I was mid-bite of my sandwich, daydreaming about Iris’s naked body, when there was a hard knock on my half-open door.
“Okay, hear me out,” Agent Andrews said from my doorway as she leaned against the frame, with my boss, Superintendent Carl O’Connor, standing beside her.
I braced myself, because people usually said that before they told you something they knew you weren’t going to like or agree with.
“I think we should go talk to our podcaster, Steve,” Andrews said.
My only response was to roll my eyes in annoyance.
“I decided to listen to the most recent podcast from our guy who wrote the letter,” Andrews said.
Internally, I groaned—and also externally.“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I sighed.
If I make it through the day without stabbing someone with a fork, it will be a miracle.
“Again, hear me out,” she said, finally walking into the office, O’Connor on her heels as he closed the door behind them. “Yes, he’s an eccentric weirdo, but he may actually be onto something.”
“Like what?” I asked, wondering if I would regret it.
It was possible, but I also knew she wouldn’t blow smoke up my ass unnecessarily, so this had to be leading somewhere.
“Not sure how, but I’m guessing he talked with the parents of the missing girl we found,” she explained. “Yesterday, he mentioned on his podcast that the girl was a collegiate athlete and had gone missing at a tournament.”
“Okay…” I said, not sure where she was going with this. “He could have looked some of that info up. The name of the woman was announced to all the local TV news stations, so it wasn’t a secret.”
“I know,” she said, holding up her hands as if to tell me to let her talk. “Honestly, the specifics of how he found out aren’t the main concern here. It’s what he mentionedafterthat got my attention.”
She paused, took a deep breath, and dropped a verbal bomb. “He said there were seven other collegiate femaleathletes who went missing while at tournaments or competitions across the country over the last several years. All of them have never been found. And here’s the kicker—all were the same age and same appearance. In fact, three of them could have been doppelgängers for each other.”
My head jerked back at the sudden realization that this may not have been a one-off.
“The icing on the cake…” she said, likely pausing for dramatic effect. “All the venues the women were competing at were within ten miles of a large lake.”
“Shit,” I said, leaning back in my chair.
“So, here’s the thing,” she said, moving to sit down in the chair across from me at my desk. “Steve isdefinitelya weirdo, but he specifically mentioned the names of all the women in his podcast, so I looked up them and their case files. Each woman went missing roughly six to eight months apart.”
“When was the most recent one?” I asked, trying to figure out a timeline here.
“We believe Miss Simpleton from Lake Echo was,” Andrews spoke up.
“Okay, but she was reported missing a year ago,” O’Connor pointed out.
“Which is why I reached out to the FBI to pull any missing female cases within ten miles of a large body of water within the last year that also match the description of the other athletes,” Andrews said.
Damn, she had her work cut out for her.
“How can I help?” I asked, since she clearly wasn’t here just to tell me this.
“That’s the same question I had for her, but she told me I had to come here to find out in person,” O’Connor said, and I noted his mild annoyance that she wouldn’t just tell him this information over the phone.
“I want to drop him a bone,” she said cryptically. “I want to give Mr. Stanton some info that is not public knowledge.”
“To see if he puts it on his podcast?” O’Connor inquired.
“So she can narrow him down as a suspect,” I chimed in.
“Yes,” she confirmed, smiling at me.
