“You know,” he said softly, “I think we should try to get back on track here. We have a lot of work to do and not much time to do it in.”

  He tried his best smile at her, hoping she would see how earnest he was being, but instead she just turned away from him with a huff of annoyance before returning to her laptop. She began typing furiously. There wasn’t a sound in the room apart from the clicking of keys being tapped out on the keyboard.

  Jake knew there was nothing more he could do for now—all he could do was wait for Lauren’s anger to subside.

  Sometimes, being in a relationship really was a distraction for them.

  ***

  Fiona was sure there was something they’d missed. As she sat at her laptop in her hotel room, she tried to think of what other leads they could hunt down. Jake had just texted her with an update—that they had no solid leads with the dating apps, but were looking, and that she should keep doing her own thing. Fiona intended to do just that.

  The problem was, she wasn’t sure where to go from here.

  So, they were looking for someone who likely used online dating apps. But also someone who had a clean appearance and was a very clean person, with an immaculately clean place to clean the bodies and put them in body bags.

  It would be quite the ordeal, Fiona considered.

  First, the killer would have to lure the women into a private place.

  Gain their trust.

  Then assault them.

  But none of that would be clean. There would be dirt involved. The girls kicking at the ground, dirtying themselves up.

  He would have to take them to the location to clean them, then come back. He would be doing that somehow… in a vehicle…

  A vehicle…

  A thought popped into Fiona’s head. With a van or truck he could easily transport the bodies and have access to a large enough area to clean them without anyone noticing.

  He would be able to stay off the radar too—no one would suspect that he was in a truck, let alone involved in any kind of suspicious activity.

  Fiona sat back in her chair, her heart racing. She felt like she was on the brink of something big—something that could potentially solve this case for good. But before she could get too excited, Fiona reminded herself to stay focused—after all, it was still just a theory.

  She quickly did some research into possible vehicles that might fit the description and came up with several possibilities, but one that stood out more than the others.

  There was a morgue here in Portland that utilized work vans to transport bodies. Those large, white vans that could easily be transformed into a mobile home for some people. A camper.

  A van like that could also be converted into a sterilized location to clean up dead bodies.

  It seemed too good to be true. Could this really be what they’d been searching for all this time? Fiona thought back to her conversation with Jake earlier. She wanted him to know that her theories weren’t wrong and that they should trust her instincts more often. This could do just that. Finding the location of where the girls were killed would be a huge step forward—it would give them a place to start looking for more evidence, for more clues.

  But she needed to be sure. Fiona went to text Jake, but stopped herself. If she told him her theory, he’d only ask her not to come. And this wasn’t the same thing as going to a suspect’s house—this was a public building.

  Fiona would be fine on her own.

  She took a deep breath before she closed her laptop and headed out the door. She had made up her mind—she was going to the morgue.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Fiona stepped out of the cab and looked up at the building before her. The morgue was a large, gray-stone building with tall windows that stretched from one end to the other. It had an air of mystery about it, as if it were hiding something deep within its walls.

  She walked toward the entrance, taking in the details of her surroundings. The sun cast shadows on the ground, making it feel even more eerie than before. She noticed a few people walking around inside and outside of the building, but no one seemed to be paying her any attention.

  The entrance doors opened with a loud creak when she pushed them and Fiona stepped into a long hallway illuminated by dim lights hanging from the ceiling. Everything seemed to be in order. There was no mess or clutter anywhere and everything was spotless.

  The interior of the morgue was even less inviting than the outside—cold, antiseptic-smelling hallways with metal doors leading off into examination rooms or storage areas. Fiona stopped at a desk where a middle-aged woman sat typing away on her computer.

  “Can I help you?” the woman asked without looking up from her work.

  “Yes,” Fiona replied hesitantly. Feeling silly, she fished into her blouse for her lanyard, which identified her as FBI. Of course, she did not have an agent’s badge or anything like that, and there were very few situations in her career where she’d needed to show her lanyard to gain access to an area. It made her feel like an imposter.

  The woman lifted an eyebrow at her. “FBI?”

  “Yes,” Fiona managed. “I’m here to look around.”

  “Look around for…?”

  Reminding herself to stay strong and act confident, Fiona said, “Um—the vehicles you use to transport bodies,” she said. “I heard that you use vans here.”

  “We do,” the woman said. “Transport trucks too, depending on how many bodies we need to deliver and where.”

  A transport truck wouldn’t fit. No, it had to be more inconspicuous, like a van, something people may not notice driving through the streets. Fiona assumed the killer would park his van near where he’d leave the bodies, so it couldn’t be a transport truck.

  No, she was certain of it. It had to be one of those vans.

  She cleared her throat. “Yes, would you mind showing me one of them?”

  The receptionist looked at Fiona skeptically, as if she was trying to decide whether she should believe her. After a few moments of silence, the woman finally sighed and nodded. “All right,” she said. “I’ll take you to the parking garage.”

  Fiona felt relieved—the receptionist had agreed.

