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be.”
    â€œHey, if he was just another guy, I wouldn’t have said anything, but I read enough gossip columns to know Holden’s a real sleazebag.”
    â€œLike what, exactly?”
    â€œLike he slept with the director’s fiancée! And the guy was supposedly his best friend.”
    The ME finally showed up and began his examination of the body. If it had taken him this long to get here during the worst of the summer heat, it would’ve been decomposed by now. Feeling self-conscious, O’Ryan checked his watch and said he’d better get back to work.
    Half an hour later, when the ME was done and was signing the paperwork, I radioed for the morgue. The ME left, and twenty minutes later the meat wagon arrived and took all the parts of the ravaged body away, leaving a bloody spot in the middle of the carpeted floor, where the killer had evidently done all his cutting. I carefully sealed the room with a BY ORDER OF THE NYPD sticker, and locked the door, taking the key with me.

CHAPTER TWO
    I told the Templeton clerk that the room was off limits until further notice and stepped out into the freezing air. I stood still for a minute and began taking deep, lucid breaths. Just as the Renunciate had taught me, it felt like water filling my lungs. I thought about the poor Jane Doe I’d spent the whole day watching, wondering how her entire life had somehow led her to that awful room that she wouldn’t leave alive. Continuing to breathe from my abdomen, I focused on the thought that my entire purpose was to find her killer. Then I looked across the street and saw a slim, handsome guy who was checking me out. As he stepped under a street light, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing: Noel Holden, megastar, was just standing on the northwest corner of Forty-second and Ninth, grinning at me like an idiot.
    I remembered O’Ryan shoving him that morning and smiled, slightly embarrassed. He started crossing the street toward me. As he approached, I wondered what the odds were of running into the same Hollywood hulk twice in one day.
    â€œForgive me if I was rude earlier. And please allow me to properly introduce myself. I’m Noel Holden.” He extended his hand.
    â€œGladyss Chronou,” I replied, although part of me wanted to ask him something—like if he’d really had sex with Britney Spears, as one gossip column had recently implied. We shook hands briefly and I pulled my coat tightly around me.
    â€œSo you’re dating that other cop?” he asked.
    â€œNo, but…”
    â€œAll I was suggesting is that we grab a quick coffee.”
    If I hadn’t spent the whole day looking forward to a late night yoga class, I would’ve agreed. As a compromise, I said, “I’m walkingback to my precinct. Instead of getting coffee, why don’t you walk with me and we can talk.”
    â€œSounds good,” he replied.
    Aside from the novel sensation of being with a celebrity, it struck me as odd that Holden just happened to be lingering outside a murder scene. As Detective Farrell had reminded me, it was something that murderers have been known to do.
    As we carefully walked the dark and icy streets to the precinct, he asked me a slew of questions: Where was I born . . . and raised . . . and educated. Did I have a boyfriend . . . a girlfriend? Had I ever dated another girl?
    â€œWhy don’t we talk about you for a while?” I finally interrupted.
    â€œSure,” he said, and without any further prompting gave a quick rundown of his film and TV work. He didn’t say anything about his high-profile romances that were eternally being gossiped about, but I was aware for the first time that juicy tidbits of his life had been slipped into my memory anyway, almost against my will, thanks to the media machine.
    And I now had some insight into my neighbor’s skittish mind, and even an inkling about how Maggie could be deluded into thinking that