"A cemetery," Kevin said. "Her friend said she died last fall."

"Did she say how Jennifer died?" Nancy asked.

Kevin shook his head. "Nope. But she said she'd meet us at Westfield in an hour; show us where Jennifer was buried. I took her up on the offer. Since she didn't seem to want to talk about it on the phone, I thought maybe she might talk to you guys in person."

Joe clapped Kevin on the back. "Not bad for a newcomer to detective work. Want to tag along with us?"

Kevin shrugged. "Sure, why not. It's actually a pretty cool place. I've been there before. Very spacious and serene."

Joe eyed Kevin. "You've been there before? Do you make it a habit of frequenting cemeteries or do you know someone buried there?"

Kevin grinned. "Now how can you live for two years in LA and not know about Westfield? It's only the final resting place of dozens of Hollywood legends. Everyone from Dean Martin to Walter Matthau is buried there! My personal favorite is Marilyn Monroe's grave. Man, you should've been to the 40th anniversary memorial service they held there for her a few months ago. It was magnificent!"

Joe was silent for a moment. "Have I ever told you exactly how strange I think you are, Kevin?"

"I tell him that all the time and it gets me nowhere," Nancy said. "I should warn you, Joe. Once we get him out there, we're going to be stuck there all afternoon. He loves to wander around celebrity gravesites! It's that morbid curiosity that makes Kevin so unique!"

"Really," Kevin replied, his eyes sparkling. "I thought I was unique because I was gay!"

"Nope," Nancy said. "Being gay doesn't make you different. But being a guy that attends a memorial service for an actress that's been dead for 40 years - now that's unique!

Kevin rolled his eyes at her. "I'm choosing to ignore you now," he said. Turning to Joe, he continued. "It really is a cool cemetery. Not quite as good as Forest Lawn in Glendale, but pretty close. That one has even more celebrities, like Walt Disney and Sammy Davis, Jr. But Westfield's pretty good. After we meet this Darla chick, I'll give you the tour. And if there's time, maybe we can even drive over to Glendale. I could even show you where Humphrey Bogart is buried!"

Thirty minutes later, the trio found themselves waiting at the main entrance for Darla Marx to arrive. Nancy watched as Laurie wandered between several graves chasing after a butterfly. Kevin did his best to entertain Joe with stories of his many visits to the gravesites of his favorite stars. A gentle breeze wafted through the trees, lightly stirring the leaves overhead, causing spots of sunlight to dance across the graves. A sudden thought flitted through Nancy’s mind, and try as she might, she couldn’t make it go away.

"And back there," Kevin was saying, "is where Natalie Wood is buried. You have to see that one. It’s has a rose embossed on it and a quote - "more than love". I think that’s just sweet, don’t you - "more than love"?"

"Joe?" Nancy interrupted softly. "Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah," he said. ‘Anything to shut Kevin up,’ he thought to himself. "What?"

"Do I have a headstone?"

"What?" Joe asked, startled.

"Do I have a headstone?" she repeated. "Back in River Heights, in the cemetery? I mean, since I didn’t exactly leave a body behind.." she faltered. "Never mind. It was a bad question. Forget I asked." She gave a half laugh. "Since I’m not really dead, I guess it doesn’t matter anyway, does it?"

Joe shook his head. "No, Nan, you don’t have a headstone. Remember, you’re still officially missing. Your dad could have probably had you declared dead, I suppose, but he didn’t. I think he’s still holding on to that little thread of hope that somehow you survived and will one day turn up."

She let out a pent up breath. "Good. I think. I mean, it would be too weird to go back home and see my own name on a grave, you know? I never had the nerve to look the one time I went back."

Joe nodded. "I can understand that. I would find it weird too."

Kevin stared at the two of them. "And you people think I’m morbid." He shook his head, glanced around, and straightened up. "Hey, do you think this is her?"

A young woman with jet black hair pulled into a pony tail jogged towards them. Dressed in red shorts and a white t-shirt, she stood out against the greens, browns, and grays of the cemetery. Laurie had also spotted her and had wandered back over to Nancy, wary of this approaching stranger.

Joe waved to the jogger and she waved back. She stopped as she neared and stretched first her left leg, then her right one. When she straightened, her brown eyes met Joe’s. "Are you Kevin?" she asked.

"No," he said. "I’m Joe. This," he gestured in Kevin’s direction, "is Kevin. I’m a friend of his. And this," he said, pointing to Nancy, "is our friend Nancy. We appreciate you coming out today. It’s really important to us that we find out everything we can about Jennifer and what happened to her. It may help someone else."

Darcy nodded. "I’m glad someone finally is looking into this. I never bought into the whole suicide story."

"Jennifer committed suicide?" Nancy asked.

