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Sylvie and Bit both turned their chairs around to face Brook.
When it came right down to it, he hadn’t broken any laws in obtaining the patients’ names. He’d gone about doing so in a roundabout way by contacting the software company that Dr. Kolsby’s private practice hired to store their patients’ information. Bit had been truthful in that he worked in IT. He wasn’t to blame for their misunderstanding that his position wasn’t technically with the psychiatry practice.
While he was going over the phone conversation in his head once more to confirm that the firm couldn’t get in trouble should it ever get out that he’d acquired the names of Dr. Kolsby’s patients, he caught Brook staring at him as she stood behind Sylvie’s chair. It was almost as if she’d asked him a question and was waiting for his reply. It wasn’t until her focus drifted toward the monitor over his shoulder that he sprang into action.
“Is that security footage of—“
“Nope.”
Bit breathed a sigh of relief when Sylvie came to his rescue. He’d witnessed the crease in Brook’s forehead, and he didn’t want to be the reason that her bad mood the last few days returned with a vengeance. He’d didn’t need that kind of negativity during the holidays.
“Does anyone want a cup of tea? Coffee? Brook, can I bring you back a cup?”
“No, thank you.” Brook shook her head as if to say the previous subject wasn’t worth bringing back up. “Bit,youtextedme. Remember?”
“Yes!” Bit exclaimed, snapping his fingers when it hit him why she’d been staring at him so intently. “Kolsby and Cranston have been friends for years. They were actually hired the same year by the hospital back in the day. It wasn’t until seven years afterward that Kolsby started his own practice, although he still consults for the hospital. Get this. Brett Kolsby and Cranston’s only son—Devin Cranston—were best friends in high school. They still run in the same circles.”
By the time that Bit was able to catch Brook up on what he’d discovered through various search engines, Sylvie had exited his office. He hoped that she wasn’t making him a cup of tea. His stomach couldn’t handle any right now, especially when he’d just placed an order for chicken tacos. It was a little early for lunch, but he was starving after skipping breakfast. A chime rang out from one of the sound bars, and he rotated the chair around with a single push off the floor.
“Uh, Boss? You’re going to want to see this.” Bit scooted to the side so that Brook could step closer to the monitor. “I created a program to match other missing women with Natalie Thorne’s physical description. Needless to say, a lot of people go missing in any given year. But, I narrowed the field by age, distance, and any connection to the hospital or Dr. Kolsby’s private practice.”
“And?”
“A twenty-two-year-old woman by the name of Laura Keery went missing nine months ago.” Bit stared at the one detail that separated the woman from the other missing persons that the search program was sorting through. “Boss, get this…she was a nursing student who interned for the same hospital.”
Chapter Sixteen
Brooklyn Sloane
December 2022
Wednesday — 7:52pm
Lightjazzmusicdriftedthroughout the condo, its soothing sounds falling somewhat short of its desired effect. After giving the upcoming dinner arrangements more thought, Brook had found herself picking up the phone on several occasions to cancel on Graham. It would be a pointless meal when neither one of them could plan more than a week at a time. He’d lost his wife and daughter in the span of a very short time. Back-to-back funerals had been held, and the emotional trauma that he’d been handed would have crushed the soul of a weaker man.
The last thing that Graham should be doing was getting involved with a woman whose only commitment in life was to her brother’s capture and subsequent punishment. It didn’t matter that her intention was to bring Jacob to justice. Whether that would be behind bars or six feet under was still up for negotiation, but it didn’t negate the fact that he was her sole focus.
She spent almost every waking moment thinking about Jacob.
Obsessing over him.
Even she could recognize that her fixation wasn’t healthy, but she wasn’t going to alter her objective.
Brook took a hefty sip of her cheap Moscato wine that she’d purchased earlier today. She hadn’t bothered to give a reason as to why she’d been leaving the office earlier than usual. Considering she was usually still at her desk well after midnight, she could see the team’s cause for concern. Still, it was no one’s business but her own who she had dinner with and what she did on her personal time.
“Who are you kidding?” Brook murmured to herself as she pulled on the oven door to get a better look at the top layer of cheese that had melted over the meat sauce and lasagna noodles. “They probably think that you’re having a mental breakdown.”
Brook closed the oven door.
Needing something to do besides question her own decisions, she walked out of the kitchen toward the dining room table. She’d removed her laptop, all the files that she’d had in numerous stacks, and the various spools of color-coded strings that she used when pinning something to the murder board.
Technically, the dining room wallwasthe murder board.
The wall that she and Graham would be staring at during their dinner.
“This was a terrible idea,” Brook whispered as she took another sip of her wine. “This is what happens when you veer off course, Brook. You crash and burn.”
She didn’t even want to imagine what her therapist would think about her having a conversation with herself. It was probably best if she didn’t even bring up this dinner. Dr. Swift would only try to put an odd DMS-inspired label on it.
