“Detective Tate.”

“Hey, it’s Reynolds. Anything new?”

“You’re talking about the law firm thing? Not since this morning.”

It was Sam Tate’s not-so-subtle way of pointing out that this was Brandon’s second call today horning in on a case that didn’t belong to him.

“Any word on the labs?” Brandon asked. “The CSI lifted that partial from the windowsill.”

Given that Leigh had said her attacker was wearing gloves, the print probably belonged to someone on the cleaning crew or the lawyer whose office it was. But they were short on leads and the print was still worth running.

“Nothing yet,” Tate reported.

“What about the shoe print in the flower bed?”

“Nothing on that, either. And I hear they’re pretty jammed up over there. A burglary’s got to be low on their list.”

“An assault. A woman was injured.”

Tate went quiet, probably catching the edge in Brandon’s voice.

“I’ll follow up with the lab.” Tate cleared his throat. “How is she, anyway? The lawyer? She sprained her wrist, right?”

“Yeah.”

Tate knew Brandon was friends with Leigh because Brandon had shown up within minutes of her calling him from the crime scene.

“Well, we just brought a guy in for going after his wife with a baseball bat,” Tate said. “So my afternoon’s gotten pretty derailed. I’ll call the lab and put a rush on that fingerprint, though.”

“Appreciate it.”

“What’s up with her? Are you two—”

“No.” Brandon thought about that kiss on her patio. It had lasted maybe a second, but he’d been thinking about it all day. “She’s a friend.”

“All right, well, I’ll let you know what I hear.”

They ended the call as Brandon spied the sign in the distance. RUSTLING PINES STATE PARK. He’d passed it a bunch of times but never actually stopped. He hung a left onto the entrance road and parked in a row of spaces outside the gatehouse.

Brandon got out and surveyed the area. The air smelled of pine and burning leaves. He walked over to a picnic area with a view of the water. The lake was surrounded by fir trees, scrub brush, and scattered campsites, a few of them occupied by trucks and RVs. On the far side of the lake was a rack of green canoes and a wooden pier. A man stood on the end casting a fishing line. Brandon did a slow 360, taking everything in. The park consisted of more than two hundred undeveloped acres, a rare pocket of tranquility on the outskirts of town.

Lot of places to dump a body. Too many to count, really. A place like this was a killer’s dream, and Vanessa Adams had disappeared less than a mile away.

Why had she wanted to meet an ex out here?

Or maybe Jason was lying, and he’d suggested the place.