“No. Let’s see what she does. For all we know, she could lead us straight to our killer. Look into her finances too,” Vince suggested. “That’s an expensive car and an expensive neighborhood for a girl that age. She has a boutique, it ain’t Tiffany’s.”

“Are you thinking blackmail?”

“Think about what Nasser said yesterday. That he didn’t believe Marissa Fordham made enough money from her art to pay for her lifestyle. Maybe nobody knows who Haley’s father is because it was profitable for Marissa Fordham to keep that information to herself.”

“Maybe Daddy got tired of paying,” Mendez said, starting the car. “That’s a damn fine motive for a murder.”

Vince nodded. “Or two.”

Vince parted company with Mendez back at the SO. The detective went inside to set the background check on Gina Kemmer into motion and to see what Marissa Fordham’s bank and phone records had revealed.

Vince got behind the wheel of his old Jaguar and drove out of town. The drive to Marissa Fordham’s home was beautiful and tranquil—a stark contrast to what he would experience when he reached her house.

Anne had asked him to go to the house to collect clothes and toys for Haley. He would have gone anyway. The scene had been processed. The CSIs were gone. Once he ran the gauntlet of media being held at bay at the end of the driveway, he would have the murder scene to himself.

The downside of being Vince Leone was that he was easily recognized by crime reporters. He had spent too many years in the spotlight of high-profile cases for the Bureau. Locally, there had been so much coverage of the See-No-Evil murders, and Anne’s abduction, people on the streets of Oak Knoll called him by name.

News vans lined the sides of the road as he drew closer to the driveway. Several reporters, bored and lounging beside the vehicles, spotted him and jumped to attention, running toward him.

Vince flashed his ID at the deputy guarding the end of the driveway and was waved past before the hungry newshounds could get to him.

Another deputy sat in his cruiser under the shade of a pepper tree at the top of the driveway. Vince waved to him on his way to the house.

He went in through the front door, ducking under the yellow tape. The house was empty of human life, but he always felt a strange, tense energy in the aftermath of a violent crime. Sometimes he thought it might be the lingering fear and tension of the victim, hanging in the air, entangled with the scents of blood and death. Sometimes he thought perhaps it was the remnants of evil, a dark energy that vibrated in the air like the last tremors of sound from a tuning fork.