“As we speak,” Medina said, lowering his hand.

“Slam dunk, huh?” Pryce rubbed at his temples with his thumb and forefinger and sighed heavily. “I don’t know, Vic. It all just feels a bit too . . . easy. You know what I mean? The whiskey bottle, the cash, the prints all being left behind at the scene. Why didn’t this guy get rid of anything that would tie him to the vic? Especially when he has a record and knew he would be in the system.”

Medina frowned. “What, you wanting the perps to make it hard for you now, Jase? He panicked is all. Sure, he’s got plenty of priors when it comes to screwing whores, but I’m betting a kill like this was his first time. Got out of there without stopping to think it through first. Trust me, man—Sherman’s our guy.”

“What about his theory about another john showing up at the motel after he left? It’s possible, right?”

Medina shook his head. “No way. You could smell the guilt on that fat fucker like cheap cologne.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Pryce picked up the pile of telephone messages again and continued sifting through them.

“Hey, why don’t we go grab a couple of beers?” Medina said. “Celebrate making an arrest.”

Pryce didn’t answer him. He was staring at a slip of paper he held in his hand. A name was scribbled next to a cell phone number, and the word urgent was underlined twice.

The message hadn’t been left by a crank caller.

The name belonged to someone who had drifted in and out of his thoughts many times over the years. Someone he had hoped never to lay eyes on again. Someone he could not allow back into his life under any circumstances. He looked at the next slip of paper. Another message from the same woman. He thought of the heavy, gut-wrenching feeling of dread that had kept him awake for most of the previous night and knew he had been right to be worried.

“Problem?” Medina’s voice broke into his thoughts.

Pryce balled the two messages in his fist and tossed them into the trash can under his desk. He shook his head.

“No problem,” he said. “It’s nothing important.”

13 JESSICA

13

JESSICA

Jessica was about to ask Freeman for more information on Rob Young when the door opened, and Jack Holliday walked into the bar.

Once again, he looked like a guy who could give a GQ model an inferiority complex. His long legs were wrapped in black denim, and a gray athletic T-shirt showed off tanned arms and hinted at rock-hard abs underneath. His hair was still wet from the shower. He wasn’t wearing the messenger bag.