He nodded and turned his head, but she’d seen his expression. It wasn’t one of just friendship. It was something more. Much, much more. River put on her headphones and tried to concentrate on April’s podcast . . . but all she could think about was the man sitting at the other desk and how much he meant to her.

CHAPTER

SIX

Tony had been convicted by River’s words. He was supposed to be a good example, yet lately he’d allowed his fear to crowd out his faith. To be honest, he’d always seen himself as someone with great faith. But this situation had pushed him into something . . . different. Even though he tried to ignore it, he was frightened. He wanted to believe that the Strangler’s partner wasn’t going to move past threats, yet he knew they couldn’t count on that. In fact, something inside him seemed to be warning him that River was in real danger. The problem was, he couldn’t be sure if it was worry talking . . . or if it was the Holy Spirit whispering to him. If he wanted to protect River, he had to get himself in a place where he could clearly hear from God. Right now, in the face of the panic he felt, the heavens seemed like brass.

“I’ve got my headphones on,” River said. “I’ll try to keep my sighing and humming down.”

Tony looked toward her and smiled. “Thanks. I’d appreciate that. It’s very distracting.”

She stuck her tongue out at him and went back to April’s podcast.

Tony’s mind drifted to Joseph Baker. There were four main types of serial killers. The visionary, who kills because he believes he is being commanded by God; the hedonistic killer, who takes lives for the sake of personal pleasure; mission-oriented killers, who believe they are saving society from a particular group of people that deserve to die; and the fourth type, the power-and-control killer, who wants to exhibit total control and dominance over his victims. Ted Bundy was a power-and-control killer, and so was the Salt River Strangler. He wanted to dominate his victims. He needed to feel that their lives were in his hands.

Tony realized with a start that Baker was succeeding. Even though he was in prison, Tony was allowing Baker to control his thoughts . . . his peace of mind. Was that Baker’s plan? To use his minion . . . his partner . . . to terrorize River? And through that also manipulate Tony’s life? Baker was an evil man, and God had won the battle over evil a long time ago. So why was this so hard for him? Why was he struggling so much?

He forced himself to concentrate on something else. While River was listening to April’s podcasts, he’d dig a little more into April herself. He began to pull up social media accounts. First, he checked Facebook. Sure enough, he found her. Two pages. A personal page and a public page for Hot Coffee and Cold Cases.

The podcast page was interesting. She had quite a few followers. Over ten thousand. He began to read back through her posts and the comments. Most of them were positive. There were a few people who seemed to believe that April was stirring up people’s pain as a way to grow her numbers. They were convinced that she should leave murder investigations to the police. The truth was, getting the public involved in cold cases had proven to be quite useful in some situations. Then Tony began to find idiotic posts by scammers claiming they’d tried to friend her but couldn’t and asking her to contact them. These lowlifes set up fake pages, trying to establish relationships. Then they’d use that as a way to get personal information so they could steal from the people they targeted. Since he couldn’t find any of these messages earlier in the threads, it was clear to him that, at first, April had been blocking these knuckleheads and erasing their posts. Since she’d disappeared, their comments remained while her followers’ posts went un answered.

As he scrolled through the comments made before April quit replying, he found something troubling. There were several remarks from someone calling themselves Lamont Cranston. His comments had a harsher tone than any previous posts by people who felt April’s podcast was inappropriate. The first remark read “You’re an amateur who has no idea what you’re doing. You could be causing damage to innocent people. You need to stop!” A week later, the same poster said, “You have no right to interfere in the lives of others. The police need to put a stop to you!” This comment puzzled Tony. The person who wrote this mentioned law enforcement. Usually, someone who had something nefarious on his mind wouldn’t mention the police. He would be hiding from them. It was interesting to see that after both comments, followers of the page went after him. Although Tony couldn’t be sure the poster was a man, the verbiage and the strong tone suggested a male. Even though he was attacked by people who liked April and her podcast, he didn’t respond to them. He clearly didn’t care about them. He also had no interest in defending himself, which spoke to his razor-sharp focus . . . on April.

Just a few days before she went missing, there was this. “You haven’t listened to me. You’ll be sorry for that.” After that, Lamont Cranston stopped posting. There were several more comments from people, asking where April was, wondering why she wasn’t responding. Then there was a comment from Nathan letting them know that April was missing and asking them to look out for her. Immediately after that, the page exploded with notes of concern. Eventually, they petered out, although occasionally, someone would post a message, asking if April had been found. There was no response. It seemed Nathan had no desire to step in again and update April’s worried followers. He probably felt he’d posted enough on the page and didn’t see a reason to continue. It was at this point he’d probably started to give up seeing April again.

Tony flipped over to April’s personal page. The comments were set to “Public,” which wasn’t unusual when someone wanted to point people to a blog, a podcast, or some other kind of business. This made it easier for Tony. If the page had been set to “Friends” he wouldn’t have been able to see all the comments, although it was possible Nathan could have let him in.

