She reached up and ran her fingers through her hair.
“Alison woke up around seven complaining about sinus pain. She called in sick, and her boss made her feel shitty about it, but it was clear she couldn’t go in. I offered to run to the store before I left for work, but she didn’t want me to be in trouble either.” She paused. “We work at the same place. So, I left, and at lunch, I came home to find the house empty. That’s when my neighbor said she never came home. Our walls are thin, and we can hear everyone’s personal life.”
“Did your neighbor happen to mention when she left?”
“Eight thirty.”
I scribbled down the information and asked a few more questions, but nothing stood out.
I tried to hide my disappointment. It wasn’t her fault, and I needed her to feel like she was helping. To help meant you could start to heal. I wanted her to have that.
“Oh,” I turned before I left. “did you happen to file a police report in the last year?”
Her brows squeezed together. “No, I haven’t.”
“Okay.” Good. “Thank you.” I held up my notebook. “This was helpful.”
A ghost of a sad smile graced her lips. “I’m glad.”
A sob broke from her, and I left her to have privacy to cry.
“Do you have plans tonight?” Benny stopped me in my office.
“I do.”
“You should cancel them. We’re all heading to the bar.”
I grabbed my bag and my keys. “Not even if you paid me to.” I slapped his shoulder as I raced by him.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Spencer
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Shannan’s big, booming laugh filled my back deck. “It’s the middle of winter, and there’s a pair of beavers going to town on each other down there!”
I shook my head and went back to typing out the first chapter of book four. I wasn’t given much information, only that I should start it.
“Whooo, yeah, get ’em, girl!” Shannan roared as she squeezed her legs together like she might pee. “Mother Nature at her finest!”
I laughed a little and tried to get my head back in the book.
Suddenly, her hand reached inside the door and felt around for my phone. A gust of freezing air rushed all around me and sent goosebumps up my spine.
“Kim needs to see this shit. Be a doll and hand me your phone.”
I rolled my eyes and leaned over to give it to her.
Once her back was turned, I switched screens and checked Amazon to see if the next book had gone live yet. We had two possible females who matched the description of his sixth victim. The problem was they both had placed their police report on the same day. So did we go by the time they came in, or was it a toss-up? We obviously needed to watch them both.
My head flopped down while the stress coursed through my body like a tidal wave.
What an awful situation this was.
A: Can I pick your brain on something?
I froze as his message popped up on the right-hand side of my screen. I quickly switched on the camera and sent G a message saying he was on. Once he responded, the team was watching with me, and I started.
GW: Sure.
A: When you write, do you write alone? Or do you enjoy the noise of others around you?
GW: Depends on the scene I’m writing.
A: Explain.
GW: If I’m writing a lot of dialogue, I like to be alone. If it’s description, I like to be around others.
A: Thank you.
A has logged off.
I tapped the screen and video-called G. He answered right away, and I knew the team would also be listening, as they were all there.
“What the hell was that, G?”
“My guess,” Bri came into view, “he wanted to know if you were at your computer. If he is here, he’s noticed you are not, and chances are you are home working.”
I nodded. “Should I be nervous of him coming here?”
“You don’t match his victims,” she said. “He needs you to write two more books. I don’t think he’s coming for you. I think he’s spooked and is trying to see if you know anything. The next time he writes you, just do what you do and keep being yourself.”
“Okay.” I rubbed my shoulder, nervous as hell.
“Besides,” she came closer to the screen, “Jackson is in his truck just down the road from you.” She winked.
“Oh.” I smiled, relieved. “Good to know. Thanks, Bri.”
“You got it.”
I closed the video chat window and had to smile at Shannan as she still hooted and hollered at the two horny beavers down on the shore. I missed the days when I could laugh at something that hard, but instead, I carried a storm cloud over me that grew stronger at each keystroke on my keyboard.
I thought hard as I tapped my finger against my lips, wondering how I could dig into his life. I knew this industry, and I knew how our world worked. My fingers tapped as I Googled his pen name and hunted social media with a fine-tooth comb. I knew this was Bri’s area, but I might go places she wouldn’t think to. He still hadn’t sent me the next outline, anyway, so I had a bit of time on my hands.
Facebook was where I started. He had an author page and posted three times a week on the dot, which led me to believe he scheduled his posts. Where he failed to grow as an author was in his inability to interact with his readers. I shook my head, annoyed that he didn’t see how important that was. Our readers needed to know we were human too, that we had a life outside our words.
Instagram and Twitter were the exact same, cold and robotic.
“Seriously?” I muttered but stopped myself and did a reality check. The chances of this shit being an actual author was a joke. He was a stone-cold killer who apparently needed me to finish out his contract. I’d never judged anyone who used a ghostwriter. Clearly, those authors kept me in business, but I would certainly judge the hell out of this heartless asshole.
Four hours later, I felt a headache come on in the back of my eyes. I tossed my glasses down and plucked my phone from under a pile of paper.
“How you doing?” Bri answered on the first ring.
“Good.” I yawned. “Can you look into a name for me?”
“Yeah.” I heard her shift the phone, most likely to her shoulder, so she could write down the name. “Ready.”
“Bethany Adams.”
“Who is it?”
“I just spent the past few hours down a dark rabbit hole, and her name kept popping up commenting on his social media accounts.”
“Which accounts?”
“Books and Main, Twitter, and Snapchat.”
“Not Facebook or Instagram.”
“Nope.”
“Okay.” She paused to listen to someone. “One second, Spencer.”
While I waited, I brewed a cup of coffee and heated up a muffin. Days like this, I forgot to eat, so when I stopped, I was a hungry beast.
“Good luck!” she called, and I strained to listen.
“What’s going on?”
“One of the possible subjects just arrived home. They’re going to go talk to her.”
That got my attention, and a strange ping of nervousness took over my stomach. I dropped the muffin and switched the call to speaker while I texted Blake.