That described most of the women Robert dated. Sawyer heard the door and looked up. Lieutenant Fischer walked in.
“Gentlemen,” their boss greeted them, dropping a thick green file on the wood desk. “We’ve got a problem.”
Robert sat up straighter in his chair. Sawyer stared at his boss. The man looked every one of his fifty years. “What’s up?” Sawyer asked.
“We’ve got another dead body. Looks like the guy was beat up pretty good before somebody shot him in the head.”
“Mirandez?” Sawyer hissed.
“Probably. Our guys ID’d the deceased. Bobbie Morage.”
Sawyer looked at Robert. “Morage was tight with Mirandez until recently.”
Robert nodded. “Rumor has it that Morage was skimming off the top. Taking product home in his pockets.”
Lieutenant Fischer closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “No honor among thieves or killers.”
“Any witnesses?” Sawyer asked.
His boss opened his eyes. “None. Got one hysterical maid at the Rotayne Hotel. She found him on her way to the Dumpster. Look, we’ve got to get this guy. This makes three in the past two months. Eight in the past year.”
Sawyer could do the math. He wanted Mirandez more than he’d wanted anybody in fifteen years of wearing a badge.
“Are you sure you can’t get Mary Thorton to talk?” The lieutenant stood in front of Sawyer, his arms folded across his chest.
“I don’t know. Like I told you yesterday, she’s either in it up to her eyeballs, or she’s just a dumb young kid with a smart mouth who doesn’t know anything. I’m not sure which.”
“What about her counselor? What was her name?”
“Liz. Elizabeth, I guess. Last name is Mayfield.”
“Can she help us?”
“I don’t know.” Sawyer shook his head. “If anyone can get to Mary, I think she’s the one. She said she’d try.”
“We need the girlfriend. Push the counselor if you need to.”
Sawyer understood Lieutenant Fischer’s anxiety. People were dying. “She does have her own issues,” he said, feeling the need to defend the woman.
Lieutenant Fischer rubbed a hand across his face. “I know. You get any prints off the note she got?”
“Nothing that we couldn’t match up to her or the receptionist. We got a couple partials, and we’re tracking down the mail carrier to rule him or her out. I don’t know. It could be coincidence that she got this and then Mirandez went after Mary Thorton again.”
“I don’t believe in coincidence,” Lieutenant Fischer said, his voice hard.
Sawyer didn’t much, either. “I’ll go see her now.”
“I’ll go with you,” Robert offered, clearly resigned that Veronica was an opportunity lost.
Blonde. Blue eyes. Nice rack. Liz Mayfield had green eyes, but other than that, she was just Robert’s type. “No,” Sawyer said, not even looking at Robert.
“Hey, it’s no problem. I like to watch you try to use that old-fashioned Southern charm.”
“I don’t need any help.” Sawyer looked at his lieutenant and got the nod of approval he needed.
“Fine,” Robert said. “Go ahead and drag your sorry ass over there again. I’ll just stay here. In the air-conditioning.”
Lieutenant Fischer shook his head. “No, you don’t. You’re going to the hotel to interview the maid again. She doesn’t speak much English.”
“Doesn’t anybody else speak Spanish?” Robert moaned.
“Not like you do. I’ve got officers who grew up in Mexico that don’t speak it as well.”
Robert grinned broadly. “It’s hell to be brilliant.” He ducked out the door right before the telephone book hit it.
A HALF HOUR LATER, Sawyer parked his car in front of the brick two-story. He walked past a couple brown-eyed, brown-skinned children, carefully stepping around the pictures they’d created on the sidewalk with colored chalk.
Sawyer nodded at the two old men sitting on the steps. When he’d left OCM the day before, he’d taken the time to speak to them personally, hoping they’d seen the shooter. From his vehicle, just minutes before the arrival of what he still believed was Mirandez’s band of dirty men, he’d seen them in the same spot, chatting.
They’d seen the shooter. It didn’t help much. He’d worn a face mask.
He took the steps of OCM two at a time. He just needed to get inside, talk to Liz Mayfield and get the hell out of there. Before he did something stupid like touch her. He’d thought of her skin for most of the night. Her soft, silky skin. With legs that went on forever.
Sawyer glanced down at the street-level window. Plywood covered the opening, keeping both the sun and unwanted visitors out. He didn’t stop to wonder how unwelcome he might be. He walked through the deserted hallway and down the steps. He knocked once on the closed door and then again when no one answered. He tried the knob, but it wouldn’t turn.
“She left early.”
Sawyer whirled around. He’d been so focused on the task that he hadn’t heard the woman come up behind him.
“Sorry.” She laughed at him. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
Looking at her could scare almost anybody. She had bright red hair, blue eyeliner, black lips, and she wore a little bit of a skirt and shirt, showing more skin than material. She couldn’t have been much older than eighteen. If she had been his daughter, he’d have locked her in the house until she found some clothes and washed the god-awful makeup off.
His son would have been just about her age. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Nicole.” She held up the palm of her hand and wriggled her fingers. “Don’t you recognize me?”
She was the part-time receptionist who had gotten her prints taken. An evidence tech had taken care of it for him. He’d been busy filling out case reports—one for the shooting, a separate one for Liz Mayfield’s threat. “Sorry. Thanks for doing that, by the way.”
“I’d do almost anything for Liz. Like I said, though, she’s not here. She left early. Maybe to get ready for the dance.”
Sawyer tried to concentrate. “A dance?”
“OCM is having a dance. A fund-raiser. Jamison says we’re going to have to shut the doors if donations don’t pick up.”
Sawyer had finally had the opportunity to talk on the telephone with Jamison Curtiss, the executive director of OCM, late the evening before. The man had flitted between outrage at both the shooting and the note Liz Mayfield had received, to worry about the bad press for OCM, to despair about the neighborhood all in a matter of minutes.
Sawyer had told himself, several times while he was shaving this morning, that it had been that conversation that had spurred dreams of Liz Mayfield. Otherwise, there’d have been no reason to take his work home, to take it literally to bed with him.
Dreaming about a woman was something Robert would do.
“Dinner is two hundred bucks a plate,” the girl continued. “Can you believe that? Like, I’d cook ’em dinner for half that.”
“Where?”
“Like, at my house.”
Sawyer shook his head. “No, where’s the dinner?”
“At