“Dr. Maddox and Detective Gavin are suspicious of child abuse,” Gwen said. “They plan on looking into it further.”

“Good. This case hinges on it.” Jack grabbed another enchilada. “If she never hurt the child before, she wouldn’t have been able to hurt him now, this way. Plus, the kid would have been terrified. Screaming even. Fighting her off.”

“He had no defensive wounds on his hands so it looks like he didn’t or couldn’t fight back. We’re testing for drugs in his system,” Val said.

Jack sat back and crossed his arms. “A mother who might have sedated him, now that’s interesting. A mother who may have drugged him is an entirely different breed.”

“What do you mean?” Val asked.

“An abusive mother wouldn’t have drugged him to kill him in a humane way. Nor would have a random killer.”

“What about killing him in a quieter way?” Val asked.

“I was thinking the same thing myself,” Gwen said.

“Now,” Jack smiled, “you’re both thinking like smashingly good experts in crime.”

“Well, I guess all we can say at this point is Gabrielle wasn’t your average mother.” Gwen reached for the sour cream. “Not with her odd behavior.”

“And that leads to my biggest concern,” Val said. “Gabrielle Morgan always picked her son up from school. She had a rule that he wasn’t allowed to walk home. A rule which he broke on the day they both disappeared. According to witnesses, he didn’t even look around for her. He just started walking. What happened that day? Why drop him off at all? And twenty minutes late to boot. Plus, this kid was sick enough to fall down and vomit. Was he abused, or did he simply know what was going to happen to him?”

Jack wiped his mouth with his napkin. “There’s always an event that sets a case in motion. So, let’s look at this case in detail. See where all the puzzle pieces want to go in. If they all don’t fit then your picture is all wrong. The fact that they disappeared is incidental. By the time they vanished, the outcome was already determined that they were going to die—by whatever means and by whoever’s hands. The day you’re talking about, Val, is the one that begins the process of their death, but something preceded this. For what reason should these two people be dead?”

“The cops are the ones who look for motive, Jack. My job is providing information to Dr. Maddox so he can rule on how they died.”