A tall, well-dressed blonde woman around forty emerged from an office down the hall.

“Detective Mendez?” She glanced from him to Vince and back, clearly worried they were there to deliver bad news.

“Ms. Thomas, this is-”

“Detective Leone,” Vince said, offering his hand.

“Can we speak privately with you?” Mendez asked.

“Of course.” Now she was really worried. “Come into my office.”

They followed her into the spacious office that looked out on a large courtyard and a beautiful garden.

“Do you have news?” she asked, crossing her arms in front of her as if preparing to hold herself up.

“No, nothing,” Mendez said.

Jane Thomas sighed in relief. “Thank God.”

“We went through Ms. Warwick’s home this morning and found a photograph of Ms. Warwick with some friends. I made a photocopy of it,” Mendez said, digging the paper out of his coat pocket. “I’d like you to have a look and tell me who the rest of the people in the picture are.”

She recognized the photograph right away. “Oh, yes, this was our celebration after one of our clients won her custody battle. The courts had given her children to the parents of her abusive husband temporarily while she went through court-ordered drug rehab, then wouldn’t give them back to her when she had finished not only rehab, but our program as well. Lisa was her advocate. She did a lot of hand-holding on that one. In the end Steve was able to persuade a judge to set things right.”

“Steve? This is Steve?” Mendez asked, tapping a finger below the man in the photograph.

“Yes. Steve Morgan. Quinn, Morgan and Associates. He donates a lot of time to us.”

“Was there anything going on between him and Ms. Warwick?”

“Lisa and Steve?” she said, almost amused at the idea. “Of course not. Steve is happily married. He has an adorable daughter. She must be about ten years old.”

“Wendy?” Mendez asked.

“I don’t remember her name,” she said, handing the paper back to him. “The woman to Lisa’s left is Nora Alfano, our client.”

“Did Ms. Warwick spend a lot of time working with Mr. Morgan on her various cases?” Vince asked.

“She spent some time with him in client meetings, that kind of thing. But Steve would never cheat. He’s not that kind of man.”

Mendez said nothing but put the picture back inside his pocket.

“Are you trying to disillusion me for the second time in one day, Detective?”

“No, ma’am. I’m just following leads. Most of them will go nowhere, but we have to follow them to the end.”

“I’ve been out of town,” Vince said by way of an excuse, “so I’m not quite up to speed. Have we looked at any hate mail yet?”

“So far nothing has stood out,” Mendez said.

“This custody case you talked about-how long ago was that?” Vince asked.

“About nine months ago,” Jane Thomas said. “The ex-husband in question is doing a year in county jail.”

“We’ll check out his friends and family,” Vince said. “Just in case one of them is bent on revenge on his behalf.”

“Of course.” She went to her desk and buzzed her assistant to get the file.

“Then we’ll let you get on with the rest of your day,” Vince said with a soft smile.

Jane Thomas looked worn-out and stressed out. The Thomas Center was her namesake, her baby by the looks of the framed photos on the walls: Jane Thomas receiving awards from women’s groups, photos with politicians, photos with various members of her staff and clients. Her work was being attacked via Lisa Warwick and Karly Vickers, and she had to be worried what-or who-might be next.

“My day is consisting of fretting,” she confessed.

With good reason, Vince thought. The center’s clients made for a perfect victim pool: women with patterns of abuse in their backgrounds, vulnerable women, women with self-esteem issues. These were the kinds of women predators sought out as being easy to prey on, easy to control. A sufficiently twisted mind would see these women as being less than women living in traditional settings with traditional families, and therefore it was not a loss to society to dispose of them.

Vince had interviewed a number of serial murderers of prostitutes. They had all felt that they had practically done a public service in taking whores off the streets.

“Do you really think this Alfano guy could be behind these murders?” Mendez asked as they walked down the hall to the front doors. “I can see him targeting Lisa Warwick because she helped his wife get the kids back. But we have two other victims before Lisa Warwick.”

“It’s not likely,” Vince said. “But, like you said, follow all leads to the end. I know of a case where an estranged wife’s parents stalked and murdered her husband to ensure she would get custody of their granddaughter. “

“Or the guy doing life for a freeway shooting, and his mother builds a pipe bomb, sends it to the key witness against him, and blows half the family to kingdom come,” Mendez said.

“People are un-fucking-believable,” Vince said, and like every cop he’d ever known, segued from talk of murder to food. “Where are we going? Lunch, I hope.”

“The beauty salon,” Mendez said. “I thought we could get manicures and bond.”

“Very funny.”

“Karly Vickers had an appointment the day she went missing,” Mendez said. “And there’s a sandwich place down the block.”

Karly Vickers had spent three hours at Spice Salon on the afternoon in question. She had a haircut and a perm, a manicure and a pedicure. One of the “beauty technicians,” as they called themselves, had spent half an hour showing her the latest makeup tricks.

Three hours of listening to disco’s biggest hits pumping over the speakers, Vince thought as he sat in a vacant stylist’s chair. The woman had probably killed herself afterward.

Karly had been excited about the whole process of her makeover, but in a shy kind of way, the hairstylist said. She had talked about the new job she was starting. She hadn’t said anything about a boyfriend, had in fact gotten quiet when the stylist had brought up the subject.

Vince observed Mendez at work. The owner of the salon came over to trim his mustache and flirt with him. Vince asked about their hours and the new addition to the salon-a tanning parlor.

“Vickers left here around three that afternoon,” Mendez said as they walked down the street to the sandwich place with tables out front. A waitress took their order and scurried off. “She said she had one more appointment for the day-the dentist.”

“How would you like that?” Vince said. “You get nabbed by a serial killer and your last memory of your normal life is going to the dentist.”

“Wouldn’t be my choice.”

“What would be your choice?”

Mendez considered. “Hmmm… Heather Locklear. How about you?”

Vince thought about it for a moment. What would he want his last memory to be? Would it even matter? Once you were dead, where did your memories go? He had technically been dead for three minutes when he was shot. He didn’t remember anything about it.

“Well?”

“Pitching a perfect game for the Cubs to win the World Series,” he said.

Mendez laughed. “Like that will ever happen.”

“What? Me pitching in the bigs?”

“The Cubs winning the World Series.”

“Hey!” Vince protested with a grin. “A guy’s gotta dream. Dream large!”