“I thought they would help you. I knew you weren’t . . . weren’t alright. Even if they signed you off. Their website said they offered support to parents. I’d tried everything with you. But then they just, it was like they wrote you off. And me. That Dunn witch . . .” His voice trailed off. The two men looked at each other.

“Chris, it doesn’t matter anymore. None of it. I lied about the work I’d been doing. I knew you’d have given me a hard time. And you’d have been right. But now you’ve seen what these people can do. Abby, you, even the Dunn witch as you call her, you’re all prices I’ll have to pay if I don’t do what they want. They killed my last case officer while we were away.”

Chris looked at him aghast. Then he, too, seemed to accept the reality.

They talked late into the night. Facts, options, ideas. At some point, Abby crept in and crawled into Chris’s bed. Still they brainstormed, and yet there seemed no viable way out. Spencer, it appeared, would have to do as he was told. And if that were so, there were things that needed to be done to increase the chances of success. Even if he were expendable, he still had a service to provide.

Spencer spent much of the rest of that night awake as he’d expected. And the day would bring the cravings. But now they came with the sound of his daughter sobbing, the same as he’d heard when Marielle died. Marielle, the woman he loved and who loved him and yet with whom he’d never made his peace because he’d been too weak.

It occurred to Caitlyn, as she waited for the phone to be answered, that the last person who’d held the scrap of paper she was looking at was Lonnie—a woman she hadn’t been especially fond of and one who wouldn’t have thought of Caitlyn as a friend. And yet still Caitlyn found it sad. Lonnie had been a decent soul who didn’t deserve to be robbed of all her hopes and dreams by some nineball in a pickup.

Her handwriting was atrocious, though, and it had taken Caitlyn several passes to decipher.

Detective Batiste + Scott DPD. Undercover op

Spencer = obstacle. Make him stop working but don’t tell him why.

Threaten him re: Abby

And then, in a different pen:

Dinner?!

Did that mean what she thought it meant? Or was Lonnie just desperate to help them?

“This is Detective Scott. Who am I speaking to, please?”

“Caitlyn Dunn. I’m with Oakland CPS. Would I be right in thinking you’re Detective Batiste’s partner?”

Her question was ignored. “What can I help you with?”

“You came and spoke to a colleague about one of her cases. Lonnie Estevez and Spencer Burnham?”

“I remember.”