Sam put Henry Morales’ personal check for the retainer fee and mileage into her purse and backed her dusty red Accord out of the parking lot of the sheriff’s office. As she drove, she mused about the information he had given her. She was distracted as she merged onto the freeway and was startled by the honk of an annoyed dump truck driver.

“Okay, I know, I’m sure I probably cut you off!” she retorted aloud, though he couldn’t hear her, and gave a chagrined shrug to the driver, with a mouthed “Sorry!” I must pay more attention to what I’m doing… she thought, and immediately went into autopilot again as she contemplated the disappearance of little Henry Morales.

As Chief Morales had explained, Esther admitted that her son was not her ex-husband’s. After moving back to Arizona, her husband on duty in another country, she had begun seeing Jerry Banyan again, not intending to do anything but be a friend to him. Apparently, he had confessed to her that he was attempting to leave the Satanist group he had been involved in, and their relationship had not been very far in the past for Esther. She still carried a torch for him, though she hadn’t really known it until she’d seen him again, apparently repentant and contrite. With Esther’s military husband temporarily overseas, Esther had gotten involved in church and volunteer work, and had a job at a local lab facility, but she was lonely. She didn’t see any harm in trying to help an old boyfriend dig his way out of the hole he was in.

One Sunday evening when she had been to a bible study class with Jerry, supposedly discussing religion and his options to free himself of his way of life, he had driven her home. As she was saying goodnight and shutting the door, he forced his way in, and on Esther. He had raped her, biting her repeatedly with his signature bite, but Esther wasn’t the victim she had once been. She had managed to knock him out with a well-placed lamp to the skull while he was using the bathroom; apparently he had wrongly assumed she was incapacitated.

She had immediately called the police in tears, and her family had rallied around her. And although Jerry had ended up in jail, Esther had ended up pregnant.

When her husband returned from his temporary duty a few months later, he’d been unable to handle the situation at all, and had rapidly chosen divorce over acceptance of another man’s child. Sam had not even bothered to ask why Esther hadn’t considered an abortion or the “morning after” pill. She knew that after Esther’s close brush with evil, she had rebounded back into her childhood religion, that of Catholicism, and she also knew that the Catholic Church did not hold with abortion, even under extreme circumstances. The annulment had been completed before her babies had been born.

Regardless of the circumstances of the conception, Esther had loved her sons, for she had known from about the fourth month that she carried twins. She had become doubly attached to Henry after the death of his brother. The boys had been identical and had been born six weeks early, and only a few minutes apart. The first twin, however, had developed trouble breathing, and had been taken from the room. The next thing she knew, her firstborn son had been pronounced dead. He had been named after her father, Alberto, and was buried not too far from her home in Tempe.

After the traumatic year she’d had, Esther clung fiercely to her family, especially little Henry and her uncle Hank. She tried to settle into the life she’d made with her son. She was a research assistant at a lab in Tempe that had onsite daycare facilities and Esther was able to spend more time with her son than most working moms spent with their children. She was in the nursery at every coffee break and had lunch with him every day. She had begun to learn to be content.

Then Esther received a notice that Jerry had gotten out of jail. He had been sentenced to three years, and served only two, a very light sentence in a state where the penalty could be up to fourteen years for rape. The circumstances had been mitigating apparently; she had been Jerry’s ex-girlfriend, she had been with him voluntarily, and the defense attorney had cast aspersions on her character because her military husband had been away on duty and had decided to divorce her once he had returned.

It hadn’t taken long for Jerry to find out where Esther was living and working and to find out about Henry. He quickly put two and two together and demanded a DNA test, and visitation rights. Esther refused both, and made sure her restraining order was current, so Jerry had begun legal proceedings, citing the fact that he had paid the penalty for his crime, and wanted to be a good father to his baby. He had gotten a job and had given every evidence of attempting to clean up his life, and even offered to pay child support, but Esther could not trust or believe him a third time.

When the court denied all of Jerry’s claims, he had seemed to vanish. Esther was nervous and unsettled about that, but as time went by with no immediate repercussions, she had begun to relax back into her day-to-day existence. She had found a new man to share her life, someone she’d met at a college alumnus website.

