I love a great love story.

  I paid in cash, stuck the bill on my desk, and headed back out the door.

  My phone rang.

  Teagan.

  “Hey, did you get them?”

  “Get who?”

  “Your shoes, dingleberry.”

  “Oh, crap, I forgot.”

  “How can you forget your shoes? I told you that they would sell out. You need to go over there right now. They’ll be open in about ten minutes. They might still have them in clodhopper size.”

  “My feet aren’t that big. I only wear a nine and a half.”

  “That’s pretty big.”

  “No, your shoes are pretty small. I’m amazed you don’t fall forward, being top heavy and everything.”

  “Me, too.”

  “So, how did it go with Jessie last night? Are you a happy woman again, or are you still jealous?”

  “Jealous?”

  “You said you were all upset about some other woman.”

  “Cara, I don’t do jealous. I wasn’t worried that Jessie was attracted to some other woman. How stupid is that? If he wants some other woman, he’s welcome to her, just stay the hell away from me. I don’t play that game, and you know it.”

  “Then I’m confused. What were we talking about?”

  “The stupid woman is from work. She wants him to relocate. She has offered him this great opportunity. I think he’s thinking about it. I can’t have a long-distance life, Cara. What if he decides to take it? What if he decides not to take it and misses this huge opportunity because of me?”

  “What does he say?”

  “He says not to worry, we’ll work it out.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “This is a conversation that we have to have in person. Do you want to do lunch? Dinner?”

  “What about A.J.?”

  “What about him?”

  “Do you have plans?”

  “Nope. As a matter of fact, he’s probably busy tonight, probably needs to check on Nana.”

  “Nana?”

  “Long story, tell you when I see you. When will that be?”

  “Dinner. You want to go out?”

  “I’d rather stay in. I don’t want to talk about all this stuff in public. Oh, and are we going to do something for Morgan? I know she cancelled the wedding shower, and I respect that. I know it was just too hard for her because her family wouldn’t come, but we should do something.”

  “We’ll talk about it tonight.”

  “See you then.”

  “And, Cara? Go get the shoes!”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I went straight to the shoe store. Got there as the woman was unlocking the front door. I think my rapid approach kind of scared her, but when I went straight to the shoes I wanted, didn’t even try them on, and headed for the cash register, she seemed to understand I was in a bit of a hurry. She looked less than thrilled when I asked what the return policy is.

  “If you are concerned they won’t fit, or will be uncomfortable, you can try them on now.”

  “I’d love to, but I don’t have time. The truth is, if they don’t make my feet bleed, I’ll keep them. They’re for a wedding. I’m only ever going to wear them once, so they really don’t have to be perfect. My sister says these are the ones I should wear.”

  She looked at my credit card. “O’Flynn. You’re Teagan’s sister?”

  “Yep.”

  “She’s one of my favorite customers.”

  “I’m sure she’s one of your best customers, as well.”

  We laughed.

  “She has a pair of shoes on hold right now. She called and had me put them aside.”

  “I’ll take them. I’m meeting her tonight. I’ll give them to her then.”

  “Great.”

  I almost had a heart attack when I saw the total, signed the slip anyway, took the shoes, and ran for my car.

  I texted Teagan, let her know I got my shoes and her shoes, and that I’d see her later.

  I texted A.J. and let him know that the front door lock was changed and that I needed to know if he wanted me to drop a copy of the key off at the office, or if he wanted to meet somewhere, or if I could just make sure I was home when he got home and let him in the front door.

  I called Adeline to see if she needed me to drop by. She sounded great, said that she had a full day planned, was going to do some painting, and would see me in a few days.

  I called Jovana, let her know about Adeline, and asked if there was anything she needed from me. She said she’d need my help tomorrow, but for today, I was a free woman.

  I called Steph back, hoping I could pick up the journals. Her assistant said that she’d gotten my voicemail and that the journals were waiting for me.

  Back at the apartment, my day to myself, a slow cook roast in the oven for dinner, I sat down at the computer with the journals, determined to unlock their mystery.

  I created a table in my word processor and started to enter all the information I found about each of the girls. Everybody thinks that the key to a crime is most often in the minutia, so the way to solve it is to sift through the stuff and find where it matches. I’ve almost convinced myself that I can do this. Almost.

  I did five rows and five columns and then started sorting the information and ended up with a hot mess.

  On to Plan B.

  I grabbed a bunch of colored index cards out of a hatbox. I bought them when I was going to write eulogies for a living. I figured that I would keep all the different clients straight by assigning a different color to each client. That didn’t go anywhere, yet, but I have the cards.

  I assigned a color to each name. I started writing down the details that were chronicled in the journals. Once I got a bunch of them done I stopped, sorted each color into alphabetical order. It is, admittedly, an old school approach, but it was working for me.

  I really need to learn how to use a computer better.