  Fiona followed the woman out of the morgue and into an underground parking garage. The fluorescent lights flickered overhead. Here, there were several vans parked in neat rows, each one marked with a number on its side. Fiona walked around them, inspecting them closely.

  “May I see inside one of them?” Fiona asked.

  The woman shot her a look before she pulled at the back of one of the vans, opening the door to reveal a wide, open area, lined with shelves on either side. It was immaculately clean and smelled of disinfectant—and yet, a sense of death lingered in the air too.

  One of these could easily be used by the killer.

  Fiona’s heart beat faster. She could feel it in her bones—she had found what the killer was using. It could be any of these vans, and there were clearly a lot of drivers. They would need to look at all of them and see if any one of them matched the description Beth had given.

  “Ma’am, can you do me a favor?” Fiona asked. “Do you have photographs of all your employees on record? The FBI will need a full list of people employed here.”

  The woman glowered at her, making Fiona sweat, before she grabbed Fiona’s lanyard. “Do you have the clearance to ask for something like that? It says right here, ‘Fiona Red, Forensic Specialist.’ You’re not an agent, girl.”

  Fiona’s face flushed in embarrassment. She felt like an idiot. But she was here now, and she had to stand her ground. “I will have the agent I’m working with call you,” she said. “I promise you, this is an official investigation. He is very busy. It would mean a lot if you could compile the list, so I don’t have to waste Special Agent Tucker’s time.”

  The woman sighed. “I suppose I can do that for you,” she said with a weary voice. “But I’m warning you—if this turns out to be something else entirely, and it’s just a waste of my time, then there will be consequences.”

  Fiona nodded in understanding. She knew she had to tread carefully and not push too hard, or the receptionist would refuse her request altogether.

  “I really, really appreciate it,” Fiona said.

  This seemed like their biggest milestone yet.

  ***

  Jake had been hard at work with Lauren for what seemed like forever, cross-referencing dating profiles with guys who could fit the profile they were looking for. He had a few maybes… but none who seemed quite perfect.

  He wondered what Fiona was doing. With how tense things were with Lauren, Jake didn’t want to push his luck by leaving to go check on her. The chief had put Fiona on this team for a reason, and Jake had to put some trust in her—she could do work on her own. He just hoped she didn’t throw her life in danger again.

  Jake couldn’t stop thinking about how quickly things had gone sour with Lauren, and how easily. Things like this were a huge part of why he’d been so hesitant to make things official with her for so long. And now that they were official, nothing was different.

  He could still back out.

  He could just not tell the chief.

  They could call it off.

  The thought made him sweat. Lauren had made it clear that if they didn’t make their relationship official, she’d leave him, not only as his girlfriend, but as his partner in the FBI too. He hated the thought of working without her. When they were actually getting along, they were getting along great.

  But even when they were fighting, he still couldn’t help admiring her strength and how hard she worked. She was relentless in pursuit of justice, and it made him so proud of her. She was a true force to be reckoned with, and that made him want to be a better man too.

  He missed the way she laughed, the way her eyes would light up when they were talking about a case, how easily they could go from talking business to talking about their lives. He thought of all the moments they had shared together and he knew that if he ended things with her, he’d be losing something special.

  And so Jake sighed and tried to focus on the task at hand. It was what was best for them both—for him to stay focused on work, and let Lauren do the same. He just hoped that in time, things between them would get back to normal again.

  But what even was “normal” for them? Fighting and then making up? It was exhausting.

  Jake felt confused, lost, and hurt, and even worse, none of his leads were turning into anything.

  Then Lauren said, “I think I have someone.”

  Jake looked up. Lauren’s eyes were focused on her screen.

  “The girls’ cell phone records all have used this one app called GatorDate. It’s a relatively unknown app, and almost exclusively used in Portland. They all talked to a guy on there, and I was able to get his phone records too. Jake, it’s the only app he’s used.”

  Jake came over beside Lauren. She had the guy’s file open.

  Bradley Spanos.

  A Portland resident. No criminal record. Passport showed an average-looking guy, slightly overweight, taken within the last year. He did have blond hair, which would line up with Beth’s description.

  But he worked as a garbage man for the city. Not exactly the clean, orderly person they wanted.

  “I don’t know,” Jake said. “I think we’re looking for someone who works in a sterile environment and is obsessed with cleanliness. This guy’s a garbage man. He might clean up the city’s trash, but that’s still a dirty job.”

  Lauren shook her head. “That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s not our guy. He works in sanitation, Jake. Maybe he enjoys cleaning what’s already dirty. Maybe that makes him feel complete, like he’s doing something good.”

  Jake nodded slowly in agreement, feeling more convinced by the second that maybe this Bradley Spanos was their guy after all. But something still nagged at him—he wanted to know for sure that they were doing the right thing here before making any moves.

  He took out his phone and called Beth, the girl they’d spoken to earlier—Mia’s coworker. He put it on speaker phone, and after a few rings, Beth timidly answered.

  “H-hello?”

  “Beth, this is Special Agent Tucker,” Jake said. “We spoke earlier.”

  “Oh, Agent Tucker! Yes! Is everything okay? Did you find out what happened to Mia?”