Lamont Cranston hadn’t commented on this page. Here, April attempted to be friendly and welcoming, but her posts were stilted. Sometimes awkward. Several people who’d responded at first eventually drifted away. One other thing stood out to Tony. None of her “friends” appeared to be people with whom she actually had personal contact. They lived in other areas, and although they seemed to like April, there wasn’t any attempt to connect in real life. April didn’t invite that kind of response. Although the podcast was mentioned on this page, she’d tried to steer the page toward other topics as well. Tony could tell that she wanted to relate to people, but she didn’t have the necessary social skills to do it. He and River had seen this before. People who were obsessed with something had a habit of pushing people away, not because they didn’t want personal relationships, but because their main interests lay somewhere else. The podcast was obviously the most important thing in April’s life, and although it was evident she wanted friends, she was unable to invest the time or the emotional commitment to make that happen.

Before he put any more time into the case, Tony had a question. He found Nathan’s number and called him. The phone rang several times before Nathan picked up. He was probably working, but Tony needed to know something before he proceeded.

“Hello?” Nathan said, his voice a little tight.

Tony apologized for interrupting him and asked about Lamont Cranston. “His posts are rather disturbing.”

“Yes, I know. I contacted Facebook about him, but they didn’t really care. I checked him out as well as I could on my own, but all his personal information was fake. The police might do better than I did, but unless they get involved, there’s not much we can do.”

Tony made a mental note to ask Arnie if he could find out anything about Lamont Cranston.

“I noticed you said something about April’s disappearance, but you didn’t post again after that. Can you tell me why?”

A deep sigh came through the phone. “There’s a part of me that wanted to keep her page going, but April was so good at what she did. I couldn’t possibly follow in her footsteps. Besides, with my job, I just don’t have the time to invest in it. Sometimes I feel like I’m letting her down.”

“I don’t think you are. Just because you don’t feel capable of continuing the page, it doesn’t mean you aren’t interested.”

“I felt like my part was to listen to her, and I did. I tried to be there for her, you know? She used me to bounce ideas off of. I think she appreciated it.” His voice caught. “Anyway, I hope she did.”

“I’m sure she did,” Tony said. “We’ll see you at six.”

Tony hung up and stared at his laptop. Lamont Cranston was hiding his identity. He chose a name from an old radio show called “The Shadow.” Obviously, he was hiding in the shadows. This information bothered Tony. Whoever this was knew what he was doing, and he’d gone to a lot of trouble to make certain he couldn’t be found. But why? Could he be the reason April was missing?

CHAPTER

SEVEN

It was almost four o’clock when River took off her headphones. She’d made notes about every episode. Even though the Casanova case seemed to be the one they should focus on first, each podcast April had recorded was compelling. The behavioral analyst in her wanted to profile all of them, but she wasn’t sure it was necessary. She looked over at Tony and noticed that he was staring at her.

“Did you get through all of them?” he asked.

She nodded. “I think April had good instincts. Each of these cases make me want to dig in and look for solutions. Of course, some seem more likely to be connected to April’s disappearance than others.”

“That’s good, because I’m not sure we have time to investigate them all.”

“Yeah, because we’re so overloaded with work,” River said dryly.

Tony laughed. “I hear you, but I’m talking about doing what we can for Nathan.” He frowned at her. “That’s if we can help him. What do you think?”

“Why don’t you let me run these active cases past you? I’d like to see what you think.”

“All of them?”

“Yes. I mean, we can concentrate on the Casanova case first, but since we’re not certain it had anything to do with April’s disappearance, we should look at each one, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” Tony said. “Until we see April’s notes, we won’t have a clue which case might be connected to her disappearance. Or if any of them are.”

“That’s what I was thinking.” River stood up. “Want a cup of coffee?”

“Sure.” Tony got up from his chair and carried his cup over to the counter next to the coffeemaker. River didn’t even need to ask what kind he wanted. She took his cup, put it under the spout, and added the pod. Black coffee. Always plain black coffee. She brewed his coffee and then handed it to him.

“Thanks,” he said. “You really don’t need to make my coffee, you know.”

“I realize that, but I was taught to respect my elders.”

Tony grinned. “You’re only a year and two months younger than me.”

River shrugged. “Sorry. I forgot. I guess it’s because you look so much older.”

“Very funny.”

He headed back to his desk while she looked through the pods and picked a favorite—Southern Pecan. As she waited for the coffee to brew, her mind ran over the cases she’d listened to. She could understand why Nathan thought the Casanova case was the one that might be connected to April’s disappearance, but River wasn’t certain. There were a few of them that concerned her. She wondered if Tony would see the same thing she did.

“Hello? You still with us?”

Startled, River realized she was staring at her cup, but it was already done. She picked it up. “Sorry, just thinking. It’s hard to listen to April’s voice and not feel like I know her. I understand her interest in all of these cases. To be honest, I think I would have picked them too.” She sat down at her desk.

“So, you think the two of you are alike?”

“Yeah, I do. I think we could be friends. I . . . I really hope this isn’t going to end badly.”