"I should have gone back for him, but I was just too scared. I left him there alone. This is all my fault."
In the interrogation room, Gilda wept pitifully. "Please, you have to help me."
Nick placed a packet of tissues on the table. As he watched her tears flow faster the more she wiped them away, his suspicions about her dwindled.
"What exactly grabbed Rocky and tried to chase you? Are you sure you have no idea? Was it a hunting dog or some kind of wild animal?"
Gilda had smeared her black eyeliner into raccoon eyes. Her expression was blank. "I don't know, honestly. It was too dark to see anything. I was terrified, and all I wanted was to get out of there. All I know is that it must have been something horrible. I heard Rocky screaming."
Nick leaned back in his chair and sighed, feeling troubled. It wasn't that he, Detective Burkhart, had been blinded by a pretty face and believed everything a young woman said just because she shed a few delicate tears.
As soon as he returned to the station, he had pulled up Guilda Dana's records. She was twenty-one and had barely held a proper job since graduating from high school. She had a string of minor offenses on her record, but they were all public-order violations such as trespassing and drunken disturbances in the street.
Her family could just about be considered middle-class. She was a real headache for her parents, but she was still their daughter, after all. Besides, she did have some limits: she didn't steal, rob, or touch drugs. They just had to keep cleaning up her messes.
During his phone call with Gilda's parents, Nick had also learned that she and her boyfriend Rocky were actually