“Mrs. Vance, this is Deputy Coroner Miller,” he said. “We are trying to contact Mr. Vance regarding a Jane Doe brought into our facility late last night.”

My breath caught in my throat.

“A Jane Doe?” I whispered.

“She was found in a motel room off Route 9,” the deputy said. “She had no identification on her person, but she had a slip of paper in her pocket with this phone number and the name Richard written on it.”

The air in the bedroom suddenly felt very cold.

“Can you describe her?” I asked, gripping the receiver with both hands.

“She was a white female, mid-forties, with dark hair and blue eyes,” Miller said.

He paused, clearing his throat.

“She also had a distinctive tattoo on her left shoulder,” he added. “A wild rose.”

The room seemed to spin.

Rose was dead.

The woman from the old photograph, the woman Richard had been obsessing over, was gone.

“Mrs. Vance?” the deputy asked. “Does this description sound familiar to you?”

I looked down at the dark hair tangled in Claire’s brush.