“Smart,” Tristan said, throwing Ashlyn an approving look before shifting his attention back to the television mirroring Marty’s laptop.
“No rocks,” Shayne said as Marty scrolled through Megan’s old work.
“Looks like she used birthstones for most of her work,” Ashlyn said, slowly exhaling as she rubbed her hands down her face.
“Pull up the images from the murder near Winter Falls Tavern,” Tristan said as Marty clicked on the last image on Megan’s website.
A few seconds later, official images of the murder scene popped up on the screen. They watched as Marty rotated the picture, zoomed in and-
“No rocks,” Shayne said as he quickly scanned the grass for the familiar rock.
“Pull up another case,” Tristan said, folding his arms over his chest as he scanned the image one last time.
“Which one?” Marty asked after a slight hesitation.
“Doesn’t matter,” Tristan said as Marty pulled up another file of a missing girl, zoomed in and-
“There,” Shayne said, pointing to the scattered rocks among the debris. They watched as Marty zoomed in and hit scan. Seconds later, “Black Basalt Stone” appeared across the screen while Shayne tried to figure out what the rocks meant. They were going to have to-
“Eight,” Ashlyn suddenly announced only to add, “There are eight rocks in each of the pictures,” when Tristan sent her a questioning look.
“Are you sure?” Tristan asked as he shifted his gaze back to the television.
“Positive,” Ashlyn said as Shayne counted the rocks and-
Eight.
“Pull up another case,” Tristan said, watching as Marty quickly clicked out of the file and opened another random file. She quickly clicked on the police images, found the picture of the spot where Mary Jenkins was last seen alive, zoomed in and-
“Eight rocks,” Tristan murmured absently, looking lost in thought. “Pull up one of the cases we dismissed because the body was found.”
Marty opened a file for one of the dead girls, opened the image of the crime scene and-
No rocks.
“We need to go through all eighty-nine cases again,” Tristan said, ramming his fingers through his hair as Ashlyn moved to step away, and after a slight hesitation, Shayne let her go. Without a word, she made her way back to the couch, pausing by the coffee table to help herself to a legal pad and a pen before dropping back down on the couch.
“I’m ready when you are,” she said, making a quick note on the legal pad.
“It’s going to be a long night,” Marty said, closing the file and scrolled down to the bottom of the list and opened the first file while Shayne stood there, going over everything and-
They were missing something.
As they started going through the files, Shayne made his way to the office across the foyer without a word and closed the doors behind him. Before the doors had a chance to click shut behind him, Aidan and Liam were there.
“What’s going on?” Liam asked as Shayne made his way to the desk.
“I can’t explain it, but I’ve got a feeling that we’re missing something,” Shayne said as Aidan disappeared only to reappear in the desk chair.
“Just tell me what we’re looking for,” Aidan said, quickly turning on the computer.
“Pull up the map of all eighty-nine cases and take out the Winter Falls Tavern case since we’ve already ruled that out along with the cases where they were either found alive or they found a body,” Shayne said, watching as his brother quickly sorted the cases.
“What now?” Aidan asked, glancing over his shoulder to send him a questioning look.
“Put the map on the television,” Shayne said, grabbing the remote off the desk and turned on the flatscreen television mounted on the wall.
“What are ye thinking, lad?” Liam asked as they took in all the areas marked in red.
