He let her get her breath back, then leaned down to murmur in her ear. 'Who shot the girl, Stephanie?'

She said nothing, and he had to admire her spirit. When the bidders saw the video he was recording, at this moment, her price would skyrocket. 'One more time.' He repeated the suffocation, satisfied when she started to whimper against his hand. He released her and let her gulp in a breath before he covered her nose and mouth a third time. 'Tell me, Stephanie. Nod if you plan to tell me. Don't fuck with me, my dear. That will make me angry, and you won't like me angry. Who killed the girl? Was it you?'

She shook her head wildly.

'Are you ready to tell me who it was?' She nodded, and he released her but kept her nose pinched. 'Who, Stephanie?'

'Drake.' She was heaving in air. 'It was Drake.'

Ken was actually surprised. He stepped back and restraddled his chair. 'Drake who?'

'Sonofabitch,' Chip spat. 'I should have known that trailer trash was behind this.'

Ken glanced at Chip, then back at Stephanie, who was shaking like she had the palsy, the after-effect of her near-suffocation. 'Who is Drake?' he asked, enunciating each word.

'My boyfriend,' Stephanie said, still gasping for air. 'Drake Connor. He killed her.'

'Why?'

'Because she was talking to a man.'

'A man, huh? Sounds like Drake came prepared.' Ken glanced at Chip again. 'He shot the girl with a Ruger loaded with BTs.'

Chip's face grew even redder.

'He stole your gun?' Ken guessed.

'I'll kill him,' Chip said quietly, not answering the question. But then he didn't have to. His expression said it all.

'No you won't, but don't worry. I'll kill him for you. Where is he, Stephanie dear?'

'I don't know. I haven't seen him since this morning. Not since we came back from downtown.'

'What does he drive?' Ken asked.

'He doesn't have a car. We always used mine.'

'We'll track him down,' Ken said, hoping that was true. Because he knew that if Drake was smart, he had already hightailed it out of town and had a three-hour head start by now, at least. 'What was Drake's role in all this?'

Stephanie shot a baleful glance at her father, paling when she looked down and saw her mother's body. 'Oh God,' she whimpered. 'Mama.'

'Your mama's worm food,' Ken said flatly. 'If you don't want the same thing to happen to you, you'll talk to me, Stephanie. Why was Drake with you this morning? Why did he bring your father's gun in the first place?'

'It was a bad part of town,' she blurted out. 'We were buying drugs. We did them together. When Tala didn't come right back, he got upset.'

Upset. That was an interesting word choice. 'You said he shot her because she was talking to a man. Who was the man? A cop?'

'He didn't think so. He thought the guy was someone trying to . . . buy Tala. Her services.'

'Your boyfriend thought this mysterious guy was a john?' That was rich. 'But why not just tell the guy to fuck off? Why shoot them both? That doesn't make sense, Stephanie.'

She bit her lip, and Ken could see the wheels turning as she tried to think of an answer to his question.

'You might try the truth,' he suggested mildly. 'Just a thought.'

'He was . . .' Stephanie closed her eyes. 'He was jealous.'

'Really? Still not making sense, Stephanie.'

She blew out a helpless breath. 'He thought she'd been sneaking off to meet the man. He thought they were . . . lovers. Drake got jealous because Tala was . . . his.'

'She was fucking not his,' Chip ground out.

'Tala,' Ken said. 'That was the girl's name? How was she Drake's?'

Stephanie's chin had come up at her father's declaration. 'He'd been fucking her for a while. She was his toy.'

Chip's eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. 'You ungrateful, spiteful little bitch.'

Ken cocked a brow. Interesting. 'Didn't it bother you that he was fucking the servant? He was your boyfriend.'

Eyes narrowing, Stephanie gave her father a satisfied sneer. 'I was fucking her too. We did her together.'

'I see,' Ken murmured. And he really was starting to. Chip was breathing hard, fury evident in every charged line of his body. That Stephanie and Drake had fucked his servant was not welcome news. No, not at all. 'Why did you look at your father like that?'

'Like what?' Stephanie asked harshly.

'Like you're thumbing it in his face.'

'Because he wanted to keep her for himself,' Stephanie spat. 'He loved her.'

This was getting more interesting by the moment. 'By loved, you mean exactly what?'

'He had a baby with her,' Stephanie said bitterly. 'My daughter this and my daughter that. You'd think it was some kind of rocket scientist instead of a half-breed. Little brat cried all the damn time. I think Tala pinched it to make it cry, just so Mama would hear it.' She kept her chin high, her gaze resolutely away from her mother's body. 'Flaunting the little bastard in Mama's face.'

Ken rose, his heart grown grimly cold. 'We didn't find a baby.'

'Because she took it,' Stephanie said.

'You mean Tala?' Ken asked, and Stephanie shook her head with a cold smile. 'The other two escaped women?' he pressed.

Stephanie's smile curled at the edges of her mouth, becoming predatory. 'You wish.'

Cincinnati, Ohio

Tuesday 4 August, 12.45 P.M.

When they were out of sight of the house, both Marcus and Scarlett took their cell phones from their pockets. She placed hers on the dash of her car, put an earbud in her left ear, then used her hands-free to call Deacon Novak.

Marcus logged into the website he used for background searches and inputted Marlene Anders. Just in case Scarlett decided not to share everything she learned.

