“It’s not funny, Brian. Nothing’s funny. A poor girl got her face blown off and even if I had a sense of humor to begin with, I lost it. You’ve got ten seconds to decide before those wheels start spinning.”

Agajanian’s Adam’s apple rose and fell. He licked his lips.

New smile. Tight, cold, focused.

Milo said, “Nice talking to you, Brian.”

Agajanian said, “Should SukRose choose to help your department in the pursuit of their investigation and should SukRose at some point require confirmation of that help, I need a guarantee that said confirmation will be forthcoming without undue delay or obfuscation. Furthermore, the police department must pledge to do its utmost to shield SukRose from unwarranted media exposure, excepting such exposure that SukRose solicits in pursuit of its own legitimate interests, not to exclude film, television, or printed media adaptation.”

“You want to write a screenplay?”

“Just buttoning down details, Lieutenant. Finally, it is imperative that SukRose not be identified as the source of the information you are seeking in any way that exposes the company or its principals to civil or criminal liability.”

That sounded like a motion he’d drafted and memorized. To my ear, meaningless, unenforcable pap.

Maybe he needed to face-save at the next family reunion.

Milo smiled. “You’re a good brother, Brian. And that all sounds fine to me.”

Brian Agajanian breathed in deeply, closed his eyes. “The name in our files is Tara Sly.”

“Sly as in—”

“Clever, tricky. And that’s all I know about her except for what she listed on her page. Women don’t pay a fee so we don’t collect personal data from them. Therefore I have no address or financial information to give you, only the email address she was using at the time, which is [email protected]. I tried to send an email there and it got kicked back as an inactive account. And yes, she did connect to only one client but as I told you he’s irrelevant.”

“Because he’s a saint?”

“Even better,” said Agajanian. “He’s deceased.”

“His email got kicked back, too?”

“I checked him out in public records, found the death certificate. Natural causes.”

“Thorough, Brian.”

“No need to thank me.”

“I’ll thank you once I get a copy of Tara Sly’s page as it was when she posted it on SukRose. Same for the late, lamented Sugar Daddy and his personal information.”

“I just told you, he’s dead,” said Agajanian. “Nine months ago.”

“I’m a thorough guy, Brian.”

Agajanian flexed a biceps. “You cannot tell his family you found him through SukRose.”

“Wouldn’t think of it.”

“Fine, fine.” Agajanian’s face was wet with sweat. “If you promise me that’s the end of it.”

“Cross my heart, Brian.”

“Wait here, I’ll bring it to you.”

“Thank you, Brian.”

“I still don’t know why you’d care about a dead guy.”