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across the table for his coffee cup with her gloved hand and without ceremony, dumped what remained of his Java onto the sidewalk by their table. Her sudden move drew a flicker of indignation in his eyes, one that quickly faded.
    "Two sets of fingerprints on this cup, yours and the waiter's. Thanks for making my job so easy."
    Becca stood, cup in hand, not waiting for him to make the next move. With a low intimate voice, she leaned over the table, her face inches from his. Close enough to see through his expensive shades.
    "And that bulge I detect? You'd better be damned glad to see me . . . and have a permit to carry that weapon. If not, you'll find the next time we meet, I won't be shy about using my handcuffs."
    For the first time, the guy looked as if she had caught him off guard. But the instant was gone in the flick of his eyelash.
    "Shy doesn't suit you." He stood and smiled. Cockiness had been replaced by an element of sadness in his expression. Yet in a seductive gesture, he leaned toward her. Reacting on pure instinct, she closed her eyes and focused on the moment. The warmth off his skin and his subtle cologne triggered her imagination.
    Becca's heart stopped. Instead of the kiss she expected, his soft whisper teased her ear.
    "I would have been disappointed if you hadn't made a move for my prints. I look forward to seeing you again, Rebecca."
    After setting a hundred-dollar bill on the table, he turned and walked away, back the way he had come. She watched until he melded with the foot traffic on the street, her heart still pounding with the rush of his intimacy.
    After a long moment, Becca gave in to a smile as she gazed down at the coffee cup— her clever coup. She would enjoy discovering the name of her mystery man and the identity of his benefactor. And she'd have a front-row seat to gauge their reactions when she sprang the news of a dead body found at the Imperial. That should melt GQ's cool facade.
    He'd done his homework. Now, time for Becca to do hers.
    A half-eaten burrito, wrapped in foil, lay atop Becca's desk. The smell of refried beans and old coffee filled her nostrils, almost a distraction. But nothing would divert her attention. She was a woman on a mission. Even though Dani was never far from her thoughts, it felt good to be working a case again.
    Most detective work was a painstaking grind, picking apart every detail until a thread of motive could be followed and backed by irrefutable evidence. But it all began with the identification of the victim. So to start her thread, Becca jumped online to retrieve what information she could. She determined the time period for the original theater fabrication and the subsequent renovation through the public record filings for construction permits. This gave her a time frame within which to perform an extensive search of the archives for old missing persons cases. With her investigation narrowed by time period and females by age, she came down to five cases.
    One of those had been declared a hoax. The young woman had eloped with an older man. Case closed. Two had turned into murder cases when the bodies were later found. One of those was still open. That left two cases. Becca made a note of the case numbers and submitted an electronic request to have the records pulled. Cases older than five years were archived in the bowels of the County Courthouse, not stored with the newer Evidence Unit on South Frio Street. It would take time to locate the boxes.
    While she waited, Becca knew how to fill her time. GQ's dark eyes spurred her on. He had a name, and she'd find it. After leaving the sidewalk bistro, she walked the man's coffee cup back to the theater. A CSI tech bagged it and would process it for prints. And she obtained the recording of the rabble of onlookers outside the theater. She watched it several times, committing each face to memory. Yet she had to shake her head when she noticed that her mystery man had done a vanishing act. Cagey bastard.
    "Guess