RYAN OPENED HIS DOOR WEARING JEANS. JUST JEANS. HIS HAIR was tousled, but he looked fully awake.

“No need to pound.” Ryan took in my wet hair and the pine needles clinging to my clothes. His grin vanished. “What the hell—”

“Ruben’s dead.” I was breathless from running. Shaking. Fighting back tears.

“What?”

“She’s not a monster, Ryan. She’s retarded. Oh, God. We’re not supposed to say ‘retarded.’ What? What do we say now? ‘Challenged’? What word do we use?”

The shock at finally coming face-to-face with Ruben. The terror at seeing her shot. The relief at being back in the hotel. I was babbling, couldn’t help myself.

“She probably never knew she was pregnant. Probably had no concept of pregnant. No concept of concept.”

Tears were running full-out. I made no effort to brush them away.

“I didn’t get a look at the shooter.”

“Slow down.” Ryan was not understanding. Or not hearing my words through the blubbering.

“Two shots. The one to the head probably killed her.” Loud. Too loud.

Ryan pulled me into his room. Closed the door. Dug a tiny bottle of Johnnie Walker from his minibar and handed it to me. “Drink this.”

“I can’t. You know I can’t.”

He unscrewed the cap and thrust the Scotch at me. “Drink it.”

I drank.

The familiar fire roared down my throat. I closed my eyes. The heat spread from my belly to my chest, my brain. The trembling lessened.

I raised my lids. Ryan was studying my face. “Better?”

“Yes.” Dear God. It was.

“Now,” Ryan said. “Start over.”

“Ruben’s dead. Her body is in the woods behind the hotel.”!!!“Tabarnac!”

“The dog ran off.”

“The dog?”

“Tank. The little—”

“Forget the dog. Tell me what happened.”

“Ruben phoned me right around midnight. Said she wanted to meet.”

“How’d she get your number?”

“Probably from Snook.”

Ryan’s hand shot his hair. That meant he wasn’t happy.

“Ruben told me to come alone.”

“Jesus Christ, Brennan. If she’d told you to slice off a tit, would you have done that, too?”

“It was moi solo or no meet.” I was still wired, and Ryan’s reaction was pissing me off.

Ryan just stared at me.

“I phoned you. It’s not my fault the signal sucked.”

“You met her in the woods in the middle of the night.”

“Yes.”

“You had no business going off by yourself.” The Viking-blue eyes simmered with anger.

“I’m a big girl,” I snapped.

“You could have been killed!”

“I wasn’t!”

“But Ruben was!”

Ryan’s words felt like a slap.

I looked away. To hide the hurt. Mostly to hide the guilt. Because deep down, I knew he was right.

“I didn’t mean that.” Ryan’s voice was softer.

“Call it in,” I said curtly.

Ryan crossed to the bedside table, picked up and dialed his cell. He spoke with his back turned to me. When finished, he dug a sweatshirt from his carry-on and pulled it over his head. The static did not improve his hair situation.

“And?” I asked.

“They’re sending a unit.”

“We should tell Ollie.”

Ryan dialed again, spoke, disconnected. “He’s still at the Castain scene.”

“What did he say?”

“You don’t want to know.”

Ryan drew in a deep breath. Let it out. Then he made a comment that melted my resentment.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. But at times you go with your heart, not your head. I worry that one day you will pay a price. I couldn’t stand it if something happened to you.”

I kept my face empty.

“It wasn’t your fault, Tempe.”

Yes, I thought. It was.

The unit was driven by Zeb Chalker. No crime scene truck. No hearse. Just Chalker. Apparently, the death of a hooker didn’t merit pulling personnel from a really cool murder.

Ryan and I met Chalker in the lobby. He did not look pleased to be there.

I described where I thought the shooter had been standing. Chalker called for another unit to check that sector of the woods and to drive the stretch of road closest to it.

“When we get there, I’ll go in first. Not a chance the doer hung around, but until I know what we’re dealing with, I prefer to play it safe.”

Ryan and I nodded.

Chalker led us out the front door, dug Maglites and slickers from the trunk of his patrol car, and handed them to us.

Single-file, we circled the building, crossed the garden, and squished toward the pines, our soles leaving shallow depressions in the mud and soggy needles.

At a point along the tree line, I indicated the position of Ruben’s body. “She’s about ten feet straight ahead.”

Chalker continued alone. In under a minute, we heard him call out. “Clear.”

Feet spread, flashlight pointed at the ground, Chalker watched us approach.

