“She’ll be back today, after class.” Denial.

“Do you know her boyfriends?”

“Angie wasn’t steady with anyone.”

“She never talked about boyfriends with you?”

“Yes, but not in detail. She doesn’t have a regular fellow. She’s too young for that, and that’s fine with me. I always tell her-” she stopped suddenly, looking lost.

“Mrs. Vance?”

She shook her head, gave them a half-smile. “I was just thinking. Everything is going to be okay. You’re wrong. The poor girl…she’s not Angie.”

“Mrs. Vance, do you know Steve Thomas?”

“The name sounds familiar,” she said. “I think she talked about him around Christmas. Or Thanksgiving. I think they went on a couple dates, but it wasn’t serious. Why?”

Will evaded the question by asking about any other casual boyfriends. Mrs. Vance couldn’t think of any boys Angie had been seeing recently.

Carina didn’t have any more questions, not right now. She knew she’d have to face Mrs. Vance again, at the funeral, possibly at the house collecting evidence, asking more questions. She certainly wasn’t looking forward to any of it.

She would much rather interview suspects and witnesses than talk to the victim’s family.

Will handed Debbie Vance a card with the coroner’s name and address. “If you can come by sometime today to identify the body, we would appreciate it. Just call this number and tell them you’re coming. They’ll have everything ready. You don’t even need to be in the same room, they’ll show you on a screen.”

Her lip quivered but she nodded. “I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding.”

When Will and Carina were outside, Carina took several deep breaths before getting into their car.

“Cara, are you okay?”

“Just give me a second.”

It was the quiet anguish that got to her. The pain in the eyes. The firm denial even with the internal knowledge that the police wouldn’t come ask her to view a body if they weren’t nearly one hundred percent positive of the identity already. Because there was always hope.

She squeezed her eyes closed and tilted her face to the sun. One. Two. Three.

Better. She tamped down on her own pain and frustration, and turned to Will. “I want to talk to Steve Thomas.”

Steve Thomas’s oceanfront apartment was within biking distance to the university, as evidenced by the wide and well-used bike paths along the highway. There were eight units, four on top, four on bottom. A dozen similar apartment buildings took up this stretch of the highway, half a block from the beach. When she’d been in college, one of her boyfriends had had a place out here, about a mile away, similar to Thomas’s apartment. Ocean access justified the outrageous rent.

On the south side of the building, college-aged men and women walked on the path connecting the street to the beach. It was a Monday in February, but if you didn’t have classes the San Diego beaches were incomparable virtually year-round. Surfers would be out en masse-the temperature promised to be eighty-two today, and while the water was cold, wet suits made it tolerable. Invigorating.

Sometimes Carina missed the carefree life she’d enjoyed in college, when she could drop everything and pick up her surfboard. When was the last time she’d hit the waves? Five, six years ago? She and her brother Connor had gone out before a big storm, nearly wiped out. Even though they were adults, her dad had been furious. They’d had a blast, though. It had been worth Dad’s stern lecture.

She was so out of practice now that she didn’t dare go out under the same conditions. Even today’s tame waves would be a challenge.

Their radio beeped. “Hooper here,” Will answered.

“Sergeant Fields. I have something on the Thomas guy.”

“Shoot.”

“He’s clean, except for a restraining order.”

Carina raised an eyebrow at Will.

“Anything else?”

“Oh, yeah,” Fields responded. “Angela Vance, the girl he reported missing, put it on him three weeks ago.”

THREE

CARINA AND WILL approached Thomas’s apartment with caution, but he wasn’t home. They called in a patrol to check the area every hour and notify them when he returned.

She said to Will as they drove to the university to locate Angie’s friends, “We’ll play nice until we can build a case.”

“Think he’s the one?” Will asked.

“Don’t know, but she was obviously scared of him. And what’s a thirty-nine-year-old man doing following eighteen-year-old girls?”

“Don’t look at me!” Will exclaimed. “I like my women past the chewing-gum stage.”

Carina smiled. “I wasn’t making a moral judgment on your sex life, Hooper. It’s just creepy, you know?” A quick run in the system showed that Thomas had no known occupation, though he received a pension from the U.S. Army. The desk sergeant was trying to dig a little deeper into the guy’s military records to see if there was anything else worth knowing. And just because he didn’t have a job on record didn’t mean he wasn’t working somewhere.

The college administration gave them only a few minutes of frustration before handing over Abby Ivers’s schedule and a copy of her photo ID. Will asked about Steve Thomas, confirmed that he was also a student, and sweet-talked the secretary into peeking at his schedule. Carina didn’t like to play loose with the rules-evidence could later be thrown out in court if they screwed up in the field-but if Thomas was on campus they could track him down.

It would be nearly noon, when Abby’s English lit class would end, so Will and Carina grabbed hot dogs at the student union and munched while watching the doors of the building.

“So Angie Vance was last seen Friday morning,” Will said.

“But her mother heard her come in late Friday night.”

“Though she didn’t actually see her.”

“Steve Thomas comes by the station to file a missing persons report on Saturday morning. Why would he do that?”

“To throw suspicion off himself?”

“That’s stupid.”

“Who said killers were smart?”

Carina frowned. “The murder was sadistic.”

“Maybe he raped her and she suffocated and he panicked, dumped her body.”

“Hmmm.” It was a thought. But why the elaborate setup? The glue? The garbage bags? The public beach? “What do you think about calling Dillon for an informal opinion?”

“Couldn’t hurt, if your brother has the time.”

“He always makes time for me. What’s family for if we can’t bug each other at all hours of the day and night?” She took another bite out of her hot dog, swallowed, and said, “I’d like to hear what Doctor Chen says. Friday night to Monday morning? That’s a long time. If we believe that she was home on Friday night, that’s a full forty-eight hours before she died. Where did he keep her in the meantime?”

“If it’s Steve Thomas, not in his apartment. The walls in complexes like that are paper-thin,” Will said.

“Maybe he glued her mouth shut to keep her from screaming.” The case was giving her the creeps. She much preferred a clear-cut domestic violence or gang shooting. Angie’s murder didn’t fit into anything she’d seen before, so she hoped Dillon had some insight. Her brother was a forensic psychiatrist, and this case would give his psychiatry degree a workout. She’d call him as soon as they were done here.

Carina watched students start pouring from the building. She hadn’t particularly liked college; she was too active, too antsy, and she ended up dropping out with only a year to go and joining the police academy.

But there were other reasons for that decision.

“Over there.” Will hit Carina on the arm, tossing the last third of his hot dog in the trash. Carina followed suit. “That looks like Abby.”

Abby Ivers was a cute, perky blonde in a tight T-shirt and low-waist jeans. Deep dimples sliced her cheeks, and her eye makeup was heavily applied.