Mendez got up and left the room again, going across the hall, where his audience of three were all looking as stunned as Mendez felt.

“What the hell do we do now?” he asked.

“We’re supposed to believe Bruce Bordain is Haley’s father?” Hicks asked.

“Thinks he is,” Vince corrected him.

“And Darren Bordain is so afraid of being outed that he’d rather go to jail as a murder suspect,” Mendez said.

“He knows he isn’t going to jail. He’s too damn smart to fall for that,” Dixon complained. “And now we know the whole damn family had a motive to want Marissa Fordham dead. What a freaking nightmare.”

“Your cup runneth over, Cal,” Vince said. “Daddy Bordain Senior fathered her child and she blackmailed him. Bordain Junior fathered her child and she blackmailed him. Or Junior is light in the loafers and she knew it and she blackmailed him. I don’t know which motive I like better.”

“No matter which one we go after, the press will smell a story like stink on shit and the Bordains will have my head on a platter,” Dixon said.

“Press the gay angle first,” Vince suggested. “The Bordains will circle the wagons around their own. Mark Foster is an outsider.”

Dixon nodded. “Bill, go pick up Mark Foster and bring him in.”

“And Bordain?” Mendez asked.

“Stall him,” Vince said. “Let him think Foster is already here in another room.”

“Okay.”

Round Three, Mendez thought as he walked back to the interview room. A grim-faced deputy came down the hall as Mendez started to open the door.

“Is Vince Leone here?”

“In the break room. What’s wrong?”

“Someone just tried to kill his wife.”

Chapter 84

84

Vince didn’t wait for an invitation to go back into the trauma unit at Mercy General. He crashed the double doors like a bull in a china shop, sending staff scurrying like frightened mice.

He barged into the exam room without thinking, scaring the hell out of his wife. Then he pulled her into his arms and hugged her too tight, immediately loosening his hold at her whimper of pain.

“Oh my God. Oh my God,” he murmured, carefully stroking her hair back from her face. “Baby. Oh Jesus. Are you okay?”