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Josie ignored the barb. She wasn’t here to defend her sister, as much as she wanted to. She was here for information so they could catch Sylvia’s killer.

Kirstie swatted Dean’s chest. “Trinity Payne was only doing the show on the Last Kiss Killer because bringing attention to the cases sometimes gets them solved. She was trying to catch him. Besides, your mom said she needed to go on camera to the whole world to help catch him once and for all.”

“Were people approaching her about it before it happened?” asked Noah.

“The interview?” Dean said. “Yeah. I’m not even sure how people found out she was going to do it, but she probably told someone at her church and then word got around. Mom retired from the doula thing when we moved here. She’s made the church her whole life since then.”

“Do you belong to Denton East Methodist?” Josie said.

“We just joined a few months ago,” Dean said.

“Much to Sylvia’s delight,” Kirstie said with a tight smile. “We never practiced any organized religion before. I always thought she prayed for our souls enough that we didn’t need to go. She used to worry we would end up in hell.”

“And here we are,” Dean croaked. “This is it. I’m looking for a grave for my mom because some sicko murdered her.”

Kirstie leaned into him. “We’ll get through this, honey. I promise.”

Noah asked, “What prompted you to join the church?”

“I was working part-time at the summer camp there,” Kirstie said.

“She teaches kindergarten during the school year,” Dean added, gesturing to her shirt.

Kirstie glanced down it, picking at one of the stains with a fingernail. “Practically all my shirts are stained. I didn’t even look when I grabbed it this morning. Anyway, I’ve kind of been immersed in all things faith-related at camp, and the more I learned, the more I wanted to know. We thought the best way to do that would be to join the church.”

The diversion in the conversation had given Dean a moment to regain some of his composure so Josie jumped back into their questions. “Was she having trouble with anyone recently? Inside or outside of the church?”

Dean shook his head. “No. Mom never had trouble with anyone. People loved her. She was always doing stuff for everyone else.”

“Did she ever mention feeling like someone was watching her?” Josie said.

“No. We would have known if someone was messing with her. Carter and I installed cameras at the house when we moved. Front door and back door.”

“Were you surprised to find out that she’d been dating Mr. Fisher?” asked Noah.

“Oh God, yeah,” Dean said.

Kirstie wrinkled her nose. “It was so awkward, finding out like that. Morbid, too.”

“Mom never dated,” Dean said. “Our dad left when I was four and she had to support me and my brother on her own. He left for work one day and never came home. Cleaned out their bank account, took their car, and disappeared. No one knew where he went.”

Josie did the math in her head. Sylvia would have been twenty-four years old when her husband left. Dean was the younger of the brothers by two and a half years. “Your mom had Carter when she was only eighteen.”

Meaning she had to have gotten pregnant while she was still a minor.

“Yeah. She was still in high school when she met my dad. She was a part-time typist at some insurance office he managed. Started working there when she was just fifteen.”

Sylvia West had been groomed by her much older husband, that much was clear. Josie wondered if that accounted for the shadows in her expression they’d seen in the photos of her from high school.

“They got married as soon as she turned eighteen,” Dean continued. “After that, she didn’t work because she was taking care of Carter and me. She was completely dependent on him and he screwed her. She didn’t trust men after that.”

Josie could certainly understand why Sylvia wouldn’t want to get into a serious relationship again or put her survival at the mercy of someone else, but she wondered if Sylvia had ever seen anyone casually. If she had, she’d either kept it secret from her sons or they simply hadn’t noticed. For all anyone knew, she’d had short-term dalliances before entering into a relationship with Louis Fisher. It was possible one of those had resulted in a man becoming fixated on her.

“Do you recall anyone ever asking her out or showing interest in her?” Josie asked.

“No,” Dean said. “I mean if anyone did, I never noticed.”

“How about your mom?” Noah said. “Did she ever talk about anyone she was interested in?”