"Yes."

"What kind of things."

Almost as if she were in a self-imposed trance, Grace stared into the fire, then started talking about seeing a needle, a hypodermic. And a straitjacket, and a stretcher of some kind. Alvaez tried to press her when she trailed off, but Grace could give nothing concrete: no name, no description, no address.

Nothing to tie one person to the crimes.

Grace slowly surfaced and said, "You need to help her," which only fueled Alvarez's feelings of anxiety and inadequacy.

"I will," she promised, then headed back outside. Climbing into her Jeep, she was just turning around when her cell phone rang. She picked up as she drove onto the main road, her wipers fighting like h.e.l.l to clear the windshield of the d.a.m.ned snow that showed no sign of letting up. "Alvarez."

"It's Joelle. Are you coming back here?"

"On my way."

"Good, good."

Alvarez got a bad feeling about the conversation. Joelle hadn't just called to suggest she be part of the Christmas cookie bake-off. "What's up?"

"It's Regan's son."

"Jeremy?" Alvarez whispered, her heart sinking. The kid was already in a h.e.l.luva lot of trouble; he didn't need any more. "What about him?"

"He's down here at the station, demanding to know what's happening with his mother. I tried to calm him down and suggested he go home, even offered him some cookies and fruitcake."

Like always.

"But he's determined to talk to someone about Pescoli and considering how things are with Undersheriff Brewster, I thought you might be able to talk to him."

"I'm on my way," Alvarez promised and hung up. She didn't know what she'd say to the kid. She wasn't good with teenagers, but she'd give it her best shot.

"It's no big deal," Bianca said, miffed that Mich.e.l.le would even try to deter her. Bianca was nervous, wanted to get out. Her worries about her mom ate at her and, as she flipped through the channels of her father's monstrous television, she couldn't concentrate on the reality shows that she usually loved. As many stations as the satellite dish provided, there wasn't one that caught her interest. So she'd texted her boyfriend and they'd made plans.

But Mich.e.l.le, usually so cool, seemed to think she needed to suddenly a.s.sert her stepmotherly authority.

As if!

"Chris and I are just going down to the concert at the courthouse," Bianca said from the couch. She rolled her head around, so she could see into the dining room where Mich.e.l.le was adjusting the strands of silvery tinsel that she'd looped through the chandelier that hung over a round gla.s.s and wrought-iron table.

"Is that right?" Obviously Mich.e.l.le wasn't buying Bianca's admittedly lame excuse. "Why?"

"Duh! It's Christmas."

"I think you should stay home. Does your mom let you go out on dates? Does Chris even drive?" Mich.e.l.le's neatly plucked eyebrows drew together as she looped the tinsel through a curlicue of wrought iron.

"His brother is taking us. He's got his license."

"And what time is the concert?"

Mich.e.l.le sure wasn't the pushover Bianca had thought she'd be. At least not since she'd lost her job as a teller in a local bank that had shut its doors. Now she was taking this whole stepmothering job a little too far. "Around seven? I'm really not sure. We were going to get something to eat and then go there."

"In this?" Mich.e.l.le looked through the window to the falling snow. "I don't think so, honey."

"But-"

"Look." Mich.e.l.le spread her fingers wide, red fingernails decorated with tiny white snowflakes standing out like claws. "Your dad's got a lot to worry about with the storms shutting down the interstate so he can't make his usual run," she said. That much was true. As a truck driver, Lucky was losing money daily while the roads were impa.s.sable. He'd planned to take some time off at Christmas, his first ever that Bianca could remember, but the weather had taken away his options. "And let's face it, he's worried about your mom."

Maybe. Maybe not.

"Don't give me that look. He is. And then there's Jeremy. Your brother blew out of here and we can't get him on the cell phone. He's supposed to be grounded."

"But I'm not," Bianca wheedled, reminding Mich.e.l.le that she was the "good kid" of the two.

"Just hear me out, Bianca." Mich.e.l.le's voice had a tone in it that Bianca didn't like, hadn't noticed before.

