May wasn't going to allow herself to panic. She reminded herself firmly of that. No panic. Even though it was now late at night, and all their suspects had checked out, and they were now back to doing the most basic groundwork in the hope that something they had missed became glaringly obvious.
Sighing, she turned back to her work.
Her first task was to identify the similarities between the two victims.
May had gathered a host of resources at her disposal. She had the school yearbooks which she’d looked up online, as well as the curriculums and the classes each one had attended. Sheriff Jack had contacted the school principal who had provided the info while she and Owen were on their way back.
Now it was up to May herself to connect the dots.
Sadie and Alyssa. Her heart contracted as she thought about them. Two beautiful girls, their lives cut short, their families devastated.
But what, apart from attending the same school, did they have in common?
May went through the yearbook with a fine-tooth comb. Alyssa had been a cheerleader, on the school paper, runner up in Miss Popularity. She'd achieved two academic awards.
Sadie seemed to have been a total rebel. She'd avoided anything and everything. She had been scraping by with grades only a few marks above flunking.
They didn't have any friends in common or any activities in common that May could see. And that wasn't surprising, she acknowledged, with a resigned shake of her head. They didn't have much in common at all, apart from both being particularly beautiful.
At that moment, Owen walked in, carrying a box of pizza.
"Oh, thank you," May said, grabbing a slice and digging in gratefully. She was starving. The crispy crust, spicy pepperoni and gooey, hot cheese tasted delicious.
"Have you found anything?" Owen asked. "Because to be honest, I haven't. Not really."
May shook her head.
"There seems to be very little intersection between them. But maybe we're looking into this too deeply."
Munching a slice of his own pizza, Owen raised his eyebrows.
"How do you mean?" he asked.
"Maybe it's not where they intersected. Maybe it's just that they both happened to have a connection with the wrong person. A bad person. It could be that simple. They both came into frequent contact with a psychopath who targeted them. And that would surely mean it was someone who worked at the school."
"That's possible, I guess." Owen grabbed another slice and pushed the box across to May. She did the same.
"Some of the teachers taught across all the grades. Core subjects, you know? English, math, and so on. But the victims didn't share classes. As far as I can see from this curriculum there's only one class they had in common, that they both attended at the same time."
"What's that?" Owen asked.
"It was PE. For that subject, they went according to gender, not to class. And they were able to choose their activities."
"Ah." Owen said.
"They were divided into teams, and here I see Alyssa and Sadie were on the same team. This team played hockey and it was taught by Coach Adamson."
"Okay," Owen said. "So it's likely that both Sadie and Alyssa interacted frequently with Adamson."
"And at the same time," May said. “In fact, they were both in his special sports coaching class according to the curriculum here. A by-invitation-only class. Maybe that should be our starting point. We have to start somewhere, and he seems the strongest link.”
"So what do we know about Coach Adamson?" Owen asked.
"We know he teaches football, hockey, gymnastics and athletics. He has been at the school for, let me see - for four years according to this list."
"And what other details do you have?"
"He's thirty-eight years old and lives in Floral Ridge, which is about ten miles from the school."