CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The mistake they’d made was assuming that there wouldn’t be that much content to sift through. But the forum went far deeper than they’d thought. And when they took comments and replies from the Facebook group into consideration, there was a seemingly endless stream of things to read through.
The Fresh Horizons online community was called The Next Chapter.
It had four hundred and twelve registered members, stretching back six years to the program's founding.
The interface was clean and simple, organized into topic threads.
There was also a general feed where members could post updates and admin-approved photos.
There was a private messaging function as well, which they had flagged for closer review.
They had been working through all of it methodically for nearly two hours.
Kate had taken the general feed and was moving through it chronologically, working backward from the most recent posts.
The content was largely what she had expected: life updates, small victories, requests for advice, and general chitchat.
In a lot of cases, it was merely women checking in on each other across months and sometimes years, maintaining the thread of a community that had started in a circle of chairs on a Tuesday evening.
The group was for men as well, as was the organization itself, but the overwhelming majority of the group members were women.
A woman named PatriciaR had posted three days ago about her first solo vacation.
She’d spent a long weekend in Charleston, and had attached four photographs.
Fourteen people had commented, all warmly.
A user called WandaLemon had shared that she'd been promoted at work and was treating herself to a nice dinner alone, which she had declared a milestone. The eight responses had all been celebratory. So, it seemed that the program wasn’t just built to help people start dating again, but to appreciate the idea and identity of being single.
Taken at face value, the page was exactly what it was supposed to be—a support network doing its job.
Meanwhile, Sloane had taken the member profiles and the interaction logs from the forum. She had been cross-referencing anyone who had engaged with Carol Paige's posts and Donna Holt's posts in the weeks before their deaths.
"I've got five users who interacted with both Carol and Donna within roughly a ten-day window before the first murder," Sloane said without looking up.
"PatriciaR, SunflowerMom52, a user called JustBreathing44, and another one called NewLeafNora. And there’s another one with the handle DesertRoseRebecca.
" She snickered and said, “Man, the usernames get a little out of control, huh?”
“Unless you think WandaLemon is some sort of clever inside joke,” Kate said. "What kind of interactions are you seeing?"
"Likes, mostly. A few comments." Sloane read from the screen in a monotone voice.
"PatriciaR commented on Carol's post about starting her new gym membership.
Said something like, that's huge, keep going.
Donna got a like from SunflowerMom52 on a photo she posted of her pottery class project.
JustBreathing44 replied to a post Carol made about feeling lonely on Sunday mornings with, Sundays are the hardest, sending you a hug.
" Sloane sat back. "It all reads perfectly innocent and supportive.
" She shrugged and then added: “And maybe a little cheesy.”
"Nothing reads as targeted, though," Kate said.
"Nope. Nothing reads as anything other than a group of women being kind to each other, honestly." Sloane turned back to her screen. "Which makes it harder, not easier."
Kate went back to the feed. She had been looking not just at the posts themselves but at the timing.
She was trying to nail down the rhythm of who posted when and who responded.
She was looking for someone whose engagement pattern felt slightly off—too consistent, too broad, maybe someone who sort of lurked more than participated.
Someone whose presence on the forum was less about connection and more about gathering information.
So far, the patterns were frustratingly organic.
She was midway through a thread from two months ago when Sloane's phone rang.
Sloane looked at the screen and grabbed it quickly.
"It’s Middleton," she said before taking the call.
She answered and listened, nodding every now and then.
Her expression didn't shift dramatically, but Kate watched her go still in a way that was its own signal.
The call lasted less than thirty seconds.
Sloane ended the call and looked directly at Kate.
“There’s been another one,” she said, already closing her laptop.
"Nancy Briggs. Fifty-three. She's in an apartment on the east side.
Middleton caught it because the responding officer flagged it as consistent with our two.
" She was on her feet, reaching for her jacket.
"He said the scene is very fresh. Within the past hour. "
Kate had her things in her hands before Sloane finished the sentence. They moved almost fluidly together, so much in sync and pushed with such urgency that they didn’t share another word until they were already out of the conference room and headed for the car.
***
Middleton met them in the corridor outside apartment 4C, about fifteen feet from the open door where the latest victim had been killed.
He looked like he was in a state of shock, maybe having an issue with keeping up with the sheer number of deaths that were piling up at his feet.
His jacket was on but his collar was open and he had the rigid, almost contained posture and energy of someone working hard to remain professional.
Beside him stood a woman in her mid-forties in a robe and slippers. Her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She had short dark hair and her eyes were red at the edges. She looked at Kate and Sloane as they approached with an expression of sadness and relief.
"Agents Wise and Sloane," Middleton said. "This is Abby Torrence. She's in 4B, right next door. She's the one who called it in."
Kate looked at the woman steadily. "Ms. Torrence, can you tell us what you heard?"
