He grinned, then touched the ends of her hair. “Depends.”

Swearing, Pete started off in pursuit of the disk. He’d just paid six bucks for it. After nearly tripping over a dog, he scrambled down a slope, hoping the Frisbee wouldn’t land in the creek. He’d paid a lot more for his leather sandals. It circled toward the water, making him curse out loud, then hit a tree and careened off into some bushes. Dripping sweat and thinking about the cold Moosehead waiting for him, Pete shoved at branches and cleared his way.

His heart stopped, then sent the blood beating in his head. Before he could draw breath to yell, his lunch of Fritos and two hot dogs came up, violently.

The Frisbee had landed two feet from the edge of the creek. It lay new and red and cheerful on a cold white hand that seemed to offer it back.

She had been Carla Johnson, a twenty-three-year-old drama student and part-time waitress. Twelve to fifteen hours before, she had been strangled with a priest’s amice. White, edged in gold.

Detective ben paris slumped at his desk after finishing his written report on the Johnson homicide. He’d typed the facts, using two fingers in a machine gun style. But now they played back to him. No sexual assault, no apparent robbery. Her purse had been under her, with twenty-three dollars and seventy-six cents and a MasterCard in it. An opal ring that would have hocked for about fifty had still been on her finger. No motive, no suspects. Nothing.

Ben and his partner had spent the afternoon interviewing the victim’s family. An ugly business, he thought. Necessary, but ugly.

They had unearthed the same answers at every turn. Carla had wanted to be an actress. Her life had been her studies. She had dated, but not seriously-she’d been too devoted to an ambition she would never achieve.

Ben skimmed the report again and lingered over the murder weapon. The priest’s scarf. There had been a note pinned next to it. He’d knelt beside her himself hours before to read it.