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Carter sighed. “Okay, what do you need to know?”

“When your mom was working as a doula, was she employed by an agency or a company of any kind?” asked Gretchen.

“No. She was on her own. She just hustled. Drummed up jobs. I think it was word of mouth. Like I said, she was good at her job. She was great with kids.”

“Did you ever meet the kids she took care of?” Josie said. “Their families?”

He laughed. “Oh, we got to see her with other people’s kids a few times when she brought us around some of the families she worked for. She was really in her element, like she was with my girls. I used to think she used up all her energy and patience making sure those babies were happy so she could keep getting rehired, and when she got home, she didn’t have anything left for me and Dean. Now that I’m a parent though, I know that’s what she had to do to keep a roof over our heads.”

On the other side of the room, Carter’s colleague used the pull-down bar above the weight bench. The name on the back of his shirt read LUNSFORD. Josie said, “Did she keep a client list?”

“Maybe? I’m not sure if she still has—had—it since she hadn’t been doing that for a lot of years, but if she did, it would have been in the house.”

Which was burned so badly that only a few things had survived. Anything that was still intact after the fire would have been taken into evidence.

Gretchen tapped the cap of her pen against her notebook. “Do you remember names of any of the families she worked for?”

“Not many. It was a really long time ago.” Carter rubbed the towel across his chest. “There was a lady we met a couple of times. Helen something. Moore, maybe? Helen Moore. One of the families Mom went back to twice and we actually met them was the Allaby family. Then there was the Zimbles. We met them, too, and they sent us Christmas gifts the year Mom worked for them. We also met the Mirsky family. There was another one. I can’t remember their last name. We met them a couple of times, too. If I think of it, I’ll let you know.”

“West!” Spillane’s head poked through the door. “Your brother’s on the phone.”

Carter stood up, looking around the area. “What are you talking about?”

The man rolled his eyes and pointed to a phone on the wall. The small light under line one blinked orange. “He’s on one. Said he couldn’t reach you on your cell.”

“Shit.” Carter searched around him and in the cupholders of the treadmill. “I put it on silent earlier when Mols was napping. Her allergies were bothering her pretty bad. We gave her some Benadryl and tried to get her to sleep for a while but she was really cranky.”

That explained why Gretchen’s four calls had gone unanswered.

Carter plucked his phone and keys from one of the cupholders. As he crossed the room, he tapped his finger against the volume button along the side of his cell before dropping it into the pocket of his athletic shorts. “Dean,” Carter said, picking up the firehouse phone. “What’s up?”

Josie could hear the urgent tenor of Dean’s voice, though she couldn’t make out the words. All the color drained from Carter’s face. “Slow down, man. What? Are you sure? Dean, Dean. Calm down. You need to call the police.”

He looked over at Josie and Gretchen. “You know what, never mind, I’m with them. Go outside, stay there and wait for me, okay? Do not go back inside. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

He hung up. The keys to his truck jangled in his hand. A voice came from behind Josie and Gretchen.

“West,” Lunsford called. “You okay?”

Josie said, “What’s going on, Carter?”

“That was my brother. He just got home from work and found Kirstie. She’s dead. Someone killed her.”

Twenty-Nine

Dean and Kirstie West lived only a couple of miles away in one of Denton’s quieter, more sprawling residential areas. There was more acreage between each house. By the time Josie and Gretchen arrived, patrol cars had already blocked the long driveway and cordoned off the front of the house. Josie had called dispatch before they left the firehouse to have units sent out as quickly as possible. She parked along the side of the road. Carter pulled up behind her.

“Stay here,” Josie told him as they got out. “Don’t go past the cruisers.”

“I need to see my brother,” he said.

“You will at some point,” Gretchen assured him. “But you need to stay here.”

Josie didn’t hear what he said next as she and Gretchen strode past the marked units parked across the mouth of the driveway and toward the house. Outside the two-car garage was a white panel van with maroon lettering that said: “D.W. Plumbing.” The bay door in front of it was open. Crime scene tape stretched across it and around the front of the house.

Officer Conlen stood near the garage with a clipboard in his hand so he could log every person who entered and exited the scene as well as what time they did so. Josie and Gretchen were feet away from him when a deep, keening wail stopped them in their tracks. There, to their left, opposite the driveway, in a copse of trees, Dean was surrounded by three Denton PD officers.

He wore nothing but boxer briefs.