  With new confidence that I was onto something, I filled out more and more cards for each girl. I had quite a stack by the time I was done with the first journal.

  I sorted all the cards, stepped away from them so that their meaning could crystallize in my wee little brain, had a cup of tea, checked my phone for messages, and then sat back down with all the information.

  It told me a whole lot of nothing.

  Frustrated, and determined to use the computer to help me though this conundrum, I logged on to the Internet and started searching again, for anything I could think of.

  Nothing.

  Another cup of tea.

  I was trying to push this whole mess to my conclusion, trying to make the puzzle match the image I had in my mind. That isn’t how my life works. Just like Teagan said, my talent comes in seeing things sideways. Everyone else tries to make the bubblegum puzzle, and I figure out it’s marbles, or whatever she said.

  I need to stop trying so hard. Relax. Let the answers come to me.

  I went into the kitchen. Peeled some potatoes. Took the butter out of the fridge so it would be soft enough for dinner. Stood up to the temptation to scrub something and went back to the table.

  I took all the index cards and shuffled them, then looked at them with new eyes.

  Nothing.

  I went online and tried to find something, anything, new about the crimes. That was really frustrating. Every time I typed in a name, the first thing to come up was one stupid social network thing or another. When I added the word ‘murder’ to the names, I got everything from news articles to death notices, but nothing new.

  Another cup of tea, and it dawned on me that I was still trying to push this thing where I wanted it to go.

  If the first thing that comes up is a social network, then I need to take a few minutes and look at it and see if it tells me anything.

  I spent the next hour creating an account and looking at all the girl’s pages.

  Nothing.

  Frustrated, I decided it was time to scrub something. Either that or throw the computer out the window.

  I scrubbed.

  Nothing came to me, but I felt better.

  A.J. texted and said that he was going to go to his grandmother’s for dinner, since I wouldn’t be alone at the house.

  Teagan showed up right on time; there was no doubt that she would since there was food involved.

  While I mashed the potatoes, Teagan paraded around in her new shoes, and we talked murder. She listened intently when I listed all the steps I’d been through trying to figure all this out.

  Once at the table, we moved on to the subject of Morgan and what we were going to do to celebrate her upcoming nuptials since she wasn’t going to allow us to throw her a shower. We decided that sometimes you just have to allow people their own decisions no matter how un-O’Flynn-like that is. We would have the good grace to do nothing. Until after the wedding, ‘cause after the wedding she will be an O’Flynn, and then we will be her family, and we will all show up to her post-wedding shower. It will be great.

  We were about two minutes into the planning of the post-wedding shower when Teagan said, “I have a question.”

  “Yeah?”

  “If those girls have all been dead for a while, but you still found them on that networking site, why are they still there? Are people still leaving comments? Can we see them? Maybe our weirdo is leaving comments on their pages. They say a sociopath will show up at the crime scene and even ask if he can help the cops. Maybe our crazy guy is on the web.”

  “Wouldn’t that be spooky? I said I was going to find the killer of Mrs. Ivy-Rosenbloom on the web. Maybe I was just off on the victim, not on the process.”

  “That’s a hell of a leap.”

  “Some of us can land a leap. We aren’t prancing around in five-inch heels.”

  “Don’t you love ‘em? Eat. As soon as we’re done, let’s take another look at those pages, at least the ones we can access.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, some of them must be set to private. Not everyone on a networking site wants the world to see into their private life. I have mine set so that only family can get into it.”

  “I didn’t think about that.”

  “That’s because you still use a computer like it’s going to blow up on you or something. You act like it’s your enemy. I don’t even know why you bother to have one.”

  “I don’t either. Most days I don’t even turn it on.”

  “That tells you everything you need to know. I never turn mine off.”

  “All of them had active pages, open to the public. Is that really weird or just a coincidence?”

  “That’s pretty weird. I bet if you check ten women our age, at least half of them will be private.”

  “Maybe someone changed them to public when they died.”

  “That’s another thing. They’re password protected, so who would have the password to change it to public, if they would want to, and why would you?”

  “So that people can leave their condolences?”

  “A friend would start a separate page for that.”

  “Then I guess it’s weird.”

  “Cara, I’ll bet whoever killed them found them on that site.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You don’t sound too convinced.”

  “I’ve heard of that. They had a couple of cases where women were found on that list thing and were killed, but doesn’t that seem just a little pat? If that were the case, some cop certainly would have figured it out. They probably check on networking sites first thing.”

  “True.”

  “So we’re back to square one.”

  “Well, just because it would be a little cliché, doesn’t mean it isn’t what happened, and since when did you start taking everything at face value?”

  “You’re right.”

  “See, you are being weird. You, admitting I’m right without even putting up a little fight? This isn’t good.”

