“Well, listen. This guy just read me their entire suspect list over the phone. They had fifteen persons of interest, but they never made an arrest.”

“Who’s on the list?”

“Guy by the name of Michael James Lloyd.”

Brandon paused. “Mason’s brother.”

“Yep.”

“What about his prints?”

“I’m assuming they’re not in the system, or they would have arrested him. But get this—this guy left Florida a year ago, and you’ll never guess where he moved.”

Brandon already knew the answer. “Texas.”

*   *   *

Leigh glanced up and down the street and decided the coast was clear. Leaning into her back seat, she scooped up the pile of clothes and then shut the car door with her hip.

Her phone chimed as she hurried across the sidewalk and pulled open the door to the dry cleaner’s. Damn it, there was a line.

Leigh stepped into the cramped little shop, which was unbearably warm and smelled like vanilla air freshener. Her phone chimed again as she squeezed into line behind a woman in a sorority T-shirt holding a flowered comforter.

Leigh dug her phone from her purse. Javi.

“Hi,” she said.

“How’d your open go? Did you kill it?”

“No.”

“What? Why not?” He sounded personally offended. He’d been at her house until midnight helping her craft the perfect argument.

“It didn’t happen,” Leigh told him.

The woman in front of her stepped up to the counter and proceeded to ask the clerk about pet urine.

“The judge’s docket got shuffled at the last minute,” Leigh said. “I heard from one of the paralegals that his brother-in-law died last night, so”—she glanced over her shoulder to peer out at her car, which was illegally parked near a fire hydrant—“the trial’s been postponed, and suddenly my whole day is free.”

“Well, that never happens. So, are you going to go shopping? Get your nails done?”

“No.”

“Maybe invite your hot cop over for a little afternoon delight?”

“Ha ha. I’m catching up on my errands.”

Leigh shifted her bundle of clothes, feeling dizzy suddenly in the humid little room.

“How are things going there?” she asked.

The pet pee lady left, and Leigh stepped up to the counter, muting her phone. “I’m dropping off for Leigh Larson,” she told the clerk. “I may have a pickup back there, too.”

The woman tapped the name into her computer, then disappeared into the back as Leigh dropped her load on the counter. Leigh shuffled through the blouses, only half listening to Javi talking as she counted her items.

“Leigh?”

“Yeah, sorry. What was that?”

“I said, what about Friday’s hearing?”

Leigh’s gaze landed on the white blouse she’d been wearing the night she was attacked.