She preceded him down the hall, herding her youngest ahead of her, calling a warning to him as Antony began to give chase to a striped tabby cat that darted ahead of them with its tail straight up in the air.
He had first met Anne during the investigation of the See-No-Evil murders, when she had been a schoolteacher at Oak Knoll Elementary. Pretty, quietly strong, and fiercely protective of her students, he’d had a mind to ask her out when the case was over. But Vince had swept into town and swept Anne off her feet—and he never let Mendez live it down.
At a glance they seemed an unlikely couple. Now fifty-two, Vince was twenty years Anne’s senior, but they were absolutely soul mates, and had the strongest marriage of any couple Mendez knew. Watching them with their growing family, he had to admit he envied them.
“I understand we have a new acquaintance in common,” Anne said as they went into the big bright kitchen. “Lauren Lawton.”
“She called you?” he said, surprised. “I gave her your card, but I didn’t think she’d use it.”
“She didn’t. I met her through Wendy. Wendy has become friends with Lauren’s daughter. They ride horses together.”
“What do you think of her?”
“Lauren? I think life hasn’t been very kind to her,” she said diplomatically.
“No. Is she going to see you professionally?”
“I wouldn’t look for that to happen any time soon. She’s too busy trying to hang on to the ledge to reach out for help,” Anne said. “We’ve talked. She knows I’m available when she’s ready. That’s the best I can do for now.”
“I don’t see how she can heal while those wounds are still open,” Mendez said. “Until the case is resolved one way or another, she’s left hanging.”
Anne nodded, her expression sad. “I remember watching the news coverage when her daughter was abducted. That’s the worst thing I can possibly imagine as a parent. And then she lost her husband too. It’s heartbreaking. It’s like watching somebody drowning and not being able to do anything for them.”
She shook her head as she opened the refrigerator. “Wine or beer?”
“I shouldn’t,” he started.
She gave him an arch look, a smile tugging at her mouth. “I know you’re not on duty.”
Mendez scowled a little. “I’ll have a Dos Equis then, thanks.”
“Hey, hothead. What are you doing in my kitchen with my wife?”
Vince Leone had come up the ranks of the Chicago PD and, while he had long ago left the Windy City, its accent had never left him.
He came into the room and immediately laid claim to Anne, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her forehead, winning himself a sweet smile. An athletic physical presence at six-three, he had a lion’s mane of wavy salt-and-pepper hair and a mustache meant to distract the eye from the small round scar on his cheek. The scar marked the entrance of a mugger’s .22-caliber bullet that had never left his head. Otherwise fit and happy, he was stronger and more vibrant now than he had been when he had come to Oak Knoll five years prior. Family life agreed with him.
“You talked to Cal?” Mendez said with a lopsided smile.
“I saw him at the gym this morning. He told me this Ballencoa clown threatened to sue,” he said. “You’d better mind your p’s and q’s, junior.”
“Meanwhile, Ballencoa can terrorize Lauren Lawton, and that’s okay. I can’t even put a tail on him for fear of him screaming harassment,” Mendez complained. “I found out today the city of Santa Barbara gave him fifty K to shut up and go away. He went up to San Luis Obispo and threatened to sue them too. Now we get him.”
“Imagine what a nightmare that is for Lauren,” Anne said, handing him his beer.
“I don’t have to imagine. I’ve seen firsthand what it’s done to her,” he said. “She’s hanging on to the ledge with broken fingernails. If we can’t head this off at the pass and get some kind of resolution for her, we’re going to have a bad outcome one way or another.”
“Uncle Tony! Look at my giraffe!” Haley called, coming into the room with a stuffed toy half as big as she was. Antony tagged along behind, holding his stuffed gorilla on top of his head.
Mendez squatted down for a closer look. “That’s beautiful, sweetheart.”
“Mine too!” Antony said.
“Yours too!”
“I’m not a sweetheart, though,” Antony said.
“Yes, you are, Vincent Antony Leone,” Anne declared, bending down and snatching her son close for a kiss.
“No, I’m not! I’m a g’rilla!”
Haley scrambled up onto a barstool at the island. “Daddy, tell Uncle Tony about how the giraffe licked me.”
“I will, Haley Bug,” Vince said, stroking a big hand over his daughter’s tousled curls. “We’ll both tell him all about it later. But right now Uncle Tony and I have to go talk some business. You stay here and help Mommy keep your brother in line, okay?”
Haley rolled her big brown eyes dramatically. “Oh, brother!”
Vince poured himself a glass of cabernet from the bottle on the counter and led the way out to the pool.
“Have I told you yet today what a lucky stiff you are?” Mendez asked, twisting the top off his beer.
“No, but I am,” Vince said with a grin. He took a seat on an L-shaped cushioned stucco bench that framed one corner of the swimming pool. “Life is good.”
Mendez sat on the other leg of the L. “How’s Anne feeling? She looks great.”
“A little morning sickness, a little tired, and quit looking at my wife,” Vince said, shooting him a half-joking, half-fierce look. “You need to find yourself a nice girl and settle down, Anthony.”
Mendez took a pull on his beer. “Yeah, well . . . I’ll get right on that.”
They were both silent for an uncomfortable moment.
“Sara just wasn’t ready, Tony,” Vince said gently.
Sara Morgan. Wendy’s mother. Beautiful Sara Morgan with her mermaid hair and cornflower blue eyes. A wounded bird for him to protect. He had certainly wanted to.
“That’s not to say she won’t come back around. She’s needed some time to just be herself. Steve did a lot of damage.”
Mendez shook his head. “No. It’s not going to happen, Vince. I’m okay with that. I was part of a bad time in her life. Every time she looked at me was a reminder of everything she went through. Hell, I put her through some of it myself when we thought that asshole husband of hers was a suspect,” he admitted.
He couldn’t say he hadn’t been half in love with her, though. Vince knew it too, but gracefully let the subject slide.
“So tell me about Roland Ballencoa.”
Mendez filled him in with the details he had learned going through the SBPD files with Tanner. Leone listened with laser-sharp interest.
“He’s classic in a lot of respects,” he said. “Tailor-made for trouble. Absent mother, emotionally distant female raising him. No male role model in his life.”
“For sure there’s some kind of aberrant sexual component in there when he was younger, I’m thinking,” Mendez said.
Vince nodded. “Most likely. Although I do know cases where the subject claimed to have had violent sexual fantasies at a young age with no remembered abuse preceding.”
“Abuse is a relative term.”
“Or maybe a terminal relative,” Leone played on the words. “At any rate, your boy Roland started young with the peeping and the lewd acts, and very possibly hastened the demise of his aunt.”
“And got away with it.”
“That kind of success is a dangerous thing,” Vince said. “I’d like to get my hands on a transcript of his interview with the police from back then.”
“If such a thing exists,” Mendez said. “We’re talking twenty years ago and some Podunk PD up in the hinterlands.”