Page 62 of Forever Dark
Connor set his end of the table down properly.“I try to treat people how I’d want to be treated.I’m never going to be the total tight-ass.”
Selena crossed her arms.“It takes all kinds, I guess.For what it’s worth, I get the feeling you’re well thought of around here.”
His eyes flicked to her face, reading more into that than she intended to give away.
The pin board held photographs of Brenda and Lauren side by side.Church tower.Graveyard stone.Candles in the church, but not in the graveyard.Blood.The Roman numerals, copied and enlarged.Maps of Harlan County with circles around both scenes.Underneath it all lay the same ugly fact that had been pressing on her since dawn.
Two women were now dead and a killer was still moving through Harlan County.
“Where can I set up?”Selena asked.
Connor gestured to a small desk near the board.“Is over there good?”
A desktop computer sat on the desk opposite.He took that one while Selena opened her laptop at the first.The room itself was little more than an oversized meeting space with peeling paint near the radiator and a coffeemaker shoved onto a cabinet in the corner.
Selena powered up the laptop.“What’s the station Wi-Fi?”
Connor didn’t answer right away.
She looked over.“What’s wrong?”
A hint of embarrassment crossed his face, which was rare enough to be noticeable.“Password’s MaplePool2011.”
For a second Selena only stared at him.
Maple Pool and a cabin by the lake.Three quiet days there in 2011, a last throw of the dice to save their marriage.It had been before everything came apart.A weekend of cedar walls, bad fishing, rain on the roof, and Connor insisting he could build a fire faster than any man alive.
“We did like to go there,” she said.
Connor looked down at the desk.“Don’t read anything into it.I just use passwords I’ll remember.”
Of all the things he could have said, the plainness of that hit hardest.
“Of course,” Selena said.
She entered the password and opened Lauren Gimble’s social media accounts.Public posts first.Photos.Shares.Comments.Church quotes.Videos from sermons in different towns.Soft-focus graphics about forgiveness, rebirth, renewal.
Connor settled into his chair opposite.“What are you looking for?”
“A thread between the victims.”Selena scrolled.“Lauren’s social history might give us one.Anything we can find that could link her and Brenda together.Something the killer hung onto.”
Before she could go further, her phone buzzed across the desk.
Washington field office.
She answered at once.“Raven.”
“Hey,” a masculine voice said.It was Brent.Her sometimes partner, both off and on the job.“You up to your neck in rural charm yet?”
The voice landed oddly.Familiar, easy, once close enough to know her habits, now filed away with the other lives she had not kept.
“I suppose it’s found me, Brent.What do you have?”she asked.
“Well, first of all,” he said in a tone she knew all too well, “we got your message and we can send another forensics team, but it’s going to take a few days.Meg is a bit concerned it might ruffle local feathers, but if it’s what you need…”
“It’s what I need, Brent.”She looked over and caught Connor’s line of sight.He looked away quickly and back at his computer.
Brent continued: “Calloway got me to dig into the database for you as well.No evidence of a previous church killing in or around Harlan County in recent years.We checked open and closed cases, suspicious deaths, female victims near abandoned religious sites.Nothing that fits.”
