Hernandez pulled Neesa to a standing position. “Let’s continue this at the police station.” She gave her a gentle push in the general direction of the front door.

“Don’t touch me,” Neesa hollered. She turned to Drue. “You saw her. She tried to knock me down. Put that camera back on again. I want this shit recorded.”

“Enough chitchat,” Hernandez said, putting her hand on the girl’s shoulder.

Drue followed the two women outside to where Hernandez had parked her Honda Odyssey across the street.

“Get in,” Hernandez said, opening the passenger door.

“What the hell kind of bougie police car is this?” Neesa said. “I bet you’re not even really a cop.”

“Shut up,” Hernandez said, taking a seat behind the steering wheel. She lifted a lock of Neesa’s hair and whistled softly. “Girlfriend, I don’t think this purple hair of yours is gonna look too good with that orange jumpsuit you’re gonna be wearing.”

“Hey!” Neesa twisted around in the seat and tried to point at Drue. “Hey. You owe me three hundred dollars. I want my damn money. You can’t just call me up and rip me off like this.”

“Send me a bill,” Drue said. She did a little finger wave as the van pulled away and then she ran inside to wash her hair.

Despite the fact that she was operating on too little sleep, Drue felt oddly energized by the encounter with Neesa. She washed her hair twice, but the front strand stayed stubbornly orange. Maybe she’d start a new fashion trend. Until then, she scrubbed the kitchen of the noxious peroxide odors, then sat down at the kitchen table again with a stack of index cards and made notes about what she’d learned earlier in the day.

She knew that it was Herman Byars who’d beaten and strangled Jazmin, and then enlisted Neesa to masquerade as the dead girl. But how had their scheme gone undetected for so long? Had the hotel’s head of security, Brian Shelnutt, conspired with Byars to hide their crime?

Drue thought back to the day that Yvonne Howington had appeared in the law firm’s reception area, insisting that Brice had taken a payoff from the hotel. She’d been more than ready, back then, to believe the worst of her father.

But last night, Brice had rushed to her aid after her arrest. And afterward, he’d sat down with her and Rae Hernandez as the two of them outlined how they believed Jazmin’s murder had occurred. He’d been skeptical at first, it was true, but he’d listened, and in the end, had agreed that Drue’s theory had merit.

Still, she couldn’t shake the notion that somebody had turned a blind eye to the sordid goings-on at the Gulf Vista, and probably made a nice fat profit from the deed.