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do with his only daughter or how to handle her.
    Regina, lonely and yearning for a mom, recreated Toni in her mind. This Toni loved, adored, and cared for Regina with the soothing comfort of a listening friend. She was the perfect, fantasy mom. That ideal, as the years passed, became real to Regina.
    Mark Hartwell, a short, heavyset man who drank and smoked like Toni, had a lot to live up to. As much as he may have wanted, as much as he may have tried, Mark Hartwell couldn’t be the father his daughter wanted or needed.
    So, young Regina Hartwell began looking for love in other places. She began clinging to other girls, idolizing older girls, in a constant search of female love, tenderness, and acceptance.
    In the sixth grade, Regina hero-worshipped a girl who was two years older than she. Her freshman year in high school, she worshipped a girl who was a senior. It seemed to be one girl after another. She simply wanted a mother figure.

    In 1986, nearly four years after Toni Hartwell’s death, Mark Hartwell and his only natural child, Regina Stephanie Hartwell, were awarded a total of $2 million in damages. Mark received $1.6 million. Regina received $400,000.
    Sixteen-year-old Regina’s $400,000 was placed in trust. Prior to age eighteen, Regina’s lawsuit money could be distributed to either Regina or her natural or legal guardian, Mark Hartwell. At age eighteen, if Regina wanted, she could receive $40,000 from her trust. If she wanted, from ages nineteen to twenty-five, she could receive varying amounts—from a low of $24,000 to a high of $42,517. The balance was to be distributed to her on her twenty-fifth birthday.
     
     
    Regina Hartwell, a beautiful daughter with expressive eyes like her dad’s, with smarts, with wit, with a smile that could light up all of Houston, with a sweet, innocent look of a young Reba McEntire, but with a sad wisdom that seemed beyond her years, tried to buy the friendship of these girls with her new money.
    She bought them expensive gifts, pricey purses, even foreign cars. While still in high school, Regina bought a used Mercedes convertible and gave it to a friend—the same girl who was a senior when Regina was a freshman. Hartwell did this because she couldn’t have the love of the two people she wanted most—her father and mother.
    It became a pattern that she learned long, hard, and well—seek a woman you can’t have and try like the devil to buy her.
     
     
    Maybe that’s what Mark Hartwell believed when Regina was sweet, sixteen years old and he bought her a beautiful, mint-condition, used Porsche 911. He drove up to Pasadena High, a giant red bow atop the silver-blue convertible, and in a community where Regina’s friends drove Buick LeSabres, Ford Thunderbirds, and Amy a Saab, Mark Hartwell presented his daughter with a $30,000 car.
    “It’s yours,” he said, “under one condition—that when you start getting the money from your trust, you pay me for half of the car. $15,000.”
    “Deal,” said Regina.
    Maybe Mark Hartwell was just trying to buy his daughter’s love. Maybe he was trying to alleviate his guilt because of what he was about to do.
    Mark Hartwell bought a new house, got married, obtained a new stepson, and took off. He gave Regina the Porsche and the modest Pasadena house, then sped to Seabrook, Texas.
     
     
    Another Houston suburb, Seabrook is close to NASA, its astronauts and engineers, and the Gulf of Mexico. Seabrook is prestigious.
    December 29, 1987, Mark Hartwell married Dian Frances Cantrell Swate Corley, a thrice-divorced mother of four children.
    Regina was not happy. She considered the marriage a betrayal of her own mother. To others, Mark Hartwell was just trying to move on with life after a devastating loss. But Regina never forgave her father.
    Dian’s youngest son, Brandon Swate, moved in with the Hartwells. He grew up in the 2,500-square-foot, four bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath, two-story, brick home in Seabrook with a hot tub in the