Xander plucked his left earlobe nervously, then looked at Johan for permission.

“You don’t need to ask him,” Tera said. “I’m the one with the gun.”

Johan shrugged. Xander ventured forward, offering the envelope. Tera took it. Still with the pistol in her hand, she pulled the flap and removed two photographs, eight-by-ten, in glossy, miserable, weakening color. She looked at them, the breath hissing from her lungs.

“Christ,” she said.

A female vic. Young. African American. Two bullet holes. One through her chest, the other through her skull. At first glance, Tera thought it was Lisa Hayes—she had a similar facial structure and build. But no . . .

“This is Kitty.” Tera’s voice was cracked and hurt.

“Yeah,” Johan said.

“Where’d you find these?”

“A drawer in the actor’s bedroom,” Xander replied. “In his dresser. There are some porn DVDs in there, too.”

Tera had seen her fair share of death—corpses of all ages, genders, and ethnicities, killed in a multitude of terrible ways. But this shook her, and she knew why. Because Luke Kingsley was behind it, and she had known, in the primal, penetrative part of her soul, that he was going to do something like this. Anything happens to her, Luke, I will chase you down like a hound out of hell, she had warned him, while all of her cop senses told her that a warning wouldn’t be enough. And there will be justice. One way or another.

“She was my friend,” Johan said, and lowered his eyes.

Tera looked at him, her heart clamoring furiously. She shook her head and dropped her gaze to the photographs again. Was this the reason Luke was currently blazing across the Mojave? Did he have Kitty in the trunk? Was he going to bury her in the dry, desolate heart of the desert?

No body. No crime.

“Not this time,” Tera said. She composed herself on the outside—steady hands, a neutral expression—but on the inside she was a running, hungry lioness.

A second stillness descended on the hallway. It was darker, and lasted longer. At length, Tera slipped the photographs back inside the envelope and returned them to Xander. She still had the gun in her hand.

“What about Sly Boy Streeter?” she asked.

“What about him?” Johan frowned.

“He’s missing, too.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Johan said, and turned to his compadres. They returned know-nothing stares. “We’re here for Kitty. That’s all.”

“How do you know her?”

“I met her at Station 1640,” Johan replied. “She was new to town, had big dreams. I wanted to help, so took her to a few parties, introduced her to some people. But Kingsley already had his claws in her. She was . . . enchanted by him, I guess. A bona fide movie star.”

Tera growled from deep in her chest. She could think of some other things to call Luke.