“Long day?” Sophie asked.

I got up to close the bedroom door. “Things went better.”

“Glad to hear it. I—”

I interrupted. “This is always about me. First, how are you? Anything up there?”

“Wayne’s moved to Texas to get a job on an oil rig.”

Sophie’s ex-husband was more of a hobby than a relationship. He came and went as regularly as the meter reader, and she regarded him with the same lack of wonder. “You okay with that?”

“I met a new guy in a singles chat room. He’s legit. We’re meeting for coffee tomorrow.”

I didn’t have to warn her. By now Sophie probably knew everything about the new guy, including his blood type and the relative length of his toes. “Is his photo for real?”

“Come on, that only happened once. And that photo was legit, only the guy was a little younger when it was taken.”

“Twenty years.”

“I could still recognize him.”

I grinned. “Wishing you luck. Glad it’s coffee, not a bar. Get a go-cup and keep the lid on. Just in case.”

“So, I found a murder. The thing that drew my attention? It happened at a resort on Friday night, maybe sixteen hours or so before your sister first called you. Not one of Gracey Group’s resorts, either.” She said the last in a hurry, knowing that would be my first question. “But I think it’s the kind of place your father might be interested in.”

“It’s for sale?”

“I’m still working on that. Anyhow, the resort’s in New Mexico, not Arizona or California, but not ridiculously far from Phoenix. She could have driven there afterward, so maybe she was telling the truth when she told you where she was calling from.”

I couldn’t figure out why that made me feel better, but it did.

“The murder happened at the Golden Aspen Resort and Spa outside Santa Fe. The property’s not huge, but apparently they have fabulous mountain views. The resort specializes in small-to medium-size conferences and events, and they house their guests in casitas—small cabins—nestled all over the grounds. They have the usual meeting rooms, the spa itself, recreation facilities. You could be happy there for eternity.”

“Sounds like a scenic place for a murder.”

“Apparently somebody thought so.”

I had already keyed in Golden Aspen Resort and Spa so I could look while we talked, but the website was taking a long time to load.

Sophie continued. “A doctor was killed, a surgeon of some kind, and the sheriff is looking for several persons of interest.”

I could tell from her brief description that she had just discovered the murder, because otherwise I would be swimming in details. “That’s all you have so far?”

“They’re keeping the whole thing quiet. The resort is probably doing everything they can to keep a guest’s murder out of the news, and the sheriff’s office isn’t releasing details.”

We knew so little, how could we tell if this was the murder haunting my sister? On the other hand, it wasn’t connected to an urban gang. It wasn’t a hit and run with someone who didn’t fit Wendy’s description at the wheel. It wasn’t any of the other possibilities we’d all but discarded.