A few of the women quickly admitted to recognizing Caroline’s picture. She’d gone by the name Nicole when she was at the club, which wasn’t often from the sound of it. She was “nice.” She was “quiet.” In other words, they told me nothing I could use to find her murderer.

Instead of lunch, I took a walk around the block to clear my head, but it didn’t help much. Was I wasting my time here? Were we asking the wrong questions? Or should we just let the escorts go and try to salvage the afternoon for something else?

This was the classic problem for me: I never knew when to stop, because stopping always felt like quitting. And I wasn’t ready for that yet. For one thing, I still vividly remembered Caroline’s “remains.” I feared there were several others who’d died the same horrible way.

I was on my way back up Third Street, feeling no better than before, when my phone rang. Mary Ann Pontano’s name was on the ID.

“I’m outside,” I answered. “Trying to clear my head—if that’s possible. Taking a walk.”

“Only place I didn’t look,” she said. “You should get back in here and talk to this girl Lauren again.”

I started walking faster. “Red hair, shearling coat?”

“That’s the one, Alex. Seems like her memory’s warming up. She’s got a few interesting things to say about one of the missing girls, Katherine Tennancour.”

Chapter 74

JUST LIKE EVERY other escort we’d pulled in today, Lauren Inslee was slender, well endowed, and absolutely gorgeous. She was a former model in New York and Miami, a graduate of Florida State University, an escort for men with a taste for perky cheerleader types. Nicholson obviously had a variety of tastes to satisfy, but his general aesthetic was “expensive.”

“Katherine’s dead, isn’t she?” That was the first thing Lauren asked when I sat down with her. “Nobody will tell me anything. You want us to talk, but you people won’t say a word about what happened.”

“That’s because we don’t know, Lauren. That’s why we’re talking to you.”

“Okay, but what do you think? I don’t mean to be morbid. I just want to know. She was a friend of mine, another Florida girl. She was going to be a lawyer. She’d been accepted at Stetson, which is a really good school.”

Lauren played with a paper napkin the whole time she spoke, tearing it into tiny pieces. A slice of the pizza we’d brought in sat untouched on a plate next to the torn shreds of napkin. I believed that all she wanted to hear was the truth. So I decided to give it to her.

“The police report says there’s no indication that she packed a bag at her apartment. Given the amount of time it’s been—yes, there’s a good chance she’s not coming back.”

“Oh, God.” The girl turned away, fighting tears, hugging herself tightly.

It was getting more depressing in here by the second. We were in one of the larger interview rooms, with graffiti burning right through the latest paint job on the walls and scorch marks on the floor from years of cigarette butts.