They’re going to take the brother down to the morgue to confirm.”
I felt sick to my stomach.
The girl that’d gone missing was one of Ares’ students.
“That girl was a mother,” I said softly. “She had a three-month-old. She went to Ares’ school.”
My father gasped. “She was?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “She was.”
There was another gasp, then my father sounded like he’d stood up so fast that his rolling chair hit the wall behind him.
“Honey!”
I pulled the phone away from my ear, surprised and a bit startled to hear my father shout so loudly into the receiver.
“Honey,” Dad said more quietly this time. “Google this first girl. See if she was a teenage mother.”
My heart started to pound as my father’s brain started to work on a different wavelength than mine, but I had a feeling that the wavelength was the correct course.
“Dad…”
My stomach started to fill with acid as it boiled.
“Shh,” he ordered.
I shushed, but I was already up and moving, too.
Going to my computer, I started searching for another name. This one in the middle of the lot, so to speak, to be murdered.
The first article to pop up was a photo of the girl on the highway. Or, at least, a sheet covering a body that was said to be her.
But as I went through the pages, I found a particular link that led to a hospital birth announcement/article in the online paper for Gun Barrel, Texas.
Katrin Dobbs, 17, welcomes 7-pound 1-ounce baby boy. Adoptive parents, Davy and Remina Horne adopt beautiful boy and thank teenage mother for giving them such a perfect gift.
“They were all single mothers,” I breathed. “That’s the connection, isn’t it?”
My dad hummed as he listened to my step-mother speak in the background.
I moved on to the next girl. And the next. And the next.
And found one thing in common with them all. They were all, indeed, single mothers.
“None of them kept their babies,” Dad said after a while. “That was why we never put it together before now. But all of them had babies at one point in time. The six that I’ve searched through all gave them up for adoption except for one, who gave her baby to her sister.”
“I’ve gone through three. Three for adoption and one to the father if we’re counting Abilene,” I murmured.
Dad snapped his fingers so loudly that my ear popped.
“I have to call Bruno,” Dad said. “I’ll talk to you later.”
Without another word, he hung up, leaving me sitting there stunned.
Single mothers.
Why would that matter?
But, in the killer’s mind, it did.
I just wish I knew who and why.
Shoving away from my laptop, I quickly got dressed and headed for my kitchen where my truck keys and wallet were sitting from the night before.
After going back into my bedroom for a change of clothes, I headed to Ares’ apartment with Trigger in tow.
What I didn’t expect was to be pulling up at the same time as her father.
“You heard?” he asked, eyeing Trigger.
I nodded once.
“I did,” I confirmed. “My dad called.”
“Same.” Downy paused. “Well, my dad didn’t call. I don’t have a dad anymore. Your dad called.”
I snorted as I shut my truck door and headed for the stairs.
“So you and my girl,” Downy said. “That’s official.”
I stopped on the landing and turned, my arms crossed over my chest.
“Yes.” I didn’t see the point in bullshitting him. “As official as official can be. I love her.”
Downy’s eyebrows rose. “That’s fast.”
I winced at his accusatory tone. “It’s easy to love her.”
His brows rose high.
“I didn’t say anything about loving.”
I rolled my eyes. “You didn’t ask. But I told you.”
Trigger leaned against my leg, and I placed my hand on his head.
“You didn’t need to tell me,” he mumbled. “Can see it from here. Knew how she talked about you that it was serious. Not to mention the fact that it’s three in the morning, and you’re here to talk to her just like I am because you’re worried about her waking up and seeing it on social media or something. And you not being there to hold her when she breaks down over a student that she’s been worried shitless about for the last year.”
That was