Inside, an ancient AC unit rattled loudly, spewing out freezing-cold air. A police photographer was hunched over a queen bed, initially blocking Pryce’s view of the victim. At first, all he could see was a pair of bare feet with red-painted toenails resting on a dated floral bedcover exactly like the one he had sat on himself years earlier.

As the photographer snapped the body from various angles, Pryce looked around the room. The cream shade covering the small window was faded and stained. A film of dust coated a desk scarred with cigarette burns. Two plastic cups sat on a table along with an empty fifth of whiskey. Beneath his shoe protectors, the maroon carpet felt sticky with years’ worth of other guests’ spilled liquor and body fluids. A couple of crime scene investigators hovered around the table, dusting for prints and dropping items into plastic evidence bags.

Pryce wrinkled his nose in distaste. “What the hell was a smart kid like her doing in a dump like this?”

“Who knows?” Medina shrugged. “But I don’t think the management has to worry about her leaving a negative review on TripAdvisor any time soon.”

Amy Ong had suffered heavy blows to the face and multiple stab wounds and slash marks to the neck and torso. Defense wounds on the palms of her hands indicated she had tried to put up a fight against her attacker without success. The pinky on her right hand had been severed completely. A couple of flies buzzed around the gaping holes in her chest. The girl’s left arm hung over the side of the bed, once limp but now stiff with rigor mortis.

She wore a white terry cloth bathrobe smeared with dried carmine streaks. It lay open, exposing black lace panties and small pale breasts. Pryce had to fight the urge to cover her up with the robe, to try to preserve some sort of dignity for her in death. He noticed her clothes were folded in a neat pile on an easy chair under a floor lamp, illuminated like a display in a department store window, never to be worn again.

Next to the clothing was a cheap faux-leather purse filled with cosmetics, a hairbrush, breath mints, and a wallet with $200 in crisp twenties. Car keys for a Mini that wasn’t parked in the lot outside. A driver’s license provided a preliminary ID. Even in the DMV’s digitally printed photo, Amy Ong was beautiful.

Pryce crossed the room to the tiny bathroom and looked inside. It was stark and empty. No toiletries. No bath or hand towels, although he guessed the ruined terry cloth bathrobe belonged to the motel rather than the girl.