"You're not my mom." And at that Bianca felt tears bloom in her eyes. Hot, scared tears. She'd tried not to think about what might be happening to her mother, and she'd spent the last few hours texting and talking to Chris, but she couldn't just stay cooped up here.

The back door slammed shut and she looked up to see her father walk inside, the scent of cigarette smoke clinging to him as he hung up his jacket in the front closet. He caught the angry glare Mich.e.l.le tossed his way.

"What?"

Mich.e.l.le appeared about to snap back a hot retort, then thought better of it. "She's your daughter. You deal with her," she said, then turned and, pink high-heeled slippers clipping in a furious staccato rhythm, she hurried into the sanct.i.ty of "her" kitchen.

Bianca glared after the woman her father had married. An airhead, that's what Mom called her, but Bianca wasn't so sure.

"Okay, what's going on?" he demanded.

"I just want to go to hear a Christmas concert tonight," she complained, crossing her arms under her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and pouting.

"I don't think so."

"Why?"

Her father looked at her as if she'd lost her mind, then launched into the same tired arguments she'd already heard from Mich.e.l.le. The weather was bad. She was too young. Jeremy was already MIA and in big trouble and blah, blah, blah. That was the trouble with being the second one, the first ruined everything.

"...so if Chris wants to come over here and...hang out...play games or something...that would be okay."

"Play games?" She rolled her eyes. What did he think she was? Seven?

"Okay, then watch TV or..." He looked to the kitchen as if hoping Mich.e.l.le would appear and offer up some kind of really cool idea to help him out of this, and Bianca realized her father didn't understand her at all. "Come on, honey. Give Chris a call and see if he'll come by. I should get to meet him. Maybe we can have pizza or...spaghetti...or..."

"Pizza. We can do pizza." Mich.e.l.le stuck her head into the doorway. "I've got some in the freezer and extra pepperoni and olives in the pantry."

"Whoopee." Bianca twirled her finger beside her head.

Scowling, Mich.e.l.le disappeared again.

Dad got all grumpy. "You're staying in. And so is Jeremy, when I track him down. Until we find out what's happened to your mom, I want you both to stick close. Got it?"

She fought a new spate of dumb tears.

"Got it, pumpkin?"

"Got it!" She only hoped that he never, ever, used that dumb nickname for her around Chris. It was just stupid and gross. She marched into her bedroom, slammed the door, and flopped down on the bed. Sniffing back tears, she found her cell phone and speed-dialed Jeremy. Maybe he could get her out of here.

She'd called him all day and he hadn't picked up, so she texted him: Where R U? Get me outta here. NOW.

She thought about adding more info, then just sent the text and prayed that he would arrive. Jeremy bugged the c.r.a.p out of her. He was just such a dipwad most of the time, but he was her brother and he knew what a pain Dad could be.

Bianca had always thought Mich.e.l.le was okay, but she was changing her mind fast. What was this putting down rules and playing like she was Mom? What a bunch of garbage. Mom could be a real pain, but at least she was her mother. Mich.e.l.le trying to act all parental and stuff, it was just wrong.

Bianca rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. She thought of her mother and her insides turned to ice at the thought that Mom was in real trouble.

Then she tried calling Chris.

Maybe he would come over...It was kinda lame, the whole pizza thing, but she needed him right now.

Really needed him.

At Mountain View Hospital, Dr. Jalicia Ramsby rotated the kinks from her neck as she walked down the hallway to her desk. It had been a morning of meetings, first with her women's group, which consisted of five women who had suffered through abusive relationships, and then an administrative meeting, where she was told that she'd have to cut costs in her department, probably losing at least one aide. "Times are tough," Hedgewick, the administrator, had told all the department heads. "The economic decline is taking a hefty toll."

"But people are still sick. They still have to get treatment for mental illness," Ramsby protested, a few of her peers rumbling agreement.

Hedgewick had appeared concerned, his lips pursing, his eyes behind his reading gla.s.ses darkening, his hands clasping over the smooth table top and his neatly typed pages. "That's what makes our job challenging," he said, placating her. "We have to offer the best services possible while staying within the constraints of the company budget."