"That’s what the police called it," Darcy said. She shook her head. "But I didn’t believe it for a second. Jennifer would never do a thing like that." She looked thoughtfully at Nancy for a minute.

"You guys didn’t know about her death, did you?"

"No," Joe said. "We were looking into the disappearance of her baby. When Kevin spoke to you on the phone, that’s the first we’d heard of it."

She nodded. "The baby. That’s what started this whole thing. Follow me and I’ll tell you what I know, if you’re interested." She turned and began to cut across rows of graves.

"Where are we going?" Joe asked as he fell in step behind her.

"To Jennifer’s grave," she replied. "She’s buried to the right of the Corridor of Memories."

"Near Marilyn’s grave then," Kevin added knowingly.

Darla gave him a strange look. "Yeah, near there."

The group was silent as they passed by grave after grave. Both the famous and the common residents of LA rested here. How many of these families would haven given their very lives to spend one more day with these loved ones? One more day to hold them; speak with them; tell them how much they were loved. Nancy watched as a young man knelt in front of a flower covered headstone. She could see part of an inscription - ’devoted wife and..’. Grief for the unknown man overwhelmed her. From the look on the man’s face, he obviously loved the woman interred there very much. Was it his wife? His mother? At least he had the comfort of visiting her grave. None of her family or friends had even that. What had she done? She vowed at that moment to set things right for her family and friends, as soon as she was done with this case. She knew now just how much she had taken from them. Joe was right. It was time to admit who she really was.

The group stopped in front of a small granite stone set flat against the earth. A leaf was etched in the top right corner and the words "Jennifer Price - sister and friend" graced the center. Below the words were two dates - "March 15, 1982 - October 29, 2001"

Darla began to speak. "Jennifer had Madi when she was 17. Her parents weren’t any help to her. It’s not like they threw her out or anything, but they weren’t any help either. They’re both alcoholics, so taking care of themselves is a major undertaking. There was no way they could help take care of a baby. I’ve known Jennifer since grade school, and she pretty well raised herself. Her mom and dad were there in name only. Chris, that was her boyfriend, wasn’t ready to be a father. So Jennifer was on her own." She turned and looked at the others. "Sounds like a typical story for too many young girls today, doesn’t it?"

"Yes, it does," Joe agreed.

Darcy dropped to her knees and pulled a few stray weeds from the edge of the headstone. "Anyway, when Madi was born, Jennifer was both elated and scared. Elated that she had someone to love and love her back, and scared that she couldn’t provide for her. Scared that she would turn into her own parents and give Madi the same awful childhood that she had experienced." She now looked over at Nancy, who was holding Laurie close to her. "You’re a mother aren’t you?" Nancy nodded. "Then you know how overwhelmed she felt. She was responsible for this new little life and feared that she make too many mistakes."

"Then when Madi was three months old, she vanished. We were at the mall, browsing through clothes, when Jennifer found this dress that she thought I just had to try on. Never mind the fact that I couldn’t afford it, she just had to see what it looked like on me. So I headed for the dressing room. By the time I came out, Madi was gone. Jennifer said she had just turned her back for a moment, and that’s all it took. Just a moment for someone to snatch her out of the stroller and vanish into the crowd. The store personnel did everything right - they locked all the doors; alerted the mall security; checked everyone who had a baby with them. They even checked people’s bags as they left, in case someone stuffed her in a shopping bag. Nothing."

"All through this, Jennifer stayed calm. She never fell apart, which I thought was strange. So did the detective in charge. I think he thought Jennifer had done something with her. But there was no evidence that she had, so he couldn’t hold her on anything."

"Did she do something with her?" Kevin asked.

Darcy tilted her head and looked at him. "Yes, I think she did."

Joe and Nancy waited patiently for her to continue.

"You see, a few weeks later, Jennifer won some money on a lotto ticket. It wasn’t a big win, just two thousand dollars, or something like that. But it was enough to pay for an old car and a new dress for a job interview. And after the interview, she made a comment about how things were finally looking up.

"Looking up?" Joe queried.

"She said that everything was working out for the best - for both her and Madi. She believed that if Madi hadn’t disappeared, she never could have taken the job, due to a lack of child care. She and Madi would still be stuck on public assistance. And that whoever had Madi would be able to give her a better home than she would."

"I thought she was crazy at first; but then I began to wonder. What if she hadn’t won that money? What if she’d sold Madi to someone, instead?"

Nancy pulled Laurie even closer to her. "Two thousand dollars isn’t much money. No matter how scared she felt, why would she sell her baby for just two thousand dollars?" She couldn't imagine give Laurie up for all the money in the world.

"I don’t think it was about the money," Darcy replied. "I think someone convinced her that the baby would be better off with them, and the money was just a token. Something to keep her from telling who had the baby. And why not just two thousand? She was only 17. Two thousand might as well have been ten thousand. It was more money than she had ever possessed at any one time."

