Laura put her eyes back to the list of accounts that Gregory followed, and her eyes nearly bugged out of her head. Right there: the first two accounts were ones that she was familiar with. They belonged to Ruby and Jade Patrickson, their profile pictures frozen now in a permanent reminder of how they had been when they died, never to change again. And Laura remembered what they’d been told about those accounts, even though the posts had been taken down before they’d ever seen them. That they had publicly shamed Pete Barton and sent a world of virtual hurt his way.
It was bad behavior, she supposed, if you looked at it a certain way. Perhaps Pete Barton had been in the wrong, but they had also deliberately turned the wrath of their followers on him. Allowed it to spread to the point where he’d had no choice but to turn his profile dark and hide himself away from the world. To a point, anyway.
The next victim, Kenneth Wurz, had been something of a bad boy by all accounts. A wild child. He’d even had a criminal record, one that should have been stricter. He’d gotten away with what he had done for the most part. But Kevin Wurz had been a volunteer at a local charity. A good man. And he was still alive.
It was dawning on Laura that the fact they hadn’t been able to fathom—whether Kevin survived by luck or by design—was all part of the pattern.
She gasped out loud, alone in the cold air inside the car, when it came to her fully. The killer was going after not just any twins, but twins that he thought were bad. To use a cliched phrase from popular culture, the evil twins.
The twins who were, Laura guessed, just like his own.
She scrolled down the list of followed accounts, her eyes lighting easily on both Kenneth and Kevin, both of them on the list. Again, smiling in their profile pictures in a way that at least one of them never would again. If Kevin suffered the way that Brady Seabrooke had, maybe both.
And then she saw it, and her heart almost stopped.
A picture of a pretty young woman with wild curly hair spilling around her face, her mouth open in a grin. A woman she recognized easily.
One of the twins from today’s visions.
Laura tapped on her profile with a shaking hand, taking in her name. Amelia Adams, listed in her profile as employed by a local bank. Her account was full of striking, strong images, Amelia in power suits and in power poses. In a few of them, she was with her sister. Laura tapped there again to find out her name: Coco Adams, whose profile was full of images of coffee cups and wildflowers growing from the pavement and street art. Two very different sisters, despite the similarity of their looks.
And she had them now. She did. She could save them—if she got there in time.
Laura hurriedly moved to another page in her phone’s browser, bringing up a search for the two women. She found addresses for both, put them into her map and searched the surrounding area. One of them was down the street from a subway station. Laura switched to street view and saw it. The same station she had seen them emerge from in her vision.
They were at Coco’s home.
Laura didn’t waste any time now in dialing Nate’s number. There was no time to even second-guess herself. They needed to do this now.
“Laura?” Nate answered, sounding pissed already. “Where are you?”
“I’ve found him,” Laura said, cutting through the preamble. Better to just get out the lead rather than waste time on the details that wouldn’t matter until later, when they were writing up their reports. “The killer. And I know who his next victim is going to be.”
“If this is just another one of your hunches—” Nate began, but she cut him off.
“No, Nate, listen to me. Look up MilwaukeeTwinGuy2 on Instagram. That’s him. He’s following all of the people he’s picked out as potential victims, and I’ve found them. I can’t explain right now all of the investigation I’ve been doing—it’s too much, and we don’t have time. He’s either on his way there now, or he already is there. We have to move fast.” She’d started her engine, and she pulled off along the street now, gunning the accelerator as soon as she was away from the sidewalk.
There was a single moment’s pause, and in that horrible moment, Laura thought he was still going to refuse. But maybe something in him still trusted her. Maybe the fact that she’d used the word “investigation” to back up what she’d found. Maybe he was just looking up the account and verifying what she’d said.
Because he responded, and he gave her the response she had been waiting for.
“All right,” he said. “What’s the address?”
Laura rattled it off quickly for him, reading it from her own GPS. “Meet me there with backup,” she said, taking a turn just a little too fast and having to fight back control of the car. “I’m closer. I’m heading there right now.”
“No, wait,” Nate said. “You shouldn’t go on your own—wait for us to catch up with you.”
“I’m not leaving it too late,” Laura said grimly. “I’m not going to let him take another life.”
And she ended the call, cutting off whatever objections Nate might have and leaving him no choice but to hurry to catch up with her.
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
Gregory stole through the back streets, occasionally using the odd alleyway that cut through to the main road to make
sure that they were still on track. They wouldn’t see him from down here. Wouldn’t know he was keeping track of their progress, making sure he would still keep his timings and get to the apartment faster.
He couldn’t stay following them like he had before, risk either of them to turn around and look at him. Especially not Amelia. He didn’t want her to know he was there.