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are handled on a case-by-case basis and that is how your client’s disappearance will be investigated.” He took a step toward the door.
    Lisa rose from her chair, fighting her annoyance. “Well, I thank you for your time and the information you’ve given me, frightening though it may be. Maybe the women’s centers should be giving these women warning pamphlets. They seem to be an endangered species, for more reasons than one.”
    Wilson smiled for the first time since she arrived in his office, a fleeting smile bearing no pleasantries. “We appreciate your coming in with your concerns. If anything more conclusive develops, please contact us.” He handed her a card with his name and phone number. No title.

    On the drive home, Lisa stewed about her visit to MPD that had turned out to be a dead end. She had to do
something
. If someone or some group was preying on abused women, it had to end. As if abused women didn’t have enough problems. They’d be easy prey, vulnerable to assault from another front.
    Lisa was all too familiar with it. She’d left her obsessively controlling husband when he’d begun to terrorize her daughter Paige, who at eighteen months wasn’t getting the hang of potty training. She’d put up with his rigid dominance when it was only applied to her, but once he moved on to their daughter, she was through. He hadn’t gotten violent, but she’d been sure it would only have been a matter of time.

9
     
    Lisa’s office in downtown Pewaukee occupied the back half of an old storefront building, and was owned by a real estate attorney whose offices took up the front half of the first floor. The upper floor was rented out for storage.
    The view of the marshy, south end of Pewaukee Lake, adorned by ancient oak trees, had sold her on the space. Taking advantage of it, Lisa added a large bay window across the back of her office.
    The attorney, Earl Albright, was seldom around unless he had a meeting in his conference room, leaving the office in the hands of his assistant, Shannon Cavanaugh.
    Shortly after Lisa’s last client left, Shannon tapped on the door and hurried through, closing the door behind her. In her late twenties, she was a tall, heavy-set woman with gleaming, long, black hair. Her face wore a mischievous look that complemented her engaging grin. “Sorry to barge in, but I saw your client leave a few minutes ago. I thought you were done for the night, but there’s a woman here to see you.” 
    “I’m not expecting anyone. Did she give you her name?”
    “Nope.”
    “What aren’t you telling me?”
    “I’m just surprised to have someone come in so late, unscheduled. If you want I’ll send her in and hang around until you’re finished talking to her. It’ll take me another thirty minutes to finish up anyway, and I thought maybe we could grab some Thai food.”
    “All right, send her in.”
    A moment later, the woman made an entrance into Lisa’s office. Wearing leather boots with stiletto heels, she was nearly as tall as Shannon. The woman was built like a runway model and wore slim black jeans that fit taut across her hipbones, topped by a leopard print camisole. A short, chestnut-brown leather jacket completed the outfit.
    Lisa asked, “Can I help you?”
    She stepped closer to the desk. Her gold filigree earrings dangled nearly to her shoulders and shone brightly in the soft light from the green-shaded, antique desk lamp. Her face was graced with high cheekbones, a perfectly shaped nose, wide mouth, and incredible blue eyes, visible in spite of the tinted lenses of her gold-rimmed eyeglasses.
    Her voice when she replied was vaguely musical. Maybe a touch of Jamaica? “If we talk, will it be confidential?  I mean, you being a psychologist and all.”
    It would have been difficult to determine her ethnicity, although her complexion was a shade of soft caramel and her hair a closely cropped Afro, the short curls defined and lustrous.
    Perplexed, Lisa responded, “It