"Hey, I've missed you, babe. Any excuse." Frank grinned at me; I gave him a hairy look. "And you seriously figure she's fuck-all to do with you? Let's see you say that when we're trying to ID her, and everyone you've ever known is freaking out and ringing up to give us your name."

All the anger deflated out of me, leaving a nasty hollow at the bottom of my stomach. Frank, the little bollocks, was right. As soon as this girl's face went into the papers alongside an appeal for her real name, there would be a tidal wave of people who had known me as Lexie, her as Lexie, me as me, all of them wanting to know who was dead and who both of us had been if we weren't in fact Lexie Madison, and general hall-of-mirrors overload. Believe it or not, that was the first time it hit me: there was no way in the world for this to be as easy as Don't know her, don't want to know her, thanks for wasting my morning, see you around.

"Sam," I said. "Is there any way you could hold off on putting her picture out for a day or two? Just till I can warn people." I had no idea how I was going to word this one. See, Aunt Louisa, we found this dead girl and . . .

"Interestingly," Frank said, "now that you mention it, that fits right in with my little idea." There was a jumble of moss-covered boulders piled in the corner of the field; he pulled himself backwards onto them and sat there, one leg swinging.

I'd seen that gleam in his eyes before. It always meant he was about to come out, spectacularly casually, with something totally outrageous. "What, Frank," I said.

"Well," Frank began, getting comfortable against the rocks and folding his arms behind his head, "we've got a unique opportunity here, haven't we? Shame to waste it."

"We do?" Sam said.

"We do?" I said.

"Oh, yeah. Jesus, yeah." That risky grin was starting at the corners of Frank's mouth. "We've got the chance," he said, taking his time, "we've got the chance to investigate a murder case from the inside. We've got the chance to place an experienced undercover officer smack in the middle of a murder victim's life."

We both stared at him.

"When have you ever seen anything like that before? It's beautiful, Cass. It's a work of art."

"Work of arse, more like," I said. "What the hell are you on about, Frankie?"

Frank spread his arms like it was obvious. "Look. You've been Lexie Madison before, right? You can be her again. You can--no, hang on, hear me out--if she's not dead, just wounded, right? You can walk straight back into her life and pick up where she left off."

"Oh my God," I said. "This is why no Bureau and no morgue guys? This is why you made me dress like a dork? So nobody notices you have a spare?" I pulled my hat off and stuffed it back in my bag. Even for Frank, this had taken some fast thinking. Within seconds of arriving at the scene, he must have had this in his head.