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ONE
“I STILL DON’T BELIEVE it. It’s like living in a nightmare.”
“You are living in a nightmare, Mila,” Imogen Stratford said. “No one should have to endure this.”
Four days ago, cops pulled the body of Mila’s roommate from a dumpster. The bereaved friend stood fixated on the coffeepot. Blank. Aimless. Completely on pause. Grief had a way of sucking the oxygen from a room. How did someone process such a devastating event?
Three days ago, she’d come to the apartment for the story no one else wanted to tell. No one cared. No one except her. As an investigative reporter with The Chronicler, it was her job to be intrigued by a puzzle, but this case was more than that. Since meeting Mila, a much more profound sense of duty thrummed within her. They were the same age. Had so much in common. The victims could be her friends. Her cousins. Could be her.
“When Steph was missing, I thought I’d do anything just to know, you know?” Spoon in hand, Mila stared into nothingness. “Now, knowing, hope’s gone. Just pulled right out from under me. I didn’t think it would feel like this. She’s dead. I know she’s dead, but… What her family must be going through.”
Stephanie Weet, the deceased, wasn’t close with her family. They were middle class. Respectable. Stephanie was a paralegal. Good job. Nice apartment. Nothing in her history suggested substance misuse or addiction. Law enforcement hadn’t released her cause of death, but she had it on good authority there was foul play. Not that she needed official confirmation. The victim hadn’t died in her sleep. A dumpster was not somewhere a person like Stephanie died naturally.
“It’s a terrible time for all of you,” she said, stroking Mila’s back in comfort. “You need time to grieve. Did she have a boyfriend?”
Mila snapped from her daze. “Cops said they talked to him. I don’t know, it’s just… He came around looking for her, you know, when she was missing? He avoided the cops though. I don’t know how they found him.”
Wouldn’t be the first time a perpetrator stuck close to a victim’s loved ones, despite knowing they were already dead.
“Maybe they knew him. What’s his name?”
“I only knew him as Bryan,” Mila said, picking up her phone to scroll through it. “They were going out a couple of months, but he never spent time here. Not much time. Overnight every once in a while. She could’ve done so much better. He wasn’t even that hot.” She handed over the phone. “What do you think?”
“Uh…” In the screen’s foreground, Stephanie smiled, wearing glasses… Her new glasses, that she’d picked up from the optometrist less than a week before she disappeared. In the background, a frowning guy in profile held a phone to his ear. “Nothing special.”
“Right?” Mila said, looking at the screen, tears gathering in her eyes again. “I can’t believe she’s really gone.”
“Oh, honey.” Compelled to pull her into a hug, someone had to do the job of comforting Mila, now Stephanie wasn’t around to do it. “They’ll find the bastard who did this.”
Iftheydidn’t, she would. Somehow.
“People keep saying that, but…” Pulling away, Mila wiped her eyes with a sleeve. “Do they ever? I mean, can they ever be sure they will? If it was some crazy, spur of the moment, wrong place, wrong time thing, at least we’d know it was a crime of passion or some psycho lost control of himself, but… The injuries she had…” Shaking her head, the grief became disbelief. “They tortured her. Whatever happened to her wasn’t quick.”
Details had not been fully released to the press or the public. Those closest to the victim were provided more information. She understood why it was that way, that someone might want to know what their friend or family member endured. But did it make it easier? She wasn’t sure.
“I’m sorry for her pain and for yours.”
“Why would someone do that? What kind of sick animal would…? And Stephanie? Why Stephanie? She’s the kindest, sweetest… was the kindest…”
Another daze.
The least she could do was pour the coffee. She eased Mila aside to do just that. The woman may not drink it, coffee wouldn’t ease her grief, but it was something. Something to fill the void of futility. Still, somehow, it didn’t feel right to do something so mundane given their topic of conversation.
“Stephanie didn’t deserve it.” She pushed a coffee to Mila. “I know some cops. I can try to find out more.”
The family was best placed to get further details about Stephanie. Often loved ones had to pester the precinct and assigned detectives for broad strokes, but they usually got them in the end. Most of the time. Specifics were harder to come by. Good thing she had a lot of practice finagling things from cops. Anything she learned could take them closer to nailing the perp.
One thing she hadn’t shared with Mila was her own hunch.
This wasn’t a random killing. It wasn’t an isolated murder. Other women had died in the past few months under similar circumstances. The cops hadn’t put it together, wouldn’t put it together despite her bringing it up more than once. It wouldn’t be fair to scare or upset Mila with her theories. Not until she had evidence.
“Has he been back? This Bryan guy? Have you seen him since they found Stephanie?”
Since they found her body.
Mila picked up the coffee and wrapped her hands around the heat of the mug, propping a hip on the counter. “No. I haven’t seen him at all.”
If he was a real boyfriend, a genuinely concerned boyfriend, she’d expect him to pay his respects. To send flowers. To be near others who knew her like he did. Then again, two months wasn’t exactly a lifetime. Could be he didn’t feel it was his right.
