“You’re an obedient bitch, but you’re not as pretty as she is. And I’ll bet she’s a whole lot more fun in bed.”

“All I want to do is please you,” she said, dropping to her knees.

“Then shut up and suck. You talk too much.”

April 13, 4 p.m.

Port Orchard

Donna Solomon did not fit the profile of a mother of a prostitute. She had never had any problems with men, drugs, or the law. To look at her was to see the very image of professionalism and personal accountability. At fifty-two, Donna worked as a charge nurse in the maternity ward of Harrison Medical Center in Bremerton, a job she’d held for more than fifteen years. She was a round presence with stick legs and a slight bulge around her tummy and a butt far bigger than she wanted. Heredity, she figured, thinking of her own mother and the scourge of a large buttocks and piano legs. She worked out four days a week at the Port Orchard Curves, doing a mild weight circuit and twenty-five minutes of cardio to Moby songs. Her butt was always going to be big, but she didn’t think it had to get any bigger. And yet despite all the things she tried to do to better herself-Curves, continuing education classes at Olympic College that had nothing to do with nursing and the New York Times crossword puzzle online every day-she had her hard luck too.

She divorced her husband, Zachary, after their adopted daughter, Marissa, put them through the wringer in ways that no parent could or should endure. Marissa had set a fire in the kitchen when she was six, run away from home at ten. By thirteen there was no more room for pretending that there was anything they could do to be the close family they had desired when they had brought her home in a private adoption from a Russian orphanage.

Donna Solomon rarely spoke of Marissa, although hospital administrators and other nurses at Harrison would happily have lent a sympathetic ear. When Marissa, who stopped using her given name in favor of Midnight Cassava, was arrested in a Bremerton Police Department prostitution sting at a local park, she was given her second chance. It turned out she wasn’t the target of the sting, but a Bremerton cop had been. Midnight was one of the chief witnesses in a case and ended up with a lightning-fast plea deal.

What should have been a gift was turned into a sense of invincibility. Midnight had convinced herself that she was able to do whatever she wanted. She continued working the streets, the ferry, wherever she could score a john, partying the money away and doing whatever it was she wanted. It was the ultimate F-U to her mother, of course. Donna accepted that the daughter she chose to love had abandoned her. She could not return any of the love she received. Everything was about money, blame, and the choices others made.

When Midnight was seven months pregnant, she showed up at the nurses’ station looking for her mother. It was the first time she’d been to the hospital since she was a teen and was determined, it had seemed, to make her mother’s life as miserable as possible. She had left with a physician’s bag of drug samples. No charges were pressed because Donna was able to retrieve the missing samples. Donna had been pulling strings for Marissa since the day they brought her home from the agency.

After Midnight’s return and the impending pregnancy, however, things started to change. It started with a few phone calls. Mother and daughter met for lunch a couple of times at a drive-through in Navy Yard City, on the edge of downtown Bremerton. By the time Tasha was born, her mother and grandmother had come to an understanding: if the little girl was to have any semblance of a home life, they’d have to work together.

Donna never knew who the father was, and understood that it was probably something her daughter didn’t know for sure. She told herself that it didn’t matter. No man was needed. She’d help out however she could, and she’d be there whenever Midnight needed her, no matter the conditions. The terms, as she eventually learned, were to watch the baby on weekends and after shifts-but only when asked.

“I’ll call you when I need you, Mother. Don’t think about interfering with my life or my daughter’s. As long as you get that, we’ll be fine.”

Donna didn’t argue. She knew that Midnight had no real job. The money that she used to pay for her apartment over one of Port Orchard’s downtown junk shops was from prostitution. Or maybe selling drugs. Whatever it was, it was bad news. Over the first few months of Tasha’s life, Donna could see a change in her troubled daughter, and she held out hope that someday things would work out after all.

Not only for the baby but for her own broken heart.

It was Tuesday, and Donna Solomon hadn’t heard from her daughter since Saturday. She knew the rules. She knew that trying to involve herself in Tasha’s life was a risk. Too much interest might feel like a hard shove to a daughter whose love she wanted more than anything.

After work, she parked her car in the lot behind the aptly named Pack Rat’s Hideaway and climbed the stairs to her daughter’s apartment and knocked.

No answer.

She pushed the bell.

Again, nothing.

She listened, and she could hear the sounds of a baby crying.

“Tasha?”

No answer.

“Marissa!”

A man wearing oil-soaked blue jeans and a red flannel shirt poked his head out of the apartment next door. His face was the picture of annoyance and anger, a pinched mouth and eyes that told Donna Solomon that a smart person wouldn’t mess with him.

“Can you tell that ho to keep her kid quiet?” he asked. “Jesus, some of us have real jobs and need to get some shuteye. The kid’s been crying all night. Day and night. I don’t give a shit about the day, but I don’t like putting up with some brat squawking when I need to get some sleep. I get up at four a.m. Kid’s going all night.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll tell her,” Donna said, defusing the man’s anger with complete understanding.

“You better. That’s what I say.”

“I will. I said so.”

“Fine. That bitch is a piece of work, you know.”

Donna shot the man a cold stare. “Yes, I know, sir. That bitch, as you call her, is my daughter.”

The man, slightly embarrassed, retreated into his apartment.

Donna tilted her head and listened as the sound of a cry emanated from inside the apartment.

“Marissa! Open up!”

She jiggled the doorknob. Locked.

The sound of the crying grew louder. With a surge of adrenaline-the type that turns a frightened mother or grandmother into Wonder Woman-Donna rammed her shoulder against the hollow-core door with such force she could feel the frame bend and break.

And she nearly dislocated her shoulder in the process.

“Marissa!”

Once inside, Donna hurried into the expected disorder of the living room. If Donna kept a spotless home, her long-troubled daughter was the opposite. Things were never filthy, but nothing was put where it ought to be. Magazines and clothes were piled up on the coffee table in front of the TV. A bouquet of wilting red roses sat on the TV next to a small framed photo of Tasha.

“Marissa?” Donna’s heart was thumping, and the pain in her shoulder nearly made her cry. Obviously something was very, very wrong. She hurried to the apartment’s sole bedroom, the one that Marissa shared with her daughter.

Tasha was standing in her crib. She’d somehow shredded her diaper and her little body was smeared with feces and her bedding soaked in urine. Seeing her grandmother, the little girl let out an even louder wail.

“Oh, baby, it’s all right. Grandma’s here.” Donna scooped up Tasha, shivering and crying. She didn’t think twice about how filthy the child was. She held her close. “It’ll be all right. It’ll be all right.”