  “Not yet. Listen, Beth, if you saw a picture of the guy who came in to talk to Mia, could you identify him?”

  “I mean, maybe,” Beth said. “I never talked to him and only really saw his profile. But he was in pretty good shape and I could tell he was good-looking.”

  Jake smiled. “Okay, Beth. We have a picture of the guy we think is behind Mia’s disappearance. Could you take a look and see if it looks like him?”

  “Sure,” Beth said.

  Jake quickly sent the photo to Beth’s phone and waited for her to respond.

  “Did you get it?” he asked.

  There was a pause, and then Beth replied, “Yeah, I got it.” Another pause. Then, quietly: “Well… if that guy lost some weight… could be him… is that an old photo?”

  “Within the last year,” Jake said. He’d been thinking the same thing. Bradley looked too overweight to match the apparently fit description of the guy Mia met with.

  “Well, it’s hard to say,” Beth said. “It might be him… sorry I can’t help more.”

  “Not at all, Beth,” Jake said, exchanging a look with Lauren, who had a smug “I told you so” expression on. He ignored it and looked away. “You were great, Beth. Thanks.” Jake hung up the phone and looked at Lauren. “Well, I think we should go talk to Bradley.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  The sun was beginning to sink lower in the sky by the time Jake’s car pulled up to Bradley’s house. Lauren sat in the passenger seat, still holding that smug air about her. Jake chose to ignore it.

  He still had doubts. Beth hadn’t been entirely confident, and besides, he’d just driven halfway across town to get here. Considering all the girls had been found dead in a similar area, he assumed the killer might be a local, considering he had to take the bodies back to wherever he cleaned them before bringing them back. Driving across the city—twice—seemed like a big risk for somebody so meticulous.

  Still, he couldn’t deny that Bradley could be the one. He wasn’t about to doubt Lauren too much again, and it wasn’t like he had anything better.

  Bradley’s house looked nice from the outside—that wasn’t a huge surprise, as garbage men were compensated well for the hard work they did. The house was a neat two-story building with a light brown painted exterior and white trim. It had a garden in the front and there was a small shed in the back flanked by two tall trees that provided shade. The windows were bright and inviting, the driveway clean and well kept.

  The warning bells started going off. He was, at least from the outside, a clean guy.

  Jake and Lauren got out of the car and walked up to the door. Jake held his breath, waiting for a response.

  Nothing happened. There was no sound from within the house—not even the creak of a floorboard or the shuffling of feet. It was like the entire house had gone quiet, as if it were holding its breath, too.

  Jake tried again, this time pounding on the door with more force. Still nothing happened. He looked back at Lauren, who just shrugged her shoulders in response.

  “Maybe he’s not home,” she said with a frown, looking around them cautiously as if expecting Bradley to jump out from around one of the trees and attack them both at any moment.

  Jake sighed and turned away from the door, ready to go back to his car and consider other leads, when suddenly there was movement inside the house—the sound of footsteps coming closer to the door before stopping once again, followed by dead silence once more.

  He looked back at Lauren with wide eyes; she seemed equally surprised by this sudden turn of events. They both stood still, listening intently for any further noise coming from within Bradley’s house. He must be looking at them through the peephole.

  “Bradley?” Jake called out, knocking again. “Bradley Spanos?”

  After a moment, Bradley answered the door, poking a head out.

  He looked different from his passport photo.

  As theorized, he had lost weight. He looked tall and surprisingly muscular, although his posture still lacked the confidence Jake had envisioned when Beth described the man Mia met. But that didn’t mean anything. It could all be a ruse.

  Jake held out his badge, along with Lauren. “Special Agent Jake Tucker, FBI. This is my partner, Special Agent Lauren Price.”

  Bradley nodded, scanning them. “Can I help you?”

  Jake peered into the house behind Bradley. It was spotless. His throat tightened as he looked into the man’s eyes, wondering if behind that apprehensive blue gaze was the mind of a killer. A serial murderer who had taken three innocent lives and left their bodies semi-embalmed in body bags.

  “Mind if we ask you a few questions?” Jake asked.

  Bradley opened the door more. “What about?”

  Jake exchanged a look with Lauren, who nodded. She took out her phone and held up a picture of Mia. “Do you know this woman?”

  Bradley looked at the photo, no emotion crossing his brow. “No?”

  “Are you sure?” Jake asked, putting his hands in his pockets. “You two matched on a dating app called GatorDate?”

  Bradley’s face suddenly fell. Then, before Jake could react, he attempted to slam the door shut.

  Jake didn’t think—he just held out his hand, preventing the door from closing.

  Holy shit.

  This could really be their guy.

  But surprisingly, Bradley didn’t run away. He just shot them a look.

  “Hey, you can’t just like, do that,” he said.

  “What are you hiding, Bradley?” Jake asked. “Why’d you try to close the door on us?”

  “Because this is creepy, man,” Bradley said, his face getting red. “What the hell is this, huh? You think you can just knock on someone’s door and ask about private apps on their phone? How’d you even know I used that stupid thing?”

 

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