Page 58 of Forever Gone

Connor followed her reasoning. “Age fits with the other victims.”

“Exactly.”

He returned inside.

Kelly rested both hands on the strap of her field bag. “Well, this is some first day on the job.”

Selena watched Matt unload evidence markers from his vehicle.

A day earlier, Karen Sloane had seemed like the victim of a personal attack. The removed tongue, the smashed word processor, the isolated cabin. Every detail suggested someone had wanted to silence one woman.

Ruth Keller changed the shape of everything.

“I don’t know what’s happened to this place,” Selena said. “Ever since I came back, it feels cursed.”

Kelly studied her but did not dismiss the remark. “What do we do now?”

“We treat the scenes as linked unless the evidence proves otherwise. We chase the high school connection, compare their work histories, relationships, phone records, and every person who had access to them. We find where their lives overlapped after graduation.”

“And Karen’s writing groups?”

“You keep working them. Check Ruth’s social accounts, too. Look for shared contacts, common groups, local events, anything connecting the two women.”

Kelly nodded. “All right.”

Connor disappeared back into the house.

Selena turned toward the neighboring homes. People watched from porches and windows, already carrying the news through Eagleton before the coroner’s van arrived.

Karen and Ruth were close in age. Linda Mercer fell within the same range and had already been confirmed as an Elmsview High graduate. The connection might mean nothing in a county where generations passed through the same school, but three women had now drawn their attention within two days.

Selena lowered her voice.

“We know this is a double murder. We have to follow the high school angle and hope we don’t end up with a serial killer on our hands.”

CHAPTER TEN

Late-afternoon sunlight reached through the briefing-room blinds in narrow bands, laying pale stripes across the murder board and the cluttered table beneath it.

Selena sat at the computer nearest the wall, moving between Karen Sloane’s social-media accounts, cached posts, and the preliminary results from the warrant request. Most of what she found belonged to the ordinary debris of a life conducted partly online. Birthday wishes. Photographs of meals. Complaints about delivery companies. A picture of Karen standing beside a Christmas tree three years earlier, with Gerry Tomes partly visible near the edge of the frame.

Nothing suggested fear. Nothing pointed toward a person capable of cutting out her tongue.

Across the table, Kelly worked on a county laptop borrowed from archives. The machine’s fan whined whenever she opened more than two browser windows, and the charging cable had to be held at an angle with a stapler to keep it connected. She had removed her jacket and rolled her sleeves to the forearms. A legal pad beside the keyboard carried three columns of names, dates, and group memberships.

Connor stood near the murder board with his phone against his ear. He had been listening for almost a minute, adding the occasional “uh-huh” while Selena scrolled through Karen’s contacts.

“All right,” Connor said. “Okay. Thanks, Doc.”

He ended the call.

Selena leaned back far enough to see him around the computer monitor. “Was that Blethan?”

“It was. He says he’ll have preliminaries for the second victim by tomorrow.”

“Good. We’ll go see him then. Maybe he’ll have something useful on Karen, too.”

Kelly closed one browser tab and opened another. “It’s a different speed, isn’t it?”