Mann shook his head. If Coletti was going to be his partner for the next couple of days, he at least had to have a working cell phone.

A few moments after he disconnected the call, Mann climbed the steps of the house and knocked. A young woman wearing a flowing skirt and a fitted brown top that accentuated the slight bulge in her belly cracked the door. Almost everything about her was youthful—from her waist-length braids to her taut brown skin. Her eyes were the exception. They were red and filled with pain.

“Are you Charlie?” she asked warily.

“Yeah,” he said, reaching into his hoodie and showing her the badge he wore on a chain around his neck.

“I’m Desiree,” she said as she pulled open the door. “Lighty called and said you were on your way. Come on in.”

“So you know Lighty, too, huh?”

“He knew my grandmother before she died. She left me two things: this house, and people like Lighty to stay in my business.”

Mann laughed as he walked in and glanced at the pictures on the mantelpiece. The young woman’s high school graduation picture was there, along with a copy of an associate’s degree in psychology. Next to it was a picture of her grandmother, and in the middle, there was a framed snapshot of the young woman with the man who’d died that morning. His eyes were blue and playful. His dirty blond hair fell down into his face. They were both laughing.

“Please sit down,” she said as she followed him into the living room. “I’ll be right back.”

Mann took a seat on the couch as she walked into the kitchen. A moment later she returned with two glasses of lemonade. She handed him one before sitting down in an easy chair and taking a sip from her own.

“I assume you’re here about Phillip,” she said, her enunciation clear, but her tone muddied by grief.

“Yeah, I am,” he said, looking up at the pictures on the mantelpiece. “I’m sorry you had to lose him this way.”

A single tear rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away quickly. “I lost him way before today,” she said with a sniffle.

“What do you mean?”

Another tear fell. It was quickly followed by several more, and suddenly her head was on the arm of her chair and her body was shaking with ever-expanding waves of grief.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes with a tissue as she got up and walked to the mantelpiece. “It’s just hard right now.”