"So she never pushed the police to follow up on the kidnapping?" Joe prodded.

"Nope," Darcy shook her head. "They did everything they could at first, but without any assistance from her, the case hit a dead end. And she never tried to keep it open. It was as if Madi no longer existed to her. Until last fall."

"What happened last fall?" Nancy asked gently.

"A mutual friend of ours had a baby. Jennifer babysat for her a lot in the evenings and was getting pretty attached to the little girl. One evening, out of the blue, she announced to me that she wanted to find Madi. I guess her maternal instincts had finally kicked in. It didn’t matter that she’d been missing for nearly two years. She claimed that she knew how to get her back. She even set up this meeting with some social worker at Find the Children, whom she said would be able to find Madi for her."

"Find the Children?" Nancy said. "Are you sure it was Find the Children?"

"Positive. I couldn’t understand how she could be so sure that this person could help her."

"Was the social worker she met a man or a woman?" Joe asked.

"I don’t know," she said. "Jennifer came back from the meeting very excited, sure Madi would be found soon. Two days later, I found her in her room. She had taken an entire bottle of sleeping pills. The coroner ruled it a suicide. I went to Find the Children’s offices a week later, but no one there had heard of her."

Joe met Nancy’s eyes. He knew they were thinking the same thing. What if someone working there was the person behind the East Coast adoption ring. It would be the perfect set up. You could easily find the names of dozens of teenage girls that were staying in shelters all up and down the West Coast. Some of them were bound to be pregnant. How hard would it be to convince a frightened girl who felt she had no where to go to give up her child for a few thousand dollars. He had to bet it wouldn’t be very hard at all. Kidnapping the babies would be to obvious. The media would be all over that in a heartbeat. Pay the girls a little bit to stay quiet, and they leave you alone.

"If Jennifer didn’t take her own life, who do you think did?" Joe questioned Darcy.

Darcy shrugged. "I don’t know. But she was too upbeat about getting Madi back to have killed herself. Plus, she enjoyed life way to much to do something like that."

"You must have some idea," Joe pressed. "Maybe not any evidence, but at least a hunch?"

Darcy met his gaze. "I think that whoever she supposedly met at Find the Children set her up. I think that the man, or woman, is the person who "bought" Madi from Jennifer in the first place. And that when she wanted her back later, that person removed Jennifer from out of his or her way. But like you said, I have no evidence. I don’t even have a name for the purported case worker."

Nancy shivered despite the warmth of the day and looked around for Laurie. Laurie had slipped out of her embrace during the conversation and had wandered over to sit in the grass at the feet of a pair of stone angels. Wings outspread, both angels appeared, at the moment, to be guarding her little girl. Nancy motioned for Laurie to come back, and reluctantly, Laurie did as she was told. She pressed herself up against Joe’s legs and Joe automatically picked her up and held her close to him.

Darcy looked at her watch. "It’s getting close to dinner time," she said. "I need to be getting back. Can I ask you guys for a favor?"

"Anything," Nancy said.

"If you ever find out what happened to either Madi or Jennifer, will you let me know? Losing Jennifer was like losing a sister and I really would like to see whoever killed her brought to justice."

"You’ve got it," Joe said. They watched Darcy jog toward the main gates. "I don’t know about the rest of you, but I need to think a little time to process everything she just said. How about we head back to my apartment, order pizza, and toss some ideas back and forth.

"Sounds like a plan," Kevin said. "Man, that was such a sad story. I can’t believe something like that could happen in real life."

"You’d be amazed at some of the things I..," Joe stopped and looked at Nancy. "I mean, we, have encountered on our cases. Come on over to my place. We’ll share stories with you." He ruffled Laurie’s hair. "How about it, kiddo? Want to go to my apartment and have pizza."

Laurie grinned. "You bet I do! Pizza’s my favorite food in the whole world!"

"Now just afternoon, you said..." Joe started and Nancy laughed.

"Don’t even try to figure her out," she said. "She changes her mind about things at the speed of light."

Joe grinned. "Seems to me that Frank accused me of doing something similar to that just a day or two ago." He set Laurie on the ground and took her hand. "Shall we go, then?"

"Yes," she said, emphatically nodding her head. As the little group made their way out of the cemetery, no one noticed the young man who had caught Nancy's eye earlier. They did not see him slip out from behind the oak tree near Jennifer's grave; nor did they see him trail them out of the cemetery and onto the street. He stood in the doorway of a nearby church, waiting patiently for Nancy to buckle Laurie into the car, and slide in next to Joe. And as Joe pulled away from the curb, with Kevin not far behind him; the man pulled a cell phone from his pocket and dialed quickly.