Her smile vanished suddenly and was replaced by a deep frown. She looked up at him, her serious expression bathed in the soft-pink glow from the fairy lights wrapped around the bed frame. She said, “You’re gonna catch the guy who hurt that girl, right?”

“You bet I am, sweetheart.” Pryce ruffled her hair, and Dionne made a face. He said, “Ten more minutes of Facebook and that terrible music, then bed. Okay?”

“It’s not Facebook,” she protested. “I’m finishing this month’s book club for the paper. Deadline is tomorrow.” She pointed to a teetering pile of paperbacks on her desk.

Dionne was the reviews editor of the school newspaper and had her heart set on a place at Berkeley studying journalism once she graduated. The thought of his little girl leaving home to go to school near San Francisco—or anywhere else, for that matter—in just a couple of years’ time made Pryce’s stomach sink like a stone thrown into a lake. Not for the first time, his thoughts turned to Amy Ong’s parents and the hell they must be going through right now.

The Ongs had been given the death notice by local cops in Ohio, where the family lived. Pryce had then spoken to Mr. Ong on the telephone himself and assured the girl’s devastated father he would do everything in his power to bring her killer to justice. And he fully intended to keep that promise.

“What’s the verdict?” he asked Dionne. “Anything worth reading?”

“Mixed bag,” Dionne said. “The postapocalyptic one was very cool. The romance ones, not so much.” She pretended to stick two fingers down her throat. “I don’t think any of them would be your kind of thing, Daddy. No car chases or buildings being blown up.”

Pryce wasn’t a big reader, unlike Dionne and her mother. He preferred watching movies. Usually ones with car chases and buildings being blown up. It was probably Charles Bronson’s fault he had ended up being a cop. He stood up with a groan.

“Ten minutes, young lady.” He gave Dionne a mock-stern look. “I’m going to take a shower, and these lights had better be out by the time I’m done.”

She stuck out her tongue, and he laughed despite himself.