“You won’t. Her laptop was for college work only. She always used her cell phone for the . . . other stuff.”

“Her cell phone is missing.”

Kasey shrugged. “She always had it with her.”

Medina reappeared in the doorway. He held up his own cell phone and pointed in the direction of the street.

Pryce stood up, pulled a business card from his back pocket, and handed it to Kasey. “Here are my numbers,” he said. “If you think of anything else, call me. We’ll see ourselves out.”

Outside in the stairwell, Medina nodded toward the closed door. “I thought you said you needed brains to go to college?”

“Who was on the phone?” Pryce asked.

Medina broke into a grin. “Latents Unit. They have a hit on the prints.”

8 JESSICA

8

JESSICA

Jessica woke with a dull ache behind her eyes and a sour taste in her mouth, her legs tangled in bedsheets as thin as cigarette papers. A two-inch gap in the curtains threw a narrow beam of light across a dusty hardwood floor.

It took a few seconds before she remembered which motel room she was in.

Which town.

Then everything came back to her in a rush.

After Holliday had left the bar, she’d had another whiskey. Then another. And then a double for the road, which was a walk of no more than ten minutes along York Boulevard from the bar to the motel.

Something jarred at the back of her brain now, the vaguest whisper of a booze-soaked memory dislodging itself. Jessica squeezed her eyes shut and tried to recall what was so important about that short journey. Then she remembered. The feeling of being watched every step of the way.

Every time she’d looked over her shoulder, all Jessica could see were dark shop fronts and empty parking lots, the sodium beam of car headlights occasionally sweeping across the empty street, emphasizing she was alone. Even so, she’d felt like someone’s eyes were on her, following her. The kind of feeling that made the tiny hairs on your arms stand on end and your heart beat a little too fast.

Now, with the alcohol haze gone and in a locked room with a Glock 26 on the nightstand, Jessica should have been able to put her paranoia down to being drunk and on her own late at night in an unfamiliar town. But despite the locked door and a weapon within easy reach, she still couldn’t completely shake off the feeling of unease.