She unfolded her arms and then refolded them, as if she simply couldn’t get comfortable.
Kate took note of the nervous little twitch at the left corner of her mouth.
"I was in my living room, watching TV. The walls in this building are not thick…
you know? So, I heard her—I heard Nancy cry out.
Just once. It wasn't a long sound but it was clear it was pain or maybe surprise.
" She stopped and pressed her lips together briefly.
"I know her a bit…. we're friendly. And that noise sounded just odd enough that it registered, you know? So, I got up to check on her and… God, I wish I hadn’t waited.
But I came to the door and knocked and it wasn't fully closed.
It swung open." She looked at the open door to 4C and then back at Kate.
"I didn't go in very far. I could see her from the doorway. "
"Did you see anyone in the hallway? Coming out of her apartment, on the stairs, anywhere?"
"No one. I looked both ways before I called 911. The hallway was empty."
"How long do you think passed between hearing her cry out and calling 911?" Sloane asked.
"Maybe five minutes. Six at most. Like I said… I didn’t act when I first heard the noise…
mainly because I didn’t want to appear nosy.
So, it took me a minute before I went to check.
I wasn't sure at first if I'd really heard something.
" She looked down at her slippers, ashamed. "I should have gone faster."
"You did the right thing," Kate said. She meant it, and she said it plainly enough that the woman seemed to receive it. Kate looked at Middleton and asked, "How long ago was the call?"
"Thirty-two minutes," he said. "This scene is about as fresh as it gets. Help yourselves." He then held out two pairs of latex gloves that he had taken from his back pocket.
Kate pulled on the gloves Middleton handed her and moved toward the apartment door.
The living room felt far too familiar, presenting the same picture she’d already seen twice before.
The place had not been ransacked and there had been no fight.
Nancy Briggs had been taken completely by surprise.
Aside from the dead body on the floor and the copious amount of blood pooled around it, the room was in perfect, tidy order.
The only thing that looked remotely out of place was the champagne glass sitting on the kitchen counter, still holding a shallow inch of pale liquid.
Nancy Briggs was on her back near the front door, one arm extended toward it and one at her side.
She was dressed in pajamas, which meant she had come home and changed before this happened.
Her black hair was going slightly gray at the temples and she had a face that Kate thought might be described as pretty in a plain sort of way.
The wounds were visible from where Kate stood: two to the chest, close together, and a long lateral cut across the throat that had bled heavily down onto the hardwood.
Kate stood at the edge of the room and looked at all of it without moving for a long moment.
The champagne glass on the counter. The pajamas.
The front door, which was the entry point this time rather than a back door, which she noted and set aside for now.
She took this all in as Sloane crouched near the body, examining the wounds without touching anything.
A CSI technician was working along the far wall and another was visible through the kitchen doorway processing the counter and the door handle.
Kate had been so wrapped up in the fact that the scene was so fresh that she’d hardly even registered there was someone else present.
Kate moved slowly around the perimeter of the room and stopped at the small side table near the couch. There, she spotted Nancy’s phone. It lay face-up, the screen still lit. Kate leaned over it without picking it up.
The Fresh Horizons forum was open on the screen. A post was visible, time-stamped from earlier that evening. Kate read it without touching the phone: Third date tonight and I think this might actually be something real. Feeling grateful and more than a little terrified. Wish me luck, ladies.
Below it were seven likes and four comments, all posted within the last few hours.
"Sloane," Kate said.
Sloane came to stand beside her and looked at the screen.
"She posted about a third date," Sloane said. She straightened up and looked at Kate. "The first two victims had just come home from first dates. This doesn't match."
"It matches exactly," Kate said. "Carol posted on the forum after her first date.
Donna posted after her first date. Nancy waited until her third date to post about the relationship at all.
" She looked back at the phone screen, at the seven small hearts beneath Nancy Briggs's last post. "Maybe the victims aren't being selected because of the number of the date.
Maybe they're being selected because they posted about it on the forum. "
Sloane looked at the phone and then back to Nancy’s body. “But based on this, we can assume the killer is at least looking at the forum, right?”
“That’s my guess, yeah.”
The killer was not following these women from restaurants or staking out their homes in advance.
They were sitting inside the forum, reading the posts, and then moving.
The timeline from post to murder was almost certainly a matter of hours.
Nancy Briggs had posted about her third date at some point this evening, come home, changed into pajamas, and poured herself a glass of champagne.
And someone who had seen that post had come to her front door inside that same stretch of time.
Kate looked at the champagne glass on the counter, at the cork beside the sink, indicating the private evidence of a woman celebrating something she had been waiting a long time to feel.
"We need to get into the nooks and crannies of that forum," Sloane said quietly. "Every post, every like, every interaction on anything Nancy Briggs ever put up. We find who was watching her." She then nodded to the comments on Nancy’s posts and said, “And I think we start with them.”