Smoke

was right. He might have accused her of being jealous, which might also have been partly true.

“That’s her,” said Jasmine coming up behind Lydia. “Funny, though. I don’t remember that photo on the wall.”

Lydia looked at it; it did seem out of symmetry with the placement of the others.

“How long ago was that?”

“More than six months ago now.”

Lydia pointed to a black-and-white shot of a man who looked a lot like Mickey holding a baby. “Who’s that?” Lydia asked.

“That’s their biological father; I think his name was Graves. Simon Graves.”

There was an air of melancholy to the photo, an expression of sadness on his face though he gazed into the eyes of his child. Lydia wrapped her arms around herself, as if the mood of the photo could leak into her own heart if she allowed it, and bring memories of the loss-if she even had a right to call it that-she had recently suffered.

“And this,” said Jasmine, “is their stepfather, Tim Samuels.” He was a big man, with an infectious smile and laughing green eyes. He had strawberry blonde hair, with light brows and lashes to match. He held a young Lily on his hip and had his arm around Mickey, who barely reached his elbow. Lily smiled, staring at Tim Samuels with unabashed adoration. Mickey sulked, his arms folded, the very picture of sullen adolescence.

“What does he do?” Lydia asked.

“He owned a private security firm. But he sold it about a year and half ago, made so much money that he decided to retire.”

“Private security?”

“Yeah, you know, like bodyguards.”

“Hmm,” said Lydia. She didn’t remember Lily mentioning anything like that, but they had only had brief discussions about her family.

In the bedroom, Jasmine sat on the king-sized bed while Lydia sifted through Lily’s drawers. There was a Tibetan prayer flag hanging on the wall but few other decorative touches. A small wooden Buddha wobbled on the dresser top as Lydia opened and closed drawers, finding only tee-shirts, socks, lingerie. Lydia walked over to the closet, opened it, and saw a neat row of clothes ordered by color, mainly black, charcoal, and navy. An equally orderly row of shoes sat at attention.

“I wish she was messier,” said Lydia, looking around the Spartan space. She was hoping for piles of papers and notebooks, journals.

Jasmine laughed. “The girl is anal.”

“Where’s her computer?” asked Lydia suddenly.

“Her laptop would be with her. She never went anywhere without that thing. All her notes were on that, or her Palm Pilot. Any journal she kept, anything like that, would be on that. I told the police; they asked the same question.”

“Shit,” said Lydia, disappointed.

“She had this black laptop bag that was her, like, portable office,” said Jasmine, holding up her hands to indicate its size. “She had a desk at the Post but she kept everything in that bag because she didn’t like to write there. She liked to write at home or at the NYU library-you can still go there if you’re an alum. Pens, notebooks, Palm Pilot, laptop, everything was in there.”

Lydia took another loop around the apartment but didn’t find anything that helped her. She walked back over to the photo wall and pointed to the picture of Mariah and Mickey.

“Can I take this?” she asked.

“Sure,” said Jasmine.

Lydia removed the picture from the frame and slid it into her bag.

“Are you going to find her?” Jasmine asked softly.

“Yes,” said Lydia, sounding more certain than she felt. “I am.”

He killed her. What the fuck you think happened?” asked the young man with the braids and the oversized Knicks tee-shirt.

He was acting tough, moving around, waving his arms, making a show of his anger for their benefit, but he was barely holding back his tears. Jesamyn and Matt stood quietly in the living room, letting him blow off steam. He was Rosario Mendez’s younger brother. She’d more or less raised him since their mother was addicted to crack and died some years earlier. The apartment was clean, with furniture that looked like it had seen a lot of years, walls that needed some paint, but there was a flat-screen television hanging on the wall, a Sony PlayStation and at least fifty games on the shelves, a stereo and speaker system that looked like it cost more than either one of them made in half a year.

On the table there was a picture of the young man before them in a cap and gown, standing next to Rosario; both of them wore bright smiles as she reached playfully for his cap. A bassinet sat in the corner, filled with colorful toys.

“She knew he would kill her one day. She told me, ‘He’s gonna kill me, Baby. Make sure he doesn’t get away with it.’ ”

His name was Baby Boy Mendez, legally. Rumor was that his mother hadn’t given him a name when he was born and never reported any other name she might have come up with before the city deadline. So Baby Boy stuck. Something about it made Jesamyn sad for him… that and the fact that he was just eighteen years old. He seemed much younger. But he wouldn’t be going into the child services system. And, if he wasn’t careful, the street would get him.

He moved in close to them, arms outstretched. He had a desperate energy to him, which caused Jesamyn to put her pad and pen down on the table behind her to keep her hands free.

“So what are you going to do about it?” he said, getting in their faces a little. “Just walk around asking a lot of stupid fucking questions, right.”

Mount put up his hand to move Baby Boy back a step. “You’re going to need to calm down, son. And step back. You’re in my space.”

Mount’s size intimidated even the toughest thugs they ran into. And Baby Boy just sank into the couch like someone had let the air out of him.

“No one’s going to help her,” he said, his voice catching. “You’ll nose around for a few days, then disappear. She was pregnant, man.”

“Mr. Mendez, Alonzo was beating your sister?” asked Matt.

“Hell, yes, he was beating her. How many times I have to tell you guys the same shit. Pregnant with his baby and he was still smacking her around. She just kept going back to him.”

“Is there any chance she took off to get away from him? That she went into hiding?” asked Matt.

Baby Boy looked at him angrily. “Not without me,” he said, his voice going shrill. “She wouldn’t leave here without me.”

“Okay,” said Jesamyn, holding up her hand in a calming gesture. “I’m sure that’s true. But if she had taken off, can you think of anyplace else she might have gone? Was there another boyfriend, close friend, a relative out of state?”

He put his head in his hands and shook his head. “We never had no one else, just each other and the little guy on the way, you know?”

Jesamyn noticed that he shifted between referring to his sister in the past and present tense, as if he were struggling with hope and despair.

“When was the last time you saw her?” asked Matt.

“Saturday night. I was heading out with my boys. She was staying home. The baby was making her tired. Alonzo kept calling, wanted her to go to the clubs. She kept telling him no, she didn’t want to. He kept calling. After a while, she stopped answering the phone. As I was leaving, I heard him say on the answering machine, ‘I’m bringing the Escalade to come get you, bitch. You best be ready.’ That’s how he talked to her, man. And she just took it.”

“No signs of struggle here at the apartment?”

“Shit,” he said, drawing the word out. “I already told the police all of this.”

“As I mentioned, in the absence of any solid leads on Rosario, we’re reinterviewing people to see if there’s