“YOU HAVE A wraparound graphic on your car asking for information about Chapman’s disappearance?” Caitlin didn’t know cars but could tell Lakshmi’s once-red Toyota Corolla was old enough to apply for its own driver’s license.

“Angela’s mom donated the car.”

Caitlin did a quick phone search. “We can’t roll up to a crime scene in this thing and be taken seriously. Take me to College and Third.”

The rental chain gave Caitlin a deal—twenty-five bucks a day for a white hybrid that she could drop at the Indianapolis airport on her way back to California.

She threw Lakshmi the key fob. “Bring me up to speed while you drive. I need my hands for my phone.”

Lakshmi pulled into traffic. “Right, the police found a body—”

“Which police? Campus, Bloomington PD, State?”

“The Jackson County Sheriff’s Department.”

“In a different county than we’re in. And why do you know this?”

“The Seymour Tribune.”

Caitlin searched the paper’s website, found the one-line blurb.

The Jackson County Sheriff’s Department confirms that hunters found human remains in a cornfield outside of Seymour.

Caitlin held out her hand. “Stop. Where are we driving, and why?”

“The coroner’s office in Seymour. I thought maybe we could—”

“See the remains? That’s not going to happen. Pull over.”

Caitlin scrolled through her contacts and hit the “Dial” icon.

Lakshmi edged the car onto the shoulder of the two-lane road. “Are you calling him?”

“Who?”

“The ex-cop from your book. Mike Roman. I loved how you described him: a cop built on the frame of a marine grown from a boy scout.”

Caitlin smiled, remembering the rest of the phrase her editor had trimmed: Who’d do anything, legal or not, to earn his merit badges.

She’d worked with Roman a few times since the events of Fallen Angels. He was a solid investigator and a better bodyguard, but without a badge he’d be useless with a dead body in southern Indiana. “Roman’s a blunt instrument. I’m looking for a scalpel, particularly one that owes me favors.”

She switched to speaker, heard the warm tenor tones of Jim Martinez’s official FBI phone voice. “You don’t usually call through the switchboard,” he said, hushed.

Caitlin preferred the man’s bedroom voice, a few notes lower and a lot less professional.

“I didn’t want to give you the impression this was a social call, Special Agent.”

“Ouch, my title even. Guess that means we’re not getting sushi tonight.”

That was Jim’s joke. They’d met for “sushi” four times but had never actually gotten around to eating a meal together. The man had two kids, two ex-wives, and one of the most stressful occupations in America. Time was a commodity neither of them wasted.

“Sorry, I’m in southern Indiana, and I’m not alone. You’re on speaker.”

“You could have led with that.”