'Hey, Deacon, it's me. Did you get my text?' She listened for a moment, then nodded. 'Got it. Don't wait for me, but don't go in without backup.' She made an impatient sound. 'I know we don't have a warrant. I thought you'd do your thing with the judge. You know, give 'em the eye . . . She is? Good. Lynda can push harder for a warrant than we can. She has more markers to call in, too. I'll meet you there as soon as I can.' She glanced at Marcus. 'Go ahead and send it, but I have Marcus with me. I'm sure he's already run a background on Anders in the time it's taken us to get to the end of Delores's driveway. I'll get the info from him. Suit up, Novak. They've already shot two people today.' She stopped at the end of Delores's long driveway and pulled the earbud out. 'Deacon's sitting out front of the Anderses' house. Can you hand me the flasher? It's in the glove box.'

Marcus put the blue flashing light in her outstretched hand and watched as she fixed it to the roof of the car. 'Hold on tight,' she said as she floored the accelerator.

'You all need to have turbo engines,' Marcus said, although he was more than a little surprised that the department vehicle had as much pickup as it did.

'We need a lot of things,' she said glumly. 'Like a warrant, for starters.'

'That's what you wanted Deacon to get by giving someone the eye?'

She shot him a quick glare. 'Hey, jack, don't knock it. It's worked before.'

'Really? That's quite a secret weapon.'

'You have no idea.'

'Will he go in without a warrant?'

'Deacon?' She seemed genuinely surprised. 'Probably not. He's a straight shooter.'

Marcus settled into his seat. She was driving faster than he'd anticipated even with the flashing light, but she was in control of the vehicle so he could relax a little. 'Would you?'

'Enter without a warrant?' She made a facial shrug. 'It's possible, I suppose. I've been known to bend the rules from time to time.'

'Like trespassing on private property and listening at closed doors to private conversations?' he asked, only half teasing.

She didn't break a smile. 'I don't know who would do anything that boorish.'

His lips twitched. He didn't care if she wasn't as much fun as her friends. He liked her sarcastic sense of humor. 'So terribly rude.'

One side of her mouth quirked up, then fell again. 'Part of me wishes that Deacon could wait for me,' she confessed, 'but that's not the best thing for the victims.'

Her use of 'for me' was like nails on a chalkboard, but he didn't fight it because he wanted what was best for the victims too. 'Especially the baby. She's gotta be hungry by now.'

'Since her mama's dead in the morgue,' Scarlett said grimly, then cast him a cautious sideways glance. 'You know I can't let you go in with me.'

He shrugged. 'I'll get the story one way or the other.'

She was quiet for a long moment, the only sound that of her tires as they ate up the interstate. 'You're not what I expected, Marcus.'

He turned in his seat to study her profile. 'How so?'

She kept her eyes on the road. 'You say you make your living digging up news. This is a big story. I thought you'd be on your phone to your office, having them send a reporter with a camera to the address that I know you've already looked up.'

'How do you know I didn't contact my office? I could have texted them.'

'But you didn't, did you?'

'No,' he said, and watched her shoulders relax a fraction. She'd been bluffing him, he thought, admiring the effort. But she'd really been hoping that he'd say no.

'Why not?' she asked. 'Some other reporter with a police radio could follow Deacon and his backup to the Anders house and scoop your story.'

'They wouldn't have all the background,' he said, 'so I still have the exclusive. But sometimes it's not about the story. Sometimes it's about doing the right thing.'

A single nod. 'I expected you to say that this morning when I asked you why you came back to the alley, but you didn't. You said that you couldn't leave her alone in the dark. Why?'

He'd known she was perceptive. He should have expected that she'd pick up on that nuance. 'Scarlett,' he drawled, 'sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.'

'Okay,' she said with a shrug. 'Don't tell me. I understand the need to keep some things to yourself. Tell me about Marlene Anders instead.'

Fifteen.

Cincinnati, Ohio

Tuesday 4 August, 1.05 P.M.

Scarlett cleared all thoughts of cigars being cigars from her mind, focusing on the information Marcus was reading to her from the background check he'd run while she'd been coordinating the search of the Anders home with Deacon.

'Marlene Anders is a fifty-two-year-old Caucasian,' Marcus said. 'Married Charles "Chip" Anders when she was twenty-one. She worked as a dental hygienist for ten years, quitting the same year that she gave birth. Her daughter is Stephanie Anders. Marlene has no work history in the years that followed. I see links to about thirty articles, all in the Style section of various newspapers.'

'What about Chip?'

From the corner of her eye she could see him typing on his phone with his finger. 'Chip Anders got an engineering degree from Xavier and went to work in the family-owned snack-food business.' He was quiet for a few minutes. 'The state business database says that the company declared bankruptcy ten years ago. The same year Chip is listed as incorporating a contract manufacturing company. It's privately owned, so we can't see the earnings report, but two years later his and Marlene's address changed from Bridgetown Road to a three-million-dollar place in Hyde Park, less than a quarter-mile from the park where Tala walked their dog.'

Scarlett whistled softly. 'Wow.' Those homes were like something out of a dream. Of course, the fact that Marcus's apartment was in the same neighborhood had not escaped her notice. But then she'd always known he was wealthy. His mother's house was a fricking estate, for God's sake. My whole house would fit into her foyer, she thought, then shoved it aside. She loved her house on top of one of the highest hills in the city. And she'd paid for it herself.