Rook added, “And a Kimberly Starr is born.”

“The husband died when she was twenty-one. I know what you’re thinking, so I double-checked. Natural causes. Heart attack. The man left her one million dollars.”

“And a taste for more. Nice work, Detective.” Ochoa popped a victory donut hole, and Heat continued. “You and Raley keep a tail on her. Loose one. I’m not ready to show my hand until I see what else shakes free on other fronts.”

Heat had learned years ago that most detective work is grunt work done pounding the phones, combing files, and searching the department’s database. The calls she had made the afternoon before, to Starr’s attorney and detectives working complaints against persons, had paid off that morning with a file of people who’d made threats on the real estate developer’s life. She grabbed her shoulder bag and signed out, figuring it was about time to show her celeb magazine writer what fieldwork was all about, but she couldn’t find him.

She had almost left Rook behind when she came upon him standing in the precinct lobby, very occupied. A drop-dead-stunning woman was smoothing the collar of his shirt. The stunner barked out a laugh, shrieked, “Oh, Jamie!” then pulled her designer sunglasses off her head to shake her raven shoulder-length hair. Heat watched her lean in close to whisper, pressing her D-cups right against him. He didn’t step back, either. What was Rook doing, making a perfume ad with every damn woman in the city? Then she stopped herself. Why do I care? she thought. It bothered her that it even bothered her. So she blew it off and walked out, mad at herself for her one look back at them.

“So what’s the point of this exercise?” Rook asked on the drive uptown.

“It’s something we professionals in the world of detection call detecting.” Heat picked the file out of her driver’s door pocket and passed it to him. “Somebody wanted Matthew Starr dead. A few you’ll see in there made actual threats. Others just found him inconvenient.”