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missing child.
    LaMoia sat forward on the edge of his chair, the detective in him smelling hard evidence: the Pied Piper’s shoes, his pants cuffs, his pockets. ...
    Doris Shotz mumbled nearly incoherently, “There’s never been any broken glass in Rhonda’s room. That carpet was laid a month before she was born—”
    â€œThat’s true,” the husband responded, reaching for his wife’s hand. “If there’s glass in that carpet, this bastard brought it with him.”
    â€œMy baby,” Doris Shotz pleaded.
    â€œWe’re going to bring her home,” Daphne declared. She met eyes with the mother: Doris Shotz did not believe.

CHAPTER

    No one knew better than a homicide cop the ability of the human mind to forget.
    Not only was LaMoia required to locate and interview any potential witness, but on occasion such a witness had the potential to blow a case wide open. A realtor—whose job requirements included sizing up potential clients—seemed a decent place to invest his energies. The door-to-door work, conducted by a combination of task force detectives, FBI and SPD alike, had produced little of value. If Sherry Daech had seen anything—suspicious or not—the night before, LaMoia needed to interview her immediately. Memories deteriorated quickly.
    He feared that any attempt to bring her downtown would send the wrong message. He did not want attorneys involved. A quiet chat in her office seemed more the thing.
    But when his first two attempts to make an appointment failed, he placed his third call as a prospective buyer, and this time he scored, convincing him that Sherry Daech wanted nothing to do with the police, good citizen or not.
    â€œSomething in the high threes, low fours, on Mercer Island. If you have anything that fits.” A secretary returned a call less than thirty minutes later. Daech would meet him out on Mercer in an hour if he had the time. LaMoia scribbled down an address.

    The house was off an unbearably steep lane that serviced three others and led to a private dock on Lake Washington. LaMoia squeezed the red whale through a gauntlet of stone walls that would have sheared a fender off without thinking anything of it, and swung a hard left into the tight driveway. Daffodils, blooming in regimented rows like little suns, lit the front of the house and cut a hole through the interminable gray of Seattle.
    Daech presented herself perched on a low garden wall, wearing a red Mexican skirt, a flouncy blouse marked by enormous breasts and the wide warm smile of a woman who knew her business. She wore a lot of silver and turquoise on her ears, neck and wrists. She had blonde hair, and if it was dyed it was a pro job—no dark roots; it looked like the hair of a surfer girl in her twenties. She had smooth, unwrinkled skin, and if the product of a tuck or two, it was again the work of one hell of a razor man, as LaMoia referred to surgeons. She straightened up as the detective swaggered toward her. He knew he had a good walk; women had been telling him that since junior high.
    â€œThat your ride parked up there?” he asked. “The Hummer?”
    â€œBusiness has been good,” she said, not breaking the practiced smile.
    â€œHell of a set of wheels,” he said, lowering his eyes to her chest and then back to the emerald green that sat beneath the warm arcs of darkly penciled—or were they dyed?—eyebrows. He smiled back for the first time. “John,” he said, offering his hand and squeezing hers so that she understood his strength. He liked to get things straight right off the top. “Gulf War, right? The Hummer?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œHell of a set of wheels,” he repeated, knowing the car cost over two years of pay for him.
    â€œIt makes a statement,” she said honestly. He liked that. Standing, smoothing her blouse and skirt until she approved of the contours, she added, “Some people