It was a question he had asked himself dozens of times over the last twenty-five years. On those nights when sleep wouldn’t come, or during moments he spent gazing out of the window, the thought would manifest itself deep inside his brain, like a worm burrowing under soil.

The whole Rob Young name thing had always bothered him. Why adopt a new identity unless you’d done something pretty bad or had some particularly nasty folks after you? Either way, the need for an alias didn’t fit with the Brad Ferezy Pryce had known. He simply could not reconcile the shy kid who had gladly helped him with his schoolwork with being a cold-blooded murderer.

Pryce sat back in his chair and looked around the squad room as it buzzed with activity.

Phones rang, cops discussed cases with each other or spent a few minutes just shooting the shit, news channels reported the same stories over and over again on an hourly loop on wall-mounted television screens. The smell of microwaved Chinese food wafted from the break room, carried around the squad room by desktop fans.

Rodriguez caught Pryce’s eye and offered him a sympathetic smile. News of Frank Sherman being kicked loose was common knowledge by now. The congratulatory backslaps had been replaced by awkward nods and strained smiles. Worse still, Grayling was back from her vacation and was applying even more pressure for a quick result.

Amy Ong’s car had been found where Frank Sherman had said it would be, close to the bar on Las Palmas, and was currently being pulled apart by Forensics, but Pryce wasn’t hopeful it’d be the lead they were looking for.

He turned another page in the file and found himself staring at the face of three-year-old Alicia Lavelle. She was the one part of the Lavelle investigation that wasn’t a mystery, at least not to him. For once, he hadn’t been lying when he’d told Jessica he was pleased to meet her properly and see she was doing okay. The kid had been a part of his life longer than his own daughter had, albeit from a distance. He decided he would swing by the Blue Moon Inn after he’d clocked out for the night, just to make sure she’d taken his advice and left town.

Pryce looked up from the photo as Medina entered the squad room. He closed the murder book and dropped it into the bottom drawer of the desk and locked it.

Medina screwed up his face. “This place stinks something bad. Has someone been eating Chinese takeout at their desk again?”

“How was lunch?” Pryce asked.