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“Geez, Mom!” Jeremy interrupted, stepping closer, Ivy, at his side, clinging to one arm. “Stop already. It doesn’t matter.”
“You allow this?” Victor was shocked as he swung his gaze back to Pescoli. “Them sleeping together, doing God only knows what. What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me?” Her temper spiked and she was suddenly hot all over, angry, her fears and worries chased away by fury. She stepped closer to her ex-brother-in-law and held his gaze with her own. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with me, Victor. I’m trying to take care of your daughter and my own two older kids while helping out in the murder investigation of one of my sisters to start with. The dead bodies are piling up and now . . . my son who isn’t yet six months old is missing, stolen out of his bed in the middle of the night. That’s what’s wrong with me. You want to take this further?”
Victor went silent as Santana stepped between them and said, “Regan. Just stop, okay? This isn’t helping.”
“I don’t care.” She wasn’t finished. “At least I’m here for my children. I—” Her voice cracked and her knees wobbled as she realized she hadn’t been able to save her son. Being home, in the very house with her child, hadn’t been good enough. She’d felt the evil watching her, known it existed, and yet was stunned when it had struck, snatching her innocent babe. She buried her face in her hands and might have collapsed except Santana’s arm was around her shoulders and he helped her to the couch.
“We’ll find him,” he said. He tipped her chin up with a finger to stare deep into her eyes. “We will find him.”
“Promise?” she asked, knowing it was foolish.
If he hesitated it was for less than a heartbeat. “Promise.”
But deep in her heart, she knew they were only words. She was too much of a realist to trust a promise made out of desperation. She sank against Santana on the couch and let Alvarez handle the situation for once. She noted it was still snowing outside and that the dogs had settled into their beds by the fire. Someone had made coffee but she didn’t know who or when, just smelled it for the first time. The forensic team was closing up shop, having gotten all the evidence they could, and she and Santana were still without their son.
Her throat ached and her heart felt as if it were in a vise. She tried to focus on the scene playing out in her family room, but all the while her distressed mind returned to the questions:
Who did this?
Why?
Where was her baby?
Was he all right?
And, oh, dear Lord, would she ever see him again?
Santana’s arm around her tightened, his fingers firm over her shoulder, and she was brought back from her soul-crushing thoughts to realize that Victor, still standing near the ottoman, hadn’t bothered to take off his coat. “Look, you’ve got a lot going on here,” he said to the room at large. “Ivy should get her things together and then she and I’ll leave, get out of your hair.”
“No!” Ivy held Jeremy’s arm in a death grip. She shook her head, the uneven layers of her hair shifting in the light from the table lamps that someone had turned on. “I’m not going back.”
Victor’s face reddened. “Of course you are.”
“No!” Ivy was on her feet, small fists balled. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
“I’m your father!”
“Is that what you call it?”
“Hey,” Alvarez said sharply. “Everyone chill out. Okay?” Alvarez turned to Victor. “Ivy can’t leave. Not yet. She needs to answer some more questions at the station. I thought you understood that.”
Victor’s shoulders slumped a little. “Regan said something, but I thought with everything else that’s going on it might be postponed.”
“We still have a double-homicide to investigate. Detectives Paterno and Tanaka are on their way back here. Should arrive by midafternoon and then we’ll wrap this up as quickly as possible.”
“I already talked to them,” Ivy complained.
“Before Troy Boxer’s and Ronny Stillwell’s bodies were found.” Alvarez watched the girl for a reaction.
Got none. But Victor was perplexed. “Who are they?”
Alvarez explained, “Your daughter dated Boxer.”
“Yeah, well, it was a long time ago,” Ivy said, finally letting loose of Jeremy and folding her arms belligerently over her chest.
Alvarez said, “If two months constitutes a long time.”