I joined my beam to his.

And caught my breath in surprise.

Ruben’s body was gone.

“This is the spot.” Pointlessly, I shone my light on the pine with the tumor.

Chalker said nothing.

“She was here.” Working my beam back and forth at the base of my marker trees.

“It’s pretty dark, miss. Maybe—”

“I’m not an idiot,” I snapped, still riding my adrenaline-fed high. Or the Johnnie Walker.

“You sure she was dead?” Ryan asked.

“She had an exit hole in her forehead the size of my fist!”

“Maybe animals dragged her off.”

“Maybe.” I didn’t think so.

I expanded my search, slowly moving farther and farther out. Ryan and Chalker did the same.

Ten minutes later, we reconvened at the original location. My hands were shaking, and blood was fizzing in my chest.

Both men regarded me. Dubious.

“I swear. She was lying right here.” Dropping to my knees, I worked a close-up grid with my beam.

The needles appeared uniformly damp. None looked recently broken, displaced, or overturned. I spotted no blood, hair, tissue, or bone fragment.

There wasn’t a shred of evidence to indicate a person had been killed.

In shock, I stood and aimed my light in the direction from which the shots had come. “We need to check that area for casings.”

“I think we’re done here.”

“Hardly.”

Chalker exhaled up toward his eyes, the personification of patience. “Now, miss—”

I lost it. “Don’t you dare go all Trooper Murray on me. Someone fucking killed a woman out here! I saw her fucking brains blasted into tomorrow!”

“You need to calm down.”

“Calm down? Calm down?” I lunged forward and thrust my face into Chalker’s. “You think I’m some premenopausal dingbat looking for drama?”

Chalker took a step back. I felt a hand on my shoulder. No matter. I was in full rant.

“Let me tell you something, Constable Chalker. I was working crime scenes when you were still hoping for your big-boy shorts. The combined fucking genius of the RCMP and the SQ couldn’t find Annaliese Ruben. But I did.” I jammed a trembling thumb to my chest. “Ruben reached out to me. And some motherfucker put a slug through her skull!”

“We’re done here.”

Chalker brushed past me and strode out of the woods, his boots softly rustling the tangle of wet needles.

I turned to Ryan. “That guy has it in for me.”

“Let’s go,” he said gently.

“I’m not crazy.”

“I believe you.”

Back at the hotel, I stripped off my wet clothes, showered, and pulled on sweats. It was going on two, but my brain was wired on adrenaline and booze.

I was booting my laptop when I heard a knock.

As before, I hit the peephole.

Ryan was still wearing the jeans and sweatshirt. He held a flat square box in front of his chest. I opened the door. “Pizza?” he asked.

“With anchovies?”

“You’re finicky now?” Ryan’s brows floated up.

“A girl can’t be too picky.”

“No anchovies.”

“I accept.”

As we ate, I briefed Ryan on every detail I could remember, from Ruben’s call to my showing up at his room.

“How could someone launder a scene that effectively?” I was incredulous.

“The rain helped.”

“They moved fast.”

“Very.”

“Do you think Scar’s the doer?”

“I’m looking forward to asking him that.”

We each helped ourself to a second slice.

“You’ll make them put full effort into investigating Ruben’s murder?”

“I will.”

“Thank you.”

“Under one condition.”

I cocked a brow.

“You clear something up.”

I nodded.

“Who the hell is Trooper Murray?”

“What?” The question was not what I’d expected.

“You threw the name at Chalker.”

“I did?”

Ryan nodded.

“Trooper Stephen Murray of Lincoln, Maine. You’ve never seen the video of his traffic stop?”

Ryan shook his head.

“It’s been on Court TV, YouTube. The thing went viral. Murray’s been dubbed the most patient cop in America.”

Ryan reached for more pizza. Said nothing.

“Come on. Chalker’s long-suffering forbearance act didn’t make you want to puke?”

“The guy was doing his job.”

“The guy was acting like a supercilious ass,” I said.

“I doubt you’ll be topping his hit parade, either.”

We ate in silence awhile. It felt easy. Like old times.

Then I thought of something. “If Scar wanted to send a message saying he’s a badass, why take Ruben’s body? Why not leave her where she’ll be found?”

“Remember the gatecrasher from Jasper?”

“The guy with the collie?”

“Someone whacked him and his dog and hacked off their ears.”

I pictured Ruben’s face in the moonlight.

Something cold crawled my spine.