“Tattletale,”Shayne mouthed, forcing Ashlyn to bite back a smile as she grabbed another handful of popcorn only to follow that up with a satisfied sigh, mostly because she couldn’t help herself. There was just something about pissing off the man who enjoyed screwing with her head that brought a smile to her face.
“I requested the digital copies of all the files once they knew what to look for,” Marty began, drawing Ashlyn’s attention back to the flatscreen television in time to watch Marty open a folder,revealing the names of all the missing girls that had made the cut. Ashlyn quickly noted that there were fifty-nine.
“We also uploaded the files from your memory stick and combined them so that we could fill in any missing pieces,” Marty continued as Ashlyn sat there, slowly nodding as she placed the bowl of popcorn on the end table and took in everything that they’d been working on.
“From that, we used a crime mapping program to mark all eighty-seven cases and added the extra ones that you were given,” Marty explained as a map of the northeastern part of the United States popped up with red dots indicating the last known location for all the missing women.
“Then, we removed the ones that didn’t match the criteria,” Marty said, clicking option B on the screen and in seconds, around thirty red dots immediately disappeared.
“There’s no pattern,” Ashlyn murmured absently as she took in all the red dots scattered across the map. There were some in New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire.
“No, there isn’t,” Tristan said, taking over. “But, from what we do have, we were able to narrow the timeline down to twenty-two years. The victims are all women, ranging from ages sixteen to sixty-four. They come from different ethnicities, religions, and economic backgrounds. They have absolutely nothing in common except for having the misfortune to catch some asshole’s attention.”
“How did you come up with this list?” Ashlyn asked, gesturing to the stack of files on the coffee table.
“They were all taken within two miles of high-end restaurants and high-end restaurant supply companies and all of them were grabbed in a downtown area,” Tristan explained while Ashlyn sat there, thinking about everything she’d just learned.
“Megan wasn’t grabbed in a downtown area. She was grabbed at King William’s Faire,” Ashlyn pointed out as Marty pulled up the pictures the police took right after she was reported missing.
“Which is why her case is out,” Tristan said, reaching over and picked up the file on top and dropped it on the other end of the coffee table.
“Julia Mason was supposed to attend a luncheon at The Meridian Bistro that the company she was interning with held for new interns, but she never arrived,” Ashlyn said, bringing up the reason why she was here in the first place.
“She sent a text message to her father, letting him know that she was lost before she disappeared,” Tristan said as Marty brought up images of Julia cutting through an alleyway, the last images anyone had of her alive, before switching to the pictures the police took at the end of the alleyway and-
“Oh, fuck me...”
CHAPTER 17
“Zoom in on the bottom right corner, lass,” Shayne said, moving closer to the screen even as he told himself that it couldn’t be this fucking easy.
“What’s up?” Tristan asked, joining him.
“Not sure yet,” Shayne said, watching as Marty adjusted the screen and zoomed in on the bottom right corner.
“Zoom in again, lass,” Shayne said, keeping his eyes on the right-hand corner as he watched her zoom in on it again.
“Again,” he said absently as he watched her zoom in on the alleyway floor again.
“What does that look like ta ye?” Shayne asked as he pointed to the screen.
“Rocks,” Tristan said, frowning as he took in the black rocks scattered amongst the trash lining the wall.
“Go back ta Megan’s pictures, lass,” Shayne said as he felt Ashlyn join them.
“What am I looking for?” Marty asked as Shayne stepped back so that Ashlyn could step in front of him and nearly fucking groaned when he caught the scent of lemongrass.
“The pictures the police took of the area at the back of her tent after she went missing and the ones Ashlyn took. I needthem side by side if ye can manage that, lass,” Shayne said, watching as Marty made quick work of pulling up the images and placed them side by side.
“There,” Shayne said, gesturing to the worn area behind her tent. “Zoom in on that.”
“More rocks,” Tristan murmured as they took in the smooth black rocks scattered over the dirt.
“Right here, lass,” Shayne said, pointing to the image that Ashlyn took months later and watched as Marty zoomed in on the rocks that were now sticking out of the ground.
“They’re rocks. What am I missing?” Ashlyn asked, frowning as she glanced between the two images.
“They’re not just rocks, lass,” Shayne said, placing a hand on her hip as he moved closer so that he could reach past her and point at the rocks. “They’re smooth.”