  We finished our dinner. Teagan, convinced that her shoes were everything she could want in a five-inch heel, didn’t even change them before she ran out to her car to get her laptop. She wanted to sit next to me and open two windows on her computer and two on mine so we could compare and contrast the victim’s pages.

  Seemed like a good idea.

  We couldn’t find anything they had in common with each other, as far as what they liked, or their listed interests, or the comments they made.

  I was about to give up when something caught my eye.

  One of the friends mentioned near the bottom of one girl’s page was on another girl’s page.

  We did a search of her name, nothing.

  Teagan’s voice was all weird as she stared at her screen. “Maybe she deleted her account, or maybe she is lying somewhere with her legs all akimbo.”

  She started typing away, and within a few minutes, she explained to me that deleting yourself from the site was a little trickier than you would think, and although it has been improved, it isn’t straightforward.

  She read from something online and said that there’s a chance that the person we’d found had tried to delete all their comments and everything connected to them and had simply missed a few.

  While Teagan searched for more answers, I went through and read the comments more carefully.

  I was shocked to find that same name sprinkled on another girl’s page, another girl from my list.

  Teagan was convinced that we were onto something.

  I was convinced that if it was that simple, the cops would have found it long ago.

  Teagan explained that when people try to erase themselves, their information was gone for a while, and then comes back. She said that once you put yourself out there on the Internet, the information really never goes away; sometimes it’s just hidden for a while. Then you log back on to the account for some reason, or sometimes you can even go to a whole other site and don’t realize that it is linked to the social networking site through cookies or something, and all that stuff you thought went away is right back where it was.

  I pointed out that was all the more reason for me not to get all computer-involved.

  Teagan stood up so fast her chair went flying. “What’s Jerkface’s name?”

  “Joe.”

  “I know that, dingleberry. What is his last name?”

  “Brandon, no wait, Branden with an ‘e.’ Why?”

  “The girl, the one that shows up on the different pages of the murdered girls, her maiden name is Branden.”

  “Where did you find that?”

  “I did a search for the name, and that came back with all kinds of listings, and one of the listings was local, so I chose it, and if you do a search on that, then it comes back with the maiden name Branden.”

  “Talk about a leap. I did a search of my name once, and there are a bunch of us. I always assumed Cara Siobhan O’Flynn would be rare, but it isn’t.”

  “It’s worth checking out.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “Well, one of the sites will give us all her background information for less than fifty dollars.”

  “I’m not spending fifty dollars to run a background check on a complete stranger. That’s just creepy.”

  “You have any other ideas on how to find out if Jerkface even has a sister?”

  “Oh, he has a sister. He said it was her at the cemetery that day he was following me. He said he borrowed her truck so that he could move something and that she was driving his car.”

  “A girl with a truck?”

  “Some girls drive trucks, Teagan.”

  “I know that, dingleberry.”

  “I thought when you did your research on serial murderers, you said that women kill their husbands and boyfriends but not random strangers.”

  “If she’s on their sites, she isn’t a stranger.”

  “Good point.”

  “You have to believe that if she was on their site, people knew about her, and that she would have come to the investigators’ attention. We’re getting ourselves all whacked out about nothing. Remember the whole thing with the tag numbers? They matched, or at least some of the letters did, but it didn’t mean anything. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

  “Agreed, but we would be stupid not to at least tell Steph and have her investigator check it out.”

  “Better him than us.”

  “True.”

  “You want to call, or you want me to?”

  Teagan smiled. “You can.”

  “Thanks. I’ll do that right now.”

  “I think we should lock the journals up again. You want me to drop them off to Steph on my way home?”

  “You live right down the street. It isn’t exactly on your way home.”

  “It would have been more accurate to say on my way to Jessie’s home.”

  “I thought he left town.”

  “The meeting was delayed. He leaves tomorrow.”

  “Then what are you doing here instead of being with him?”

  “He’s at work. I’m going to meet with him later.”

  “Are you sure you don’t mind dropping this stuff off to Steph? I haven’t told anyone who she is, so as far as I know, we aren’t putting her in any danger.”

  “I’ll drop ‘em off on my way. You give her a call. Make sure that she’s going to be home or at the office, text me, and I’ll know where to dump them. Don’t forget to tell her what we found so that she can have her investigator check it out.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Anything else we can do?”

  “Not really.”

  “Then I’m going to take off. You want cash for the shoes? I can give it to you tomorrow, or I can write a check right now.”

  “I don’t care which. I’m just gonna put it to my credit card anyway.”

  She sat down and wrote out a check, stuffed her old shoes in the new shoebox, stuffed the box in one bag, the journals in another, and headed for the door.

  She didn’t even ask to see my dress on me, or my shoes with it, or anything.

  Weird.

  “You want to take the roast? You can make sandwiches.”

  “You better save it for A.J.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yep.”

  Time to worry. Teagan turning down food is unprecedented.