Joe’s Town Car was waiting beyond the docks, gleaming and black. He held open the door for me and asked the driver to take us to the lot where I’d parked my car.

“I know it’s a lot to think about,” he said.

“Joe, I want to talk more about this. I hate that you’re leaving. I really hate it, especially this time.”

“Me, too, Linds. We’ll find a way.”

The Town Car stopped in the parking lot, and we both got out. I leaned against the sun-heated flank of my old Explorer.

I felt tears coming into my eyes as we embraced, exchanged “I love yous” and wishes for a safe trip home.

We hugged and kissed again.

It had been another beautiful day added to our scrapbook of special memories. I could still feel the pressure of his lips on mine, the sting of salt against my whisker-burned cheeks.

I could still feel him, as if he were right there beside me.

But Joe was gone.

Part Three

IN SEARCH OF CAR GIRLS

Chapter 46

I CAME BACK TO THE SQUAD ROOM after lunch with Cindy, feeling several pairs of eyes tracking me as I passed the desks on my way to my office. I was thinking that a week had passed since Caddy Girl’s picture had been posted in the Chronicle, and now Jag Girl’s photo would be running beside it.

It was infuriating that we were still hoping for tips from the public.

Where were the leads?

Why was there so little evidence?

What the hell were we overlooking? How were we messing up?

I waved Jacobi and Conklin into my glass cube and closed the door, hung my jacket up. Conklin sprawled in the chair, his long legs spanning the length of my desk, while Jacobi parked, as usual, on the edge of my credenza.

I told Jacobi and Conklin that I’d put the photo of Jag Girl out to the press and asked if they had anything new.

“My partner’s got something for you, Boxer.” Jacobi isn’t prone to smiling, but I thought I saw a spark of pride light up his stony eyes.

“Yeah, we’ve got sorta good news,” said Conklin as he sat up straight in the chair.

“Any kind of news is good news on this case.”

“We got the DNA back on Caddy Girl’s rape kit.”

“Excellent. What do we know?”

“We got a cold hit, Lou,” Conklin said.

My rising hopes crashed.

A cold hit is a little bit of not much to go on. In this case, there was a matching DNA profile in the database—but the donor’s ID was unknown.

Conklin spread the computer printout on my desk, spun it so it faced me. Then he took me through it, slowly, patiently, the way I took my bosses through detail they were too thick to get.

“This sample came from the sexual assault kit of a white female who was killed in LA two years ago,” Conklin said. “She was in her early twenties—raped, strangled, and found in a field a few days after she was dumped there. No ID on the victim, and she was never identified. LAPD thinks she was a transient.”