She thought about the Mercedes he drove but held her tongue. His wife was rumored to be wealthy in her own right and it didn't matter. Hedgewick always kept his eye firmly on the bottom line.

Now reaching the door to her office, Jalicia looked down toward the far end of the hallway where a woman quickly slipped around the corner. For a heartbeat, Dr. Ramsby thought the pet.i.te woman with the dark hair was Padgett Long.

Which was ridiculous. Padgett never moved faster than a slow walk and she was in the secure wing.

Maybe someone who looked like the silent patient?

Ramsby walked swiftly enough that her lab coat billowed as she headed toward the corner. She had to have been wrong. As far as she knew Padgett had never been out of her wing and surrounding yard.

Which was sad, but true.

So why...?

Within seconds she rounded the corner to the landing area where she could have sworn the woman had darted.

The corridor was a dead end to a wall of windows now splattered with rain from the ominous clouds scudding across the sky. On the right were two service elevators; on the left, restrooms. Ramsby noted that both elevator cars were heading downward, one at the second floor, the other stopping on ground level.

Had the woman gotten on one?

Had it been Padgett?

Jalicia had never been one to discount a person's feelings or gut instincts and she'd often felt that something was off around Mountain View. Curious, she stepped into the women's room and found it empty. The men's was locked.

Hmmm.

Telling herself she was imagining things, she waited near the elevators, her arms folded over her chest, her eyes on the restroom door, her hunger for a cigarette burning through her blood like fire, though she hadn't smoked in over eight months. Maybe it was time to try the d.a.m.ned patch.

Brrring! She nearly jumped out of her skin when her cell phone went off. Checking the screen, she saw that her secretary, the ever-impatient Annette, was calling. "Yes?"

"I've been trying to reach you," Annette said, obviously peeved. Again. Soon, Ramsby feared, it would be time to have an att.i.tude adjustment talk with the woman.

"I was in a meeting."

"I know, but that lawyer Barton Tinneman's called again. I thought you'd want to know."

Hubert Long's, Padgett's father's, attorney. She wondered what he wanted now. "I'll have to call him back later."

As she snapped her phone shut, the door to the men's room clicked open and Dr. Langley, a frail-looking psychologist with a thin white beard and perpetual knit brow, was tucking his shirt into his pants as he walked out. He looked up and caught her eyeing him.

"Anyone else in there?" Ramsby asked, her gaze doing a quick once-over of the tiny room while the door was open. She caught a slice of her own worried reflection in the mirror over the sink before the door slowly closed.

"Pardon?" Scott said, coloring slightly. He cleared his throat and adjusted his tweed jacket.

"I thought one of my patients may have wandered...oh, never mind." Ramsby felt suddenly foolish. "I was mistaken."

"No one was with me in there, Dr. Ramsby, if that's what you're asking." Langley's white eyebrows inched up a notch.

"I wasn't asking anything," she said, then turned on her heel and headed toward her office again, the feeling that something wasn't right at Mountain View greater than ever.

Chapter Eighteen.

Oh, great.

Now Mom's partner was going to try to give him some advice.

Jeremy saw it in the set of Selena Alvarez's jaw and the way she walked straight to the table where he'd been asked to wait in this tiny little windowless room, an interrogation room, he thought. It smelled of sweat and bleach. Bad. And he was uncomfortable, always had been when he was near a police station. His mom had said being a cop was in his blood because both she and his father had been on the force, but uh-uh, no way did he want anything to do with law enforcement. He didn't trust cops. Sometimes even his mom.

"Hi," Alvarez said. All friendly-like. Though she wasn't smiling. Mom had said she was intense.

Jeremy wasn't up for small talk. Just like he hadn't wanted any cookies from the woman with the fake smile and weird clothes. "Have you found my mom?"

"Not yet."

He'd thought he was ready for bad news, but he suddenly had trouble drawing a breath, as if someone were sitting on his chest. "I saw her car," he admitted. "Totaled. At Horsebrier Ridge. It was...A tow truck was winching it up from the canyon floor." His stomach twisted as he remembered the mangled wreckage. "Is she dead?" He was trying to appear in control of his rapidly eroding emotions.