His name was Parker Lechuza, of mixed Anglo-Hispanic heritage, as she was, and he seemed devoted to both Esther and her son. Soon, they were making plans for marriage, and to Esther, life had never seemed so good. As their relationship progressed, Esther was cautious about allowing Parker to “sleep over”. She hadn’t had many good experiences with sex, and her renewed religious fervor had intensified to the extent that premarital relations were out of the question.

One evening, Esther had been watching a late night movie with Parker at her condo, when she had fallen asleep on the couch next to Parker. When she had awoken several hours later, both her fiancé and her son were missing. Esther had called the police and had done everything she could to find her son using the usual channels, but so far there had been no success.

It had been three days since Esther had last seen both of them, and although Sam didn’t think she would get much at the scene, she still wanted to go to the condo and see if there was anything that would be of any help. Chief Morales had offered her photographic evidence, but he assured her there was little to nothing since it had not been a violent abduction, but a quiet kidnapping. There was a sticking point however. Chief Morales did not want her at the scene, he seemed to think that her appearance at the condo would tip someone off and although Esther had called the police that very first night, and had family staying with her constantly, she believed that whoever had taken her son was watching her closely and might hurt her son if something out of the ordinary were to occur.

The Chief had been fairly open with her, surprisingly in fact; Sam had not expected “full police cooperation”, though that was not exactly what was happening. This was a private matter - and though he had offered Sam all of the information in the files, there was not all that much to go on. He had promised more information once he made copies of the rest of the computer files, but Sam didn’t think there would be much that was of any use. She also didn’t think the Chief of Police took her very seriously. She was under the impression that he was simply humoring his niece in hiring her and that nothing she did would be of much use in his investigation.

Well, Sam didn’t have anything to prove…or maybe she did. Maybe her success in this case would lead to other, more lucrative jobs. Even though she was involved unofficially, she felt that solving this case would be her first big step toward financial freedom and a successful career. Plus, Sam truly cared about what happened to Esther’s little family.

Sam sighed and took the freeway exit leading to downtown Phoenix. She was going to the baseball game tonight and was looking forward to meeting Lisa and her aunt at the ballpark. Just then her cell phone bleeped and at the next stoplight she scrambled to grab it from the floor where it had fallen from her purse. It was Lisa, stating that she had decided not to go to the game tonight, she had a headache – probably from the stress of the move - and she hoped Sam didn’t mind. After apologizing five or six more times, Lisa finally promised to take some aspirin and go to bed early.

Sam parked her car and put on the purple Diamondbacks baseball cap she’d left in the back seat. Walking the few blocks to the ballpark, Sam was grateful for the balmy evening air on her face. All too soon, the heat would become oppressive, day and night. The fragrance of blossoms filled the air as she passed trees in full bloom. Sam got her ticket out to get into the arena. She submitted to the search of her small purse and inserted the ticket into the reader. Moving with the flow of humanity, Sam, who, for obvious reasons, didn’t much like crowds, didn’t mind so much today. The place seemed to be humming with anticipation, causing Sam to envision a contented hive of bees. She made her way to the seats in the “Infiniti” level behind right field. Sam mused on the simile as the hum became more of a buzz once she entered the ballpark proper. She found her way to the seats, a block of four at the end of a row, and only two rows up from the bottom of the tier.

Aunt Betty had begun buying Diamondbacks season tickets as soon as they had become available, it was one of her few luxuries. Most home games found her at the ballpark, usually accompanied by her gentleman friend, Banjo Cloud. Sam and Lisa were invited to come any time they wished, but Aunt Betty had enjoyed having two “buffer” seats, one on each side of them, whenever the girls couldn’t come. She also shared the tickets with out of town visitors, and had offered them to Sam if she wanted to impress any future clients.

Sam found herself alone in the block of four seats; her aunt had not arrived yet. She wasn’t surprised with traffic the way it was on the street, so she sat and made herself comfortable, watching the pre-game festivities and thinking about Esther Morales and her missing son. It seemed obvious to Sam that the child had probably been kidnapped by his father. Yet where did Parker Lechuza fit into the puzzle? His disappearance seemed too fishy to be an accident, although he might be a victim too. Sam wondered if been involved with Jerry from the beginning, if he had been enlisted along the way, or if he was innocent of everything. If he had been involved the kidnapping, he might have been waiting for his first opportunity to grab the boy and get away before Esther realized what had happened. Sam wondered if Parker would have gone so far as to drug her cocoa or if it had been a crime of opportunity and he had just taken the opportunity to take the boy while he could. Yep, she was leaning toward his complaisance, and she needed to be more objective. She tried to guide her thoughts toward other scenarios.

