She was to blame. In truth, though, Lucy had done nothing wrong. Nothing at all. She had only done the best that she could. Just like she had done nothing to make Del break up with her. Nothing at all. Lucy stopped short as the final thought hit her. It was the first time she realized that she blamed herself for the collapse of their relationship. She only absently saw that she had reached the center of the labyrinth. Her mind was suddenly quiet.

Death. Del. Guilt. Quiet. It was all a little too much for a Sunday afternoon, and where did it leave her? She looked up at the trees above her, then at the church towers. It left her in the center of a maze that she had no idea how to get out of.

At least she knew one thing—she did want to get out. She wanted to be released. She deserved it. Because she had done nothing wrong.

Gil drove the Crown Victoria back toward the adult detention center on the outskirts of town. Joe sat in the passenger seat. Silent.

They had left Laura in a holding cell at the station while they went to check on her story. After her act of annoyance dropped away, she told them, piece by piece, about the day Brianna disappeared. About Tony Herrera.

Laura had gotten jumped into the West Side gang when she was ten. The same gang that Herrera once ran in. The girls who jumped her in had been nice, probably because she was so young, only giving her a black eye and a few scrapes. It was because of West Side that she met Justin.

As a little sister in the gang, she was only expected to do small things, every once in a while. One of those things had been to hold some drugs for Tony Herrera, who was dealing out of the food court in the mall. Laura had stood next to the Gap waiting for him, the little bag of heroin in her pocket. Tony had just gone to buy a shirt at Sears, where the security guards were a tad too quick to arrest gang members.

When Tony came back, he was with Ashley. His girlfriend. Next to Ashley was Justin, the cousin she was babysitting. For Laura, it was love at first sight. She didn’t realize until later how much of a hold Ashley had over Justin.

Laura explained to Justin that it was wrong. That Ashley was just taking advantage. A year ago, Justin finally agreed to stop seeing Ashley. Or so he told Laura. She didn’t find out the truth until the afternoon Brianna disappeared, when she heard Justin and Ashley in the bedroom. It was too much. She saw Brianna outside, playing alone in the backyard, and thought about what Tony would do if he knew Brianna wasn’t his kid.

“But Herrera couldn’t have cared less that Brianna wasn’t his,” Joe said to her.

Laura snorted in response, saying, “Yeah, right. As soon as Ashley delivered the baby he went and tried to cut off his West Side tattoo. He was always talking about how he had to be a good father and all that shit. He tried to get a real job over at Home Depot and swore that as soon as he got enough money he’d buy Brianna all these toys. But he never paid a cent in child support and barely saw the kid.”

Gil parked the car, and he and Joe walked into the detention center. They went through the procedure once again of signing the visitors’ log and putting their sidearms in the gun locker.

This time they went to a different beige room and waited for Tony Herrera to be escorted in.

Gil felt tired as he thought of all the mistakes they had all made in the case. Sure, Fisher had committed a lot of them, but Gil was not blameless. He had interviewed Herrera two days ago, and he forgot to double-check whether the man had been in jail when Brianna disappeared. Fisher had written in his notes that Herrera had been in custody. In fact, Gil found out with a little checking, Herrera had been released the week before due to overcrowding. He was just a low-level drug dealer, after all. A minimum security prisoner. No real danger to the community.

Gil also had missed something crucial. Something he had seen with his own eyes. He thought back to the interview with Herrera. Gil had known Herrera was lying when he