Marie screeched with joy. “Oh my God, it’s snowing!”
She threw herself at the window and pressed her nose against the glass. Snowflakes drifted from the sky and alighted on the railing. Within minutes, a white glaze coated the balcony.
“This is perfect,” Marie sighed happily. “Our wedding photos will be absolutely gorgeous in this weather.”
Perhaps it was the warm food in my belly, or the champagne in my glass, or Marie’s contagious joy, but my anxiety finally settled. As we watched Marie gaze lovingly at the sky, I caught Evelyn’s eye. She smiled, and everything seemed okay.
A low buzz interrupted the moment, and Evelyn pulled her phone out. She frowned at the screen. “Damn it,” she muttered. “I’ve got to go take care of something.”
“Right now?” Marie asked. “But we haven’t finished breakfast!”
Evelyn slipped her arms into the sleeves of her winter coat. “It’s for work. I’ll be back as soon as I can. I promise.”
Kate stirred her coffee so vigorously that the hot liquid sloshed over the side of the cup and ran over her fingers. She hissed, sucking on her burned flesh, and tossed the entire paper cup into the trash bin, though she had not taken a single sip.
“Not exactly as easy-going as I thought you’d be this morning,” I commented, taking a table by the window of the coffee shop and gesturing for her to join me. “I figured you’d be over the moon about solving your case.”
Kate gazed regretfully into the garbage can. She reached out, as if to fetch her coffee, but sat instead. “I would be if Wolf and Fletcher would talk to us. They’re refusing to admit to anything, even though you caught Fletcher red-handed.”
I slid my coffee across the table to Kate. She needed it more than I did. “What are they saying?”
“Nothing.” She nodded thankfully and took a sip. “They won’t tell us a damn thing, which doesn’t make them look too good. As a result, we haven’t been able to recover any of the missing women.”
“Angelica Taylor called,” I informed her. “She’s safe.”
Kate’s forehead wrinkled. “I don’t understand.”
I gave her the details I’d heard from Marie and Evelyn that morning, but Kate didn’t seem convinced.
“Where did she call from?” she asked. “Did you see anything in the background? Other people? Have you asked the boyfriend if she went home?”
“I didn’t speak to her, but Marie is convinced she’s okay.”
Kate slumped in her chair. She did not wear the face of a woman who’d recently apprehended a killer and the mastermind behind the murders. On the contrary, the deep circles beneath her eyes and her general air of discontent made her seem more exhausted than ever.
“If you can get me the number Angelica called from, I would appreciate it,” she said. “I’d like to follow up with her.”
“Sure. Anything else I can do?”
Kate studied me with keen eyes. “You didn’t get paid for this case. Why do you do what you do?”
“My mom was murdered by a serial killer,” I said. “It took me a long time to come to terms with it. I guess I want to stop other people from having to feel the same way. Or if someone does die, I want justice for their friends and family. Whether I’m paid doesn’t matter.”
“That’s why I got into this field too,” she said. “I’m new to detective work, but it wears you out quickly. Be careful. Keep your head above water, and let your friends help you.”
“I will. Thanks.”
Kate’s advice ricocheted through my mind as I left the coffee shop. When it came down to it, I had a single friend that really mattered to me: Evelyn. As for family, my mother was gone and my father lived in Washington D.C. with his new wife and stepdaughters. I didn’t fit in when them, and I didn’t want to. Evelyn, on the other hand, had become my family.
But something had changed between me and Evelyn in the last two years. Ever since I moved to London, our friendship missed a lack of openness on her part. I shared almost everything with her—unless I did something for a case that I knew she wouldn’t approve of—but Evelyn always seemed to be keeping secrets. She no longer trusted me with the full spectrum of her life events, and I was starting to feel our equality slipping through the cracks.
Little did Evelyn know, I’d swiped her phone two days before and activated location-sharing. Within a few seconds, I found Evelyn’s present position. According to the map, she was in Glencoe, Illinois, a suburb north of downtown about thirty-five minutes away. I deliberated, shivering on the sidewalk as I watched the blue dot that marked Evelyn’s location pulse on my phone screen. Did I dare follow her?
My fingers made the decision before my head did as I tapped on the Lyft app, punched in the closest address to Evelyn, and called for a ride. Five minutes later, the car arrived, and I was on my way to Glencoe.
The suburb raised my eyebrows. From some quick research during the drive, I’d discovered that Glencoe was one of the most expensive places to live in Illinois. Enormous brick houses towered over clean streets, each one with gaping windows, balconies, and detached garages. Sparkling expensive cars whizzed by or stood gleaming in driveways. Women in fur coats walked tiny white dogs that yapped at every wayward leaf. Evelyn, in all her muscular glory and casual clothes, would stand out like a sore thumb in these parts. What on earth was she doing here?
I had the driver drop me off at a corner store near Evelyn’s location, watching my map as I walked toward the pulsing blue dot. When I was almost on top of it, I lifted my head and looked across the street. There, sitting at a window bar in
