Just then tires crunched on gravel.

They went to the open doorway. A young woman dressed in skimpy running shorts and a clingy top emerged from a metallic yellow Ford Focus hatchback. She bent gracefully into the back for a bag of groceries, and stepped up onto the low porch to her cabin.

Anthony said, “On second thought, maybe I should stick around and give you a hand.”

Her name was Madison Neville.

Laura couldn’t ever remember looking that good. She felt a moment of regret, and then layered it over with her sterling career as a homicide detective, her superior sharpshooting skills, her interrogation chops, and her fiancé of three-and-a-half years.

Anthony stood back from the girl, porkpie hat cocked over one eye, looking casual, but Laura could tell he was in love.

“Sean? He’s dead? Really?” Madison asked after setting her groceries down on the small table in the pocket kitchenette. She stared at them both, her eyes like amethyst jewels.

“Did you know him to talk to?” Laura asked her.

“Yeah. I thought he was pretty nice.” From the look on her face, she might as well have said, “for an old guy.”

Embarrassed that they might think there was anything romantic between this twenty-something girl and a forty-three-year-old man?

At the age of thirty-seven, forty-three didn’t seem as old to Laura as it used to.

Normal.

Laura would never know for sure. She was going on instinct and the experience of seeing countless death scenes. But she was pretty sure Sean Perrin hadn’t seen it coming.

Literally.

Back at the squad bay, Laura got on the phone and spent a couple of hours calling motels in Winslow. She’d winnowed down the motels to within walking distance of the McDonald's at 1616 North Park Drive.

From Google Maps, she was able to see the area from above and also from Street View. The land looked as if it had been cleared for building, and new stores were going up near an old neighborhood. There were several motels in the neighborhood—an Econo Lodge, a Quality Inn, and a Motel 6.

Laura called the Winslow PD, identified herself, and talked to the desk sergeant there. She asked if there had been any shootings at the motels on Park near the interchange approximately two weeks ago.

“No shootings near the main drag.”

“None near the McDonald's on Park?”

“Not in the last two weeks.”

“How about before that?”

She could tell he was looking. “I’ll have to get back to you. Can you describe what you’re looking for?”

From the mouth of a congenital liar, Laura thought. “We have a homicide victim here in southern Arizona, a white male forty-three years old, name: Sean Perrin.” She described him and the story he’d told Terry Delmonte—the woman who was with him, his trip to the McDonald's for breakfast, his discovery of the woman dead in the room. “We believe he was driving a 2006 Dodge Viper Red Clearcoat.” She read off the VIN number.

“You say he’s a homicide victim? Anything else we should know about him?”

“He’s a mystery to us,” Laura said. “But he was shot once in the head at close range with a .22. No evidence at the scene. Shot in his car.”

“Sounds like a hit.”

“Which is why I’m following this lead.”

“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire? Can you describe this woman?”

“This is a guess, but she’s probably between the ages of twenty and forty. She would be a resident of Las Vegas. The name I was given was ‘Aurora’. She might have gone by another name. The last name, but not sure: Tattaglia.”

Laura knew the name was a shot in the dark. She was on shifting sands here. She thought about elaborating, but realized she’d only dig herself in deeper.

“So you’re sure he said McDonald's?”

“Yes.”

“There’s only one of ’em here. I’ll check and see if there’s a homicide in a motel, but I don’t recall anything like this.”

Laura thought: all you can do is try.

She got a call back the next morning.

“No record of anyone shot to death in any of the motels near the McDonald's,” the desk sergeant, Manny Contreras, told her. “But there was a death that fits your time frame. A woman died of an overdose at the Meteorite Inn.”

“The Meteorite Inn?”

“Yeah, it’s an old motel, kind of off the beaten track, but if they were hiding out as you say . . . ”

“A drug overdose? You sure?”

“To tell the truth, at first it did look like a homicide. She must have flailed around some, hit her head against the bed board and also on the chest of drawers. Turned out it was a drug overdose. Ketamine and PCP in her system, which fits with what we found.”

“How old was she?”

“Mid-to-late twenties, but she looked older than that. Her name was Aurora Johnson. She had a Las Vegas DL and one hell of a rap sheet,” he added. “She was a prostitute.”

11: Running Down the Road

Laura and Anthony hit the road early the next morning. Early for Anthony was eight a.m.

Laura picked him up at his home, which was kind of on the way, and they hit Phoenix on Interstate 10 just in time for rush hour.

It was mid-afternoon by the time they pulled in to Winslow. The police department was situated along old Interstate 40, a white cube of a building on a one-way street.

It wasn’t far from the Meteorite Inn on State Route 99. They drove by there first.

The land around here looked like tanned deer hide. There were railroad tracks nearby, and a road that zigged, then zagged, and stuck like a postage stamp in the right angle was the motel. The side to the street was a jigsaw of colored rocks, most of them dark brown, some muddy yellow, pink, blue, red—all natural rock colors from the area. Wafers of flagstone were stacked at the base. Someone had put real care into this, but the result was ugly. And old.

“It’s a long way from McDonald's,” Laura said.

Anthony nodded. “You just maybe think we’re on a wild goose chase?”

“Probably. But a woman did die here.”

“The Meteorite Inn. Looks like it was hit by a meteorite. If a guy stood on this corner, the girl in the flatbed Ford would’ve driven right by. I’ll bet people rent by the month.”

Laura looked at the old motel. There was a cluttered look to some of the rooms—doors open, old cars outside. It did look like people were camped out there. “You think they were hiding out?”

“Could be. You can’t get more out of the way than this.”

“But the woman died from a drug overdose. Maybe he wasn’t running from anything at all in Vegas. Maybe he just met the woman here and paid her for sex.”

“It’s a theory,” Anthony said. Hands on hips, he stared out at the bleak side of Winslow.

“But that would be a coincidence,” Laura said.

“Yeah—and I know how much you don’t like coincidences.”

“Coincidences are rare. Besides,” she said. “Sean Perrin was killed by a pro.”

They met with Greg Wyland, the detective who investigated Aurora Johnson's death at the Meteorite Inn. Wyland was tall like Anthony, so the two of them towered over Laura, even though she was pretty tall, herself. Wyland looked boyish, with a pale blonde buzz cut and startling blue eyes.