There were smug couples holding hands, their new platinum and diamond rings glinting under the light from the stained glass windows. Young moms bouncing babies on knees, pacifiers jammed into their tiny mouths so they wouldn’t embarrass their parents in front of God. Tony had made a pretty good living shooting weddings and family portraits, and Jessica had thought those who’d made the effort to show up must have really liked his photos.

At the back of the church had sat a man on his own. He’d worn a well-cut navy suit and a crisp white shirt and a silver tie. Raindrops had glistened on his shoulders like crystals. His face had been wet, but it had been difficult to tell if the source was tears or rainfall. He’d been gone by the time everyone else had moved on to the wake. Thinking back to the mourners in the church, Jessica now had a name for the unknown man in the navy suit.

His name was Detective Jason Pryce.

4 PRYCE

4

PRYCE

It was after ten p.m. by the time Jason Pryce left his desk at Hollywood Division and another twenty minutes before he turned the key in the lock of his Los Feliz condo. His muscles ached with exhaustion, but his brain felt like it had been hot-wired.

He slipped off his shoes and padded along the polished parquet floor to the master bedroom and peeked inside. His wife, Angie, was already asleep in bed. He quietly pulled the door shut and tapped his knuckles gently on the one directly across the hallway. Dim light escaped from the gap where it had been left open a few inches. When there was no answer, Pryce stuck his head around the door, and his daughter looked up at him and grinned.

Dionne sat cross-legged on the bed with a laptop perched on her knees and a pair of giant red headphones propped on top of her dark curls. They had been a present for her sixteenth birthday last month and had been an almost permanent fixture on her head ever since. She pulled the headphones off, unleashing the sound of canned Justin Bieber into the bedroom.

“Hey, Daddy,” she said. “I saw you on TV.”

“Oh yeah?” Pryce moved a couple of stuffed toys out of the way and sat on the edge of the bed next to her. “How’d I do?” He hated media interviews and tried to avoid them whenever possible. But with his boss, Lieutenant Sarah Grayling, on an anniversary break in San Luis Obispo more than three hours away, it had been left to Pryce to feed the reporters the standard lines.

“Not too bad,” Dionne teased. “You’re definitely getting better.”