She wouldn’t like law enforcement officers coming into her sanctuary—not that anyone did.

She answered the door looking like she’d been knocked around. Her face and her eyes were swollen and red. Battered by grief. The girls working in the boutique on trendy Via Verde had told them their boss had taken the day off because of her friend’s death. They had batted their eyelashes at Mendez as they gave him Kemmer’s home address and phone number.

“Ms. Kemmer,” Mendez said, holding up his shield. “I’m Detective Mendez from the sheriff’s office. This is my associate, Mr. Leone.”

“We’re terribly sorry for your loss, Miss Kemmer,” Vince said gently. The kindly uncle act. “I apologize for the intrusion. We know this is a tough time for you.”

“I already spoke to detectives yesterday,” she said, looking worried. “I answered all their questions.”

Vince guessed she was probably around thirty. She was probably a pretty girl when she hadn’t been crying for a couple of days.

“Yes, ma’am,” Mendez said. “We’re just following up.”

“Having been Ms. Fordham’s best friend,” Vince said, “we’re hoping you might be able to give us a little more insight into who she was as person.”

“Oh.”

“May we come in?” Mendez asked.

Gina Kemmer nodded, tears welling up. She was in gray sweatpants and a McAster T-shirt that looked like she had slept in it. But she had made an effort and brushed her blond hair back into a ponytail. The girls from the boutique might have called to tell her the cops were on the way.

She turned away from them and walked back into the house, leaving them to follow.

“I can’t believe she’s gone,” she said, sinking down into an overstuffed chintz-covered chair in her living room. Her hand was shaking as she dabbed a tissue under her eyes. “Murdered. Oh my God. I heard she was stabbed like a hundred times! Is that true?”

She was afraid—like she thought if her friend had been murdered, she was probably next. The one good thing about murder, Vince thought: It generally wasn’t contagious.

“She was stabbed, yes,” Mendez said.

“You have a lovely home,” Vince said, admiring the space, checking for photographs. There were two of Gina Kemmer and Marissa Fordham in frames on the console table behind the sofa—one recent, one not.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“Do you rent or own?”

“Rent.”

“Are you the gardener?”

“Yes.”

“That’s some green thumb you have,” Vince said with a smile as he took a seat on the end of the sofa nearest her.

She turned a tiny shy smile and glanced down. “Thank you.”

“I’m so sorry you lost your friend,” he said sincerely. “We never imagine something like this will happen to someone we know. Murder is something that happens in the newspapers, on television.”