The Sad Girl EXCERPT

Chapter 2

Three weeks later, I was starting my day in my favorite way: second cup of coffee in my hand as I alternated between reading the news on the web and watching cars and people in the lot. I had chosen a spot in an older strip mall, mainly because the rent was cheap. The nice big windows enticed the occasional walk-in customer and allowed me to people-watch on those rare days when I wasn’t busy.

I saw Dom’s car pull in, and realized he wasn’t alone. The guy with him was huge. Dom is about six-four and a solid two-forty at least, and this guy was taller and a little wider. He had a three-ring binder under his tree-trunk left arm. I met them at the door. “Business?”

Dom nodded. “Maria here yet? This will probably take a while, and we’ll need some privacy.”

The bottom dropped out of my stomach and my heart raced. If Dom was going to violate me, he’d have just taken me in. So who was the other guy? I showed them to my office, pointing out the coffee maker on the way, then went back out front until Maria showed up. Her eyes went to the office before she was all the way through the door. She knew Dom’s car as well as I did. I told her what we had coming in and going out, and headed for the office.

They both had coffee in front of them, but neither one was drinking. I sat down, tried to look calm and watched them study me.

“This is Detective Thomas from Westwood PD.”

“Where’s Westwood PD? Alabama, right?”

He nodded. “We’re just north of Mobile. Smallish town, maybe thirty thousand in a good week.”

“I’ve been working with your department almost since I started this auction thing. Welcome to San Diego, Detective. What did you do to get sent way out here?”

“Danielle Cumberland Dawson,” he said after a minute, not looking at my eyes.

I nodded as the name thudded around in my head.

“You know her?” Dom asked.

I shook my head. “Interesting combination though. I have a unique last name. I’ll admit that.” One of these days I wanted to see where the name Cumberland came from.

“Could she be a long-lost sister, or cousin?” Thomas asked.

“Not likely, sir. I’m an only child of two only children. I haven’t talked to what little extended family I have since long before I did my time.”

“What about Angela Marie Dawson?”

The clock ticked for a minute or two. A Monty Python clip announced incoming email, and still we stared at each other. Mentally, I was in San Francisco and it was sixteen years ago. The city was beautiful that year, and so was Angie. I had lost track of her. A Navy career and prison time will do that to almost any relationship. I nodded finally. “I knew her.”

Thomas’s chair creaked ominously as he shifted his weight. “How well?”

“Carnally.” No point in prancing around the truth. It had been an incredible summer. Angie loved me that summer the way I think she did everything in her life—completely, uninhibitedly.

He nodded. “Fifteen years ago, Angela Marie Dawson had a daughter. She named her Danielle Cumberland Dawson. There was no father listed on the birth certificate.”

I had a daughter. And she was dead.

Every tick of the clock exploded in my ears, each one blasting a new memory through my brain.

Thomas cleared his throat. “About three years ago, a Texas DPS trooper came across a pair of RVs on I-40, midway between Amarillo and Oklahoma. One was broken down. When the trooper pulled up, a bunch of girls jumped out of the broke-down RV and the other one took off. Turns out the girls were from all over the West and Southwest, and had been kidnapped over the week or so prior.”