Grabbing the remote for the small television balanced upon the filing cabinet, he skimmed through his e-mail. Half listening to the news as he waited for a sports report and an update on the Saints, he’d started reading through a dozen other pieces of e-mail when he caught the end of a news report on the television.

“…missing from the campus of All Saints College since before Christmas, the coed was last seen here, in Cramer Hall, by her roommate on December eighteenth around four-thirty.”

Jay swung all of his attention to the screen, where a female reporter in a blue parka, battling wind and rain in a threatening sky, was staring into the camera. The report had been taped in front of the brick edifice of the dorm in which Kristi Bentz had lived years ago as a freshman. An image of Kristi as she was then, with her long, auburn hair, athletic body, and deep set, intelligent eyes, sizzled through his brain. He’d been stupid about her back then, certain she was “the one.” Of course since that time, he’d learned how wrong he’d been. Thankfully she’d broken it off, and he’d avoided a marriage that would’ve certainly ended up a trap for both of them. Talk about a screwed up family!

“…Since that day, a week before Christmas,” the reporter was saying, “no one has seen Rylee Ames alive.” A picture of the twentyish girl flashed onto the screen. With blue eyes, streaked, blond hair, and a bright smile, Rylee Ames looked like the quintessential “California girl,” a cheerleader type, though the reporter was saying that she’d attended high school in Tempe, Arizona, and Laredo, Texas.

“This is Belinda Del Rey, reporting for WMTA, in Baton Rouge.”

Rylee Ames. The name sounded familiar.

Bothered, Jay quickly logged onto the college’s Web site and checked his class list, one that was updated as students added or dropped classes from their schedules. The first name on his roster was Ames, Rylee.

His cop radar was on full alert and he had to slow his mind from reeling onto one horrifying scenario after another. Rape, torture, murder—he’d seen so many violent crimes, but he tried not to leap to any conclusions, not yet. There was no evidence that she’d met with foul play, just that she was missing.

Kids her age dropped out, changed colleges, or took off on ski vacations or to rock concerts without telling anyone. For that matter she could have eloped.

But maybe not. He’d worked at the crime lab in New Orleans long enough to have a bad feeling about this student he’d never met. He took another swallow of beer and read lower on the roster.

Arnette, Jordan.

Bailey, Wister.

Braddock, Ira.

Bentz, Kristi.

Calloway, Hiram.

Crenshaw, Geoffrey.

Wait! What?

Bentz, Kristi?