n, they both shook their heads.
“Ex-boyfriends?” Laura tried.
“There have been a few.” The mother nodded. “Especially for Ruby. But I don’t think any of them parted on bad terms. Most of them broke up with her, not the other way around. She was always getting her heart broken, poor thing.”
“She loved too quickly,” the father said, his voice a rumble of regret. “Always jumping in too fast. That was how she was. Ready to trust.”
Laura nodded. There was potential for that to mean something. If she trusted quickly, maybe she had trusted the wrong person. Gotten herself in too deep with someone who didn’t want to let go. An ex-lover she was convinced away from by her sister, someone whose jealous rage could take hold of him… but Laura was getting ahead of herself. Evidence first, wild theories later.
“You can’t think of anyone who might have had a reason to want to harm or punish them?” Nate asked, his voice even but firm. “Even if you don’t believe it could have gone as far as this—anyone at all?”
The Patricksons shook their heads. “We have no idea,” the mother said tearfully. “It’s just come out of the blue. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to harm them at all.”
“Did either of the girls have any problems?” Laura asked. “I know it’s hard to think about these things at a time like this, but… excessive drinking? Drug use? Gambling? Anything like that in their pasts?”
“No.” Mrs. Patrickson sniffed. “They were good girls. They even took jobs on split shifts so they could always be there for us if we needed them. Ruby worked the late shift and Jade worked earlier in the day. They would come by with groceries if we needed them—my hip needed surgery last year and they waited on me hand and foot. Can you imagine that?” Her last words were muffled by a tissue, pressed against her face.
“Did they work in the same place?” Nate asked, noting that down.
“No,” Mr. Patrickson said, taking over from his wife—she’d resumed crying again too forcefully to talk. “No, they were both working at different places. The last few years, they’d grown up, moved apart. Got different friends from their workplaces. But they always came back to us.”
“Last question, sir,” Laura said, keeping her tone as respectful as she could, as gentle. “Did you talk to either of them in the last day or days? Did you sense anything off?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I mean, yes. I saw them both this week. But they didn’t seem bothered by anything. They were… they were normal. Happy. Like they always are.”
“All right,” Laura said. “Thank you. Please—if you think of something else, don’t hesitate to call us. Any little thing could help.” She took a business card from her pocket and held it out, letting the father take it from her hands.
It felt so stiff and strange, like she and Nate were conducting this interview separately. Normally, she would have glanced at him now to check if he was done. He would have looked back, and from their eyes both of them would know it was time to leave. But when she looked at him this time, he didn’t return her gaze. He just stood, nodding his thanks to the parents.
“We’ll leave you in peace, now,” he said. “Captain Gausse?”
“Yes,” she said, stepping toward the distraught parents. “I’m going to leave you in the capable hands of one of my officers. He’ll escort you back home and make sure you have everything you need for now. Just wait here a short while, and I’ll send him along.”
With those words, all three of them—Laura, Nate, and Gausse—left the room. Outside in the hall, Frome was waiting for them, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets. He straightened up as soon as they emerged, like he was snapping to attention.
“I thought you’d want to see this as soon as possible,” he said, holding out an object wrapped in an evidence bag. “The techs have managed to unlock Ruby Patrickson’s phone, eh.”
“And?” Gausse asked, all business.
“She’s on a dating app,” Frome reported. “Exchanging messages with a number of men all week.”
“Let me see?” Laura asked, holding out her hand. Frome opened the evidence bag and slid the phone out right into her palm.
Laura opened up the app, which was positioned centrally on the home screen for easy access, and started looking through Ruby’s message history. As she did, she felt a familiar pain spike into the center of her forehead, sharp and strong. She tried desperately to figure out if it had been triggered by one of the messages in particular, or—
She was walking along a street. She was inside him—inside the man. She knew she was. She could see things in her peripheral vision—his hand as it brought a cup of takeout coffee to his lips. Definitely a man’s hand.
She was seeing things from his point of view. He walked at a good pace, a deliberate pace. He walked to a nook in the side of the road, the doorway of a store that was closed. He stood there and sipped his coffee, watching people going by.
Laura started to feel impatient. What was this? Just a vision of nothing? One of the men that Ruby had been talking to on the app, going about his day? Why was she being shown this?
It didn’t make any sense. They never came with any sense. She was trapped here, unable to leave until the vision was over, just standing and watching people walk by for no reason…
The man stiffened, his eyes jerking up and latching onto one passerby in particular. Another man. A young one. He was in his twenties, no more. He had an easy smile as he talked to someone on the cell phone pressed to his ear, the other hand stuffed into the pocket of his jeans. He was blond-haired, tanned, dressed casually in a loose jacket over a tee. He had a look on his face while he spoke, like he was flirting with whoever was on the line.
The man who was carrying Laura’s vision stepped forward, throwing his coffee cup into a nearby garbage can and setting off after the young blond man. He kept him in his sights, letting him get far enough ahead that there were others between them but not far enough to lose him. He watched his every move, paused when he paused, looked away whenever he turned to look over his shoulder.
He was following him.