Still, it seemed strange that someone as “on-guard” as Esther could have just fallen asleep and not noticed Parker coming and going. Waking a child in the middle of the night is not usually a silent operation, as Sam knew from her teenaged babysitting jobs. Little Henry must have trusted Parker to have not raised a big fuss at being taken from his bed. That or he was a very heavy sleeper. Or maybe the boy had been drugged. Hmm.

Sam started as she realized that the National Anthem was about to begin, and quickly stood, removing her baseball cap and placing it over her heart. As the familiar strains began, she wondered where Aunt Betty was. It wasn’t like her to be late. As the Anthem ended, Sam caught sight of her coming down the steps to their seats. She was alone, and Sam wondered about Banjo, but decided he must have a late class or a tutoring session tonight.

“Hi, Pumpkin!” Aunt Betty said as she hugged Sam. She and Sam were very similar in appearance. In fact there was more of a resemblance between her and Sam than there had been between Sam and her mother. They had the same short, curvy physique, large sparkly charcoal grey eyes, and curly reddish-brown hair. They were both very pale in complexion, with freckles, and the only real difference was their ages, and the fact that Aunt Betty did have two inches on Sam’s five foot, two inches. Also, Sam kept her hair short and casual, whereas Aunt Betty had always kept her hair long, and wore it in a braid or a bun. Tonight it was a long, curly tail threaded through the back of her baseball cap.

“Hi! Where’s Banjo tonight?” Sam asked as they took a seat.

“Oh, he’s not coming; he had a late session with one of his problem shooters.” Banjo Cloud was Aunt Betty’s main squeeze and one of the best speed shooters in the southwest. He had been attempting to put together a team that could travel together to compete, and had been recently working with several likely prospects. Aunt Betty added, “So I invited two other people; let’s scooch down some.”

Sam complied by allowing Aunt Betty to go to the fourth seat in, while she took the third. “Okay. So who’d you invite, Auntie? Anyone I know?”

Aunt Betty innocently looked up the evening sky through the open roof of the ballpark and said, “Nice night tonight isn’t it?”

“Oh, please, Aunt Betty,” Sam moaned, “Please don’t tell me you’ve set up another blind date…” Sam hated that, but Aunt Betty was an inveterate matchmaker.

“No, no, nothing like that. Would I do that to you?” Aunt Betty asked. “No, it’s just a friend of a friend.” As Sam glare diminished, she went on, “A young lady who’s a friend of a friend, and I just passed those tickets on through my friend to pass on to the young lady. I don’t know her personally, but I believe you do.”

“Oh. Well, that’s okay then, I’m glad you’ve finally gotten the hint about your Yenta-ing,” said Sam, somewhat mollified. “Who is it?”

“I just want you to pretend you don’t know her, that’s all. I guess she’s worried about someone seeing her here and she’s real nervous right now I understand.” Aunt Betty would not meet Sam’s gaze.

“Oh. My. God. What did you do?” Sam demanded in a whisper. “Did you invite Esther? How did you...why...Aunt Betty!”

“Well, it all seemed to just flow together that way.” Aunt Betty quietly explained. “I wasn’t trying to interfere, I was just considering who else would like to go to the game tonight, and that young lady’s uncle happened to call, and one thing led to another.”

“For goodness sake, Aunt Betty, this is a criminal investigation, never mind the fact that it’s my first case.” Sam whispered. As Aunt Betty tried to explain again, Sam cut her off. “I have half a mind to just leave, and take you with me.”

Sam crossly considered for a long moment, and finally heaved a sigh. “But then, I can’t think of a less obvious way to talk to her without arousing the suspicion of any one who might be watching, though I think all that is probably just paranoia.”

And although Aunt Betty pretended to watch the game for the next few minutes, Sam could tell by the slight smile on her face that she was just barely holding back an “I told you so.”

Sam sighed again and offered to go for hotdogs and soda. “Or would you rather have pizza?” She asked.