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She pointed at his head, where his glasses were perched. His eyes rolled up, then he placed his hands on his head, retrieved the glasses without a hitch, and put them on his nose with a grateful nod in her direction.“Thanks, honey. I’m a doofus and you’re a lifesaver.”

“Oh, Uncle Alec,” she said before leaving the office, “I asked Dad to install a pet door at my place. Could you give him a hand? Before he goes and destroys the house, I mean?”

Uncle Alec nodded.“I’ll see what I can do. And if you and Chase catch me this killer before he takes another shot at Dieber, I might even get to it sooner rather than later.”

She stepped out of her uncle’s office, leaving him to coordinate the investigation, and headed over to interview room number one, where Chase was already talking to a particularly nervous-looking girl who couldn’t have been older than fourteen. She was accompanied by her mother, who looked as uncomfortable being there as her daughter.

They all looked up when she walked in, and she gave them a smile that she hoped would put them at ease.“Hey there,” she said. “My name is Odelia Poole and I’ll be assisting Detective Kingsley with the interview if that’s all right with you guys.”

She darted a quick look at Chase, who gave her a curt nod.

“Miss Poole is a civilian consultant,” he explained. “She helps us out from time to time. Now what can you tell us about what happened this morning, Kayla? In your own time, and in your own words, please.”

Kayla’s mother turned to her daughter. “Just tell them what you saw so we can get out of here, honey.”

The girl looked like a deer in the headlights, her eyes swiveling from Chase to Odelia and back to her mother.“I saw Charlie. He was coming out of the building. We’d been waiting for what felt like hours—me and Janet. And my mom, of course,” she added softly, as if embarrassed that her mother would have been there, too.

“Who’s Janet?” asked Odelia. “Is she your friend?”

Kayla nodded. She was of slight build, with long dark hair and large brown eyes that now were wide and terrified. She was wringing her hands, and Odelia saw she had a temporary tattoo of a kitten on her wrist—a Bedieber thing. At least she hoped it was a temporary tattoo and not a permanent one, as she seemed kinda young to start inking up.

“Janet and I are Charlie’s biggest fans.”

“That’s an understatement,” said her mother, settling back in her chair. She was a large woman, with a perpetual frown that had cut a deep groove between her brows. It made her look annoyed and put out, even though she didn’t appear to be particularly unfriendly. Merely concerned, which wasunderstandable under the circumstances.

“When we heard Charlie was coming to town, I thought I’d die,” said Kayla. “We just had to see him. I barely slept last night, and we were out at the radio station three hours before he arrived.”

“I had to put my clock at five,” the mother explained. “And she still beat me to the bathroom. We arrived at six, and the fans were already three rows thick. Unbelievable.”

“Betterbediebe it,” Chase said with a smile, in an attempt to break the ice. The mother merely gave him another one of her dark scowls and Chase’s smile disappeared.

“So we saw Charlie arrive—in a white limo and surrounded by his bodyguards,” Kayla continued, scratching at her tattoo. “He waved at us, but he didn’t stop, like I’d hoped.”

“The least he could have done was sign a few autographs,” said her mother. “But no, he went straight from his limo to W-AWOL5 without breaking stride. Barely looked our way.”

“He had to be live on the air at nine, Mom,” said Kayla, defending her idol. “He didn’t have time to say hi. I’m sure that he’d planned to talk to us later, after his interview.”

“Yeah, and look how that worked out.”

“What happened when he came out of the building, Kayla?” asked Odelia gently.

The teen swallowed at the memory.“We all yelled for him to come over and say hi.”

“I yelled the loudest,” said her mother. “Not because I’m such a big fan of the dude, but my dogs were killing me and I was desperate to get out of there.”

“Your dogs?” asked Chase.

“My feet, detective. I had sore feet, okay?”

“I’m pretty sure he was going to come over and talk to us,” Kayla continued, “but then suddenly there was this loud bang, like an explosion, and when I looked over, Charlie was on the ground, his sunglasses all askew, and his bodyguards were all over him.”

“The kid looked scared shitless,” commented the mother.

“No, he didn’t,” Kayla said. “He was just worried about being shot.”

“Well, someone did just try to kill him,” Chase said.

“And then his bodyguards sort of shoved him into the limo and they drove off with tires squealing,” Kayla finished her story. “It all happened so fast I didn’t even know what was going on until later, when Janet told me someone had just tried to kill Charlie. If I’d known—”

“You wouldn’t have done a thing,” her mother said. “I wouldn’t have let you.”