out his stool and began typing on his keyboard.
“Dead?” Jeanette repeated. “I thought she was just naked.” She leaned in closer, her eyes popping. “Oh, God, you’re right.” She too turned ashen, her hand flying to her pale lips as her soda cup slipped to the floor, ice and cola slopping onto the carpet. “What the fu—what is this?” She was already reaching for a tissue on her desk, then bending down to sop up the mess.
“I have no idea,” Earl Ray said, but it was something.
Something damned important.
Something that might just breathe some much-needed life into the Clarion. As Jeanette was picking ice cubes from the floor, Earl started for his desk when Charity texted him again. “About damned time.” But he wanted to talk to her in person and was about to punch in her number when he saw that the message was actually another picture. “What the fuck?” he said as the image filled his screen.
“Oh, shit! God.” Gerry was practically hyperventilating. “Dad! You gotta see this. It’s about Charity. Jesus, can this be right?” Jeanette had straightened and was staring at Gerry’s screen. She let out a scream.
“No, oh, no!” she cried.
But Earl hardly noticed. On his phone, he saw a picture of Charity herself. Not a selfie. This one showed her face beaten and bruised and . . . for the love of Christ . . . it appeared as if she, like Willow Valente, was dead as the proverbial doornail.
* * *
At his desk in the station, Rivers swilled black coffee, eyed his computer screen, and studied the information sent over from Detective Tanaka in San Francisco. Graphic pictures of the dead woman confirmed what they already knew: Charity Spritz had been murdered. The theory was that she’d been caught off guard at her motel in Oakland, where the attack had taken place, possibly in the parking lot—though there were no cameras or witnesses at the scene. Then her body had been taken to the airport and left. The SFPD was working with the airport security cameras and the airlines, hoping to find out if the killer had flown out on a late-night or early-morning flight, but that could take a while.
Tanaka, though, had assured him that they were working around the clock on Charity’s murder. Rivers knew firsthand how the SFPD handled homicide cases. They were efficient, but it would take time.
He wondered how Charity Spritz’s homicide connected to Megan Travers’s disappearance. There had to be a link.
He heard Mendoza’s footsteps before she appeared at his desk. With one glance at the computer screen, she stopped dead in her tracks. “Oh, jeez. Brutal.”
He agreed. No matter how many violent attacks and murders he’d witnessed, he’d never become inured to the savagery or the viciousness of what one human could do to another.
“What was Charity Spritz doing in San Francisco?”
“I’m hoping someone at the Clarion might have some insight. I’ve got a call in to Earl Ray Dansen, but he hasn’t gotten back to me yet.”
“Don’t newspaper people get in early, like hours before dawn?”
“Apparently not Earl Ray.”
“Maybe he’s just busy.”
They locked eyes, and he said, “Hey, we’re talking about the Clarion. Remember? You and I are working on the biggest story to come their way since Barton Scruggs stole Hugh Lambert’s prize bull a couple of years ago.”
She smiled faintly. “Okay. You’re right. He’ll be calling. But in the meantime, take a look at this.” She handed him her cell phone, where a text message read I NEED TO TALK TO YOU. IT’S IMPORTANT.
“Who’s this from? What’s it about?”
“I don’t know what she wants, but it’s from Andie Jeffries.”
“The LPN who worked with Megan Travers at the clinic?”
“One and the same. I called the number back immediately. Set up an appointment, and if we don’t get going, we’ll be late. Thought you might want to tag along.”
He was already pushing his chair back. “You thought right.” He grabbed the jacket he’d slung over the back of his chair and slipped into it as they walked outside.
“And by the way,” Mendoza said as they reached his SUV, “don’t make the mistake of calling her Andrea. It’s Andie. She let me know that.”
“Got it. But what’s it about?”
“Don’t know. Wouldn’t say on the phone, and I have no idea why. Probably didn’t want someone to overhear her or something. Maybe we’ll find out. Whatever the reason, she wants a face-to-face, so we’re obliging. And it won’t take long. She’s due at work at nine, and