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our guns on whoever was behind it.
    The black girl in a Cal-Berkeley sweatshirt, whom the Berkeley cops had seen going in. One look at the SWAT team and she let out a startled scream.
    “Wendy Raymore?” Cappy barked, yanking her out of the doorway.
    The shocked girl could barely speak. Cappy threw her into the arms of a waiting SWAT team member. Trembling, she pointed to a staircase. “I think she's up there.”
    The three of us pushed our way inside. Two upstairs bed-rooms were open and empty. No one inside. Down the hall, another door was closed.
    Cappy rapped at the door. “Wendy Raymore? San Fran-cisco Police!”
    There was no answer.
    The adrenaline was burning in my veins. Cappy looked at me and checked his gun. Jacobi readied himself. I nodded.
    Cappy kicked open the door. We moved in, leveling guns around the room.
    A girl in a T-shirt shot up in bed. She looked stunned, blinking sleep from her eyes. She started to shriek: "Oh, my
    God, what's going on?"
    “Wendy Raymore?” Cappy kept his gun on her.
    The girl's face was white with terror, eyes going back and forth.
    “Where's the baby?” Cappy shouted.
    This is all wrong! Fucking all wrong, I was thinking.
    The girl had long dark hair and a swarthy complexion. She looked nothing like the description Dianne Aronoff had given us. Or the picture on Wendy Raymore's student ID. Or the girl I saw hurrying away from the bombing. I thought I knew what had happened. This girl had probably lost her ID, or it had been stolen. But who had it now?
    I put down my gun. We were staring at a different girl.
    “This isn't the au pair,” I said.

Womans Murder Club 3 - 3rd Degree

Chapter 21
    LUCILLE CLEAMONS had exactly seventeen minutes left on her lunch hour to wipe the ketchup stain off Marcus's face, get the twins to the day care clinic, and catch the 27 bus back to work before Mr. Darmon would start docking her $7.85 per hour (or 13 cents a minute).
    “C'mon, Marcus,” she sighed to her five-year-old, who was sprouting a face full of ketchup. “I don't have time for this today.” She dabbed at his white, collared dress shirt, which had taken on the look of one of his messier finger paintings, and - damn - none of the stain was coming off.
    Cherisse pointed from her chair. “Can I have an ice cream, Momma?”
    “No, child, you can't. Momma's got no time.” She looked at her watch and felt her heart stab. Oh God...
    “C'mon, child.” Lucille crammed their Happy Meal boxes onto the tray. “I got to get you cleaned up fast.”
    “Please, Momma, it's a McSundae,” Cherisse cried.
    “You can buy your own McSundae or whatever you like when it's your dollar sixty-five going across the table. Now both you come get yourselves cleaned up. Momma's got to go.”
    “But I am clean,” Cherisse protested.
    She dragged them out of the booth and hurried toward the bathroom. “Yes, but your brother looks like he's been in a war.”
    Lucille pulled her kids along the back corridor leading to the bathrooms. She opened the door to the ladies' room. It was McDonald's. No one would mind. She raised Marcus on the counter and wet a paper towel and started to rub at the mess on his collar.
    The boy squirmed.
    “Damn, child, you want to make the mess, you got to own up to the cleaning. Cherisse, you got to pee?”
    “Yes, Momma,” the girl replied.
    She was the cleaner of the two. They were both five, but Marcus barely knew how to pull down his own zipper. Some of the ketchup was starting to come off.
    “Cherisse,” Lucille barked, “you going to get on that toi-let seat, or what?”
    “Can't, Momma,” the child replied.
    “Can't? Who's got time for this, young lady? Just drop your stockings and pee.”
    “I can't, Momma. You gotta come see.”
    Lucille sighed. Whoever said time is on your side sure never had twins. She took a quick glance in the mirror, sigh-ing again, not ever a single second for herself. She helped Marcus to the floor, then went to open Cherisse's