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preschool when Sophia cried, “I forgot Blinky!”
    Jill glanced at the dashboard clock. “Sorry, honey, but we don’t have time to go back.”
    Sophia kicked and thrashed in the car seat, convulsing like someone receiving electroshock therapy. “Blinky! I need Blinky!” Fat tears rolled down cheeks turning pink with rage. She was quite capable of keeping this up all the way to preschool. Jill’s temples throbbed.
    “All right, all right. Settle down! We’ll get him!” She squealed to a stop before making an awkward, and undoubtedly illegal, U-turn in the middle of the road. Cars in both lanes slammed on their brakes and hit their horns, adding to the cacophony. Jill waved a lame apology, racing back down the road toward home, certain she was being a terrible parent, but equally certain that she couldn’t just drop off a sobbing Sophia at preschool.
    *   *   *
    Alone on the second floor, Bea donned latex gloves and ran a noisy upright back and forth over the plush, cream-colored carpeting. The child’s bedroom was close to the stairs, with a bathroom between it and the master bedroom. Bea ran the vacuum into the room and quickly swept the floor while she surveyed the pale pink walls and white furniture. All of it high-end, of course. Switching off the machine, she ran a gloved hand over the child’s bed, pressing a pillow to her face for a long moment, breathing in the child’s scent. She flitted a dustcloth over shelves filled with toys, most of them neatly tucked into white wicker baskets lined with pink gingham. The young fairy princess walking down a country lane in the wall mural seemed to watch Bea as she plucked several blonde hairs from the soft bristles of a silver-backed brush sitting on the dresser.
    *   *   *
    Jill peeled back onto Wakefield Drive and pulled the car into the driveway, slamming it in park. Hitting the garage door opener, she exited the car leaving the engine running. Ducking under the slowly rising garage door, she ran back through the kitchen, startling one of the cleaners.
    “Did you forget something, Mrs. Lassiter?”
    Jill nodded, yanking out each kitchen chair before checking the family room. “Gray stuffed dog—have you seen him?”
    “Sorry, no.”
    She ran up the stairs to the second floor, dashing into Sophia’s freshly cleaned room, checking the shelves and the floor and dropping down to search underneath the bed. No Blinky, but the cleaners hadn’t vacuumed under there—she’d have to say something, but not today.
    Where was the stuffed dog? She should put a homing device on the damn thing. Jill raced out of Sophia’s room and down the hall.
    *   *   *
    The master bedroom was vast, hotel-like. Bea made the king-size bed quickly—she certainly knew how to do hospital corners—smoothing the deep blue duvet and arranging all the pillows. A pair of men’s trousers had missed the laundry hamper in the walk-in closet and she retrieved them, taking time to check the pockets for anything useful. She wondered where David Lassiter put his things and checked the drawers in the closet until she identified his and hers. Business cards and receipts, a few odd coins. Jill Lassiter had a jewelry drawer, expensive pieces laid out like cold cuts in a deli case, ready for anyone to covet and steal. For a moment Bea considered taking a gold bangle, but something like that would surely be missed; she didn’t need the police after her.
    Leaving the vacuum running, she examined the attached master bath. A silk robe hung from a hook on the back of the door. Bea sniffed it, detecting Jill’s perfume, and searched the pockets. She took a few short strands of fair hair left in a comb on David’s sink. She stepped into the massive shower stall, with its stone tiles and dual shower heads, carefully scraping up the dark hairs coiled around the drain.
    “Excuse me?” The voice behind her shot Bea’s heart rate into overdrive.
    *   *   *
    Jill had to shout to be