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room, turned around and said, “I did give you my cell phone number, right?”
     
    #
     
    Sam saw Shauna talking to John in the bullpen and froze.
    If anything, she’d grown more stunning with age.
    It was always her hair that stood out—wild, red curls—and her legs—endless legs that curved into round hips.
    He slipped away when John caught his eye, hiding in the break room. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see her, but she didn’t know he was back in town, and he didn’t want to spring everything on her like this.
    They hadn’t parted on the best of terms.
    Dear Lord, what an understatement.
    Two years. Two years since he’d last set eyes on her, since he tasted her, since he’d nearly taken her to bed. He’d wanted her, but the timing had been so very wrong. He’d been on administrative leave from the Sacramento Police Department and in the middle of a divorce—his life one big personal and professional nightmare.
    He’d turned Shauna away and regretted it ever since. When she was seventeen and kissed him, he was stunned and felt righteous in rejecting her advances. But two years ago? Her passion scared him, because everything about Shauna was vibrant. And now she was lost to him. The thought made him reel inside. He’d screwed everything up.
    He’d made so many mistakes with Shauna that he half expected her to deck him when he saw her again.
    Five minutes later, John came in and poured coffee from the long-simmering pot.
    “You said you’d talk to her.”
    “It’s complicated.”
    “You said that yesterday.”
    John stared at him, and Sam changed subjects. “Simone ID’d the dead woman on the cliff. Callie Wood. She was in the system for a minor drug charge last year. No jail time. I went to the address we had on file, but the landlord said she’d moved at the same time as her arrest. I’m working on tracking her residence down. No registered car, her license expired a few months ago—same address—and I have two cops canvassing her old neighborhood to see if anyone has had contact with her.”
    “Good.” John continued to stare at him, so Sam continued with what he’d learned.
    “Simone said she was strangled.”
    “By hand?”
    “No—a one-inch wide strip of leather, likely a leather belt. She’s going to see if she can find anything more unique about the fibers, but that’s all we have so far. Good news, the victim fought and there’re skin cells under her fingernails. It’ll take weeks to get anything from the system, but if we get a suspect, Simone can run a preliminary match.”
    “Sexual assault?”
    “No—she’d had sex earlier in the day. Simone is running tests to compare the skin cells to the semen, but again—”
    “DNA is going to have to wait.”
    “Bingo. What about Mack Duncan’s murder? Simone said she’d already sent you the report.”
    “Blunt force trauma. The baseball bat we recovered from the scene was the weapon, and it was identified yesterday by Patrick Dooligan as the bat he kept behind the bar for protection.”
    Sam shook his head. “As far as I know, he’s never had to use it.”
    “He said as much.”
    “Which means either someone knew it was there, or Mack felt threatened and pulled it out.”
    “So far, the crime scene techs haven’t found any blood other than the victim.” John raised his chin. “What’s it going to take for you to keep Shauna Murphy from interfering with our jobs?”
    “John—”
    “You can work Duncan’s homicide with me, Sam—I need all the manpower on this, because if this is gang related, you have the experience. If it’s not, then something more devious is going on and the more eyes the better.”
    Sam had to at least give him something, since John offered the first olive branch.
    “I’ve known Shauna since she was born,” Sam said. “Her brothers and I grew up together with her tagging along. I can honestly say she got us into more trouble than we got into by ourselves—and that’s saying