“All clear,” he announces, tossing my keys back to me.
“You sure?” My fingers close around the cool metal.
“Nothing out of place.” Cotton touches my arm. “Text us when you start seeing anything online, okay? Even if it’s nothing. Especially if it’s nothing. Shy’s going to obsess either way.”
I nod. “Got it.”
They leave with one more round of hugs and orders to eat something besides donuts. I lock the door behind them, engage the deadbolt and the chain, then double-check everything out of habit.
Three locks—knob, deadbolt, chain. Two windows right beside the door. Another above the kitchen sink. Patio sliders.
I flip the locks three times each—right-left-right—then check and double-check the latches on each window. Nightly routine completed, I sigh and settle behind my screen.
My fortress is secure.
With Brodie and Cotton gone, I drop the beanie to the counter and pull off my coat. The computer pulls me, but I force myself to send Jack a text first.
Any word? Do I need to start looking for a certain someone?
His reply comes immediately in the form of the phone ringing.
I answer the call, putting it on speaker, and set the device down beside my computer station. “Jack. Do we need to be worried?”
“Not sure. Not going to lie, though…it’s not looking good. We have a twenty-something female, nude, with ligature marks.”
“What’s the cause of death?”
“Bullet to the brain.”
Ice crawls through my veins. “It’s him, Jack.”
“I don’t want to say that right away—” The words are half hearted.
“But you can’t rule it out.”
A long pause. Then a tired sounding, “No. No, I can’t rule it out. Especially since the fucker got away. It’s possible that Henry Thurston has returned.”
I sit down and wake my computer, the three screens before me lighting up with a blue glow that instantly soothes the anxiety I haven’t been able to quell since Jack received the call. I crack my knuckles, then flutter them as I position them over the keyboard.
“Then a-hunting I will go.”
TWO
TWIGGY
BryceSavagepumpsthroughmy noise-canceling headphones, and I bob my head in time with his beat as my eyes scan line after line of messages. Most are either unrelated, unhelpful, or just obnoxious, but that’s the trade-off with these online chat rooms. If you know what to look for, gems of information exist.
They’re just hidden.
The main monitor is home to a chat client most people wouldn’t recognize. The other screens pull up news feeds, local forums, cop blogs masquerading as true-crime hobby sites. I log into my handle—one of several I maintain—and the room recognizes me instantly.
@Nightjar. Heard there’s a dead body at the Falls. You hear anything?
I stretch my fingers, rolling my shoulders back. Words scroll fast across the chat, people speculating wildly.
I start collecting: snippets of chatter, references to time stamps, the first vague mentions of “that girl a couple years ago” and “didn’t some psycho stalk her?” My pulse ratchets up with each line.
Probably the boyfriend. It’s always the boyfriend.
