I held a dead girl in my arms.

Drowned, maybe. After all, I’d just dragged her from the river and her soaked clothes, my soaked clothes and the brittle, dry September ground where I lay her, which was also soaked, gave these telltale clues.

Then again, finding her expensive hairstyle messed up by dint of a caved-in skull on the back of her head gave additional clues to the contrary.

Perhaps, and this was even more telling—the part where I became too involved, had been seeing her body dragged from the trunk of the car then thrown into the Potamac River. Sensibly, truly, I should have walked away and left the body alone. None of my business.

Alexander is going to be really pissed.

Not about the girl, but that I’m part of the crime.

One callous act of murder interrupted my peaceful midnight meal and left me with a serious question to resolve. Will the Cachetteen use this new faux pas and force Alexander to make me really dead?