CHAPTER TWENTY
Connor was still in the briefing room when Selena arrived with Kelly shortly after seven.
The murder board stood behind him, the photographs of Karen Sloane, Ruth Keller, and Linda Mercer arranged across its upper half.
Two computer screens covered the table with spreadsheets and exported HearthSpace posts.
A paper cup sat near Connor’s elbow, cold, with a skin formed across the surface.
He had not shaved. Creases ran through his uniform shirt, and the skin beneath his eyes carried a gray cast.
Selena placed her bag on the nearest chair. “Did you sleep at all?”
Connor continued scrolling. “A little.”
“That could mean ten minutes.”
“It means I’m fine.”
Kelly removed her coat and hung it over the back of a chair. “You don’t look fine.”
“Thank you, Agent Voss.”
Selena stepped closer to the table. “Connor...”
He finally raised his head. “The HearthSpace production came in after you left. I stayed late to go through it.”
“How late?”
“Late.”
The reply did nothing to ease her concern. Connor’s attention kept shifting toward the phone beside his keyboard. It vibrated against the tabletop before Selena could ask another question.
He caught it at once, checked the screen, then turned it face down.
Morimer came to Selena’s mind. So did Jessie, and the details Selena had no business giving her at the diner. If Connor was under pressure, she had already widened the circle of people who could be caught in it.
Selena watched him. “Did something happen last night after you got that message?”
“No.”
“You’re acting like something did.”
Connor pushed his chair back. “Three women are dead. We have thousands of anonymous posts and no idea which ones they wrote. That’s what happened.”
His voice remained controlled, but the effort showed.
Selena held his attention for another second. Years earlier, she would have pressed until irritation broke into truth. Their marriage had taught her how quickly concern could become an interrogation when neither person trusted the question.
“All right,” she said. “Show us what came in.”
Relief passed through his posture, which troubled her more than an argument would have.
Connor turned one screen toward them. “HearthSpace produced account tables, activity times, closed-group archives, message indexes, registration emails, and all the material covered by the order. Most users registered under disposable addresses. Historical source IP records are gone under the company’s retention policy. ”
“We knew that might happen,” Kelly said.
“I tried searches for Elmsview, Eagleton, Loyall, the victims’ employers, their husbands, the storage burglary, and every phrase I could think of.
” Connor indicated the columns of usernames.
“I got nowhere. The files probably contain what we need, but it’s buried under years of people discussing marriages, money, affairs, abuse, and everything else they didn’t want attached to their names. ”
Selena leaned over the table. Each record carried a username, account-activity time, group identifier, and post reference. The production was thorough without being helpful.
“Reading posts one at a time is the wrong way in,” she said. “We begin with the victims’ known connections and work toward the accounts.”
Connor rubbed one palm across his jaw. “The provider logs only show that their home connections reached HearthSpace.”
“They also show when,” Selena replied. “HearthSpace gave us activity timestamps for every candidate account covered by the warrant. We match repeated sessions, not single visits.”
Kelly pulled out a chair. “The same username becoming active every time one victim’s home account connects.”
“Across several dates,” Selena said. “One overlap could be chance. Ten won’t be.”
Connor picked up the desk phone. “I’ll get Dana.”
“My word,” Selena said.
“What?” Kelly asked.
“Three cases here and I’ve never met Dana. Arnold’s always joking about her being a vampire in the basement.”
Moments later, the door opened. A red-haired woman entered carrying a laptop, a portable drive, and a folder thick with printed connection records. Her skin was pale, and freckles crossed her cheeks beneath glasses perched near the end of her nose. A pencil held her hair in a loose knot.
“It’s good to finally meet you,” Selena said, holding out her hand. “I’m Selena, and this is Kelly.”
Dana hesitated and stared at the offered hand.
Connor came in behind her. “Dana’s a germaphobe.”
Selena lowered her hand. “Oh.”
“I was told this was urgent,” Dana said.
“It is,” Selena replied. “We need the exact HearthSpace connection windows for all three victims.”
Dana put the folder down. “I’ve been working on them already. I’ve got them to the second where the provider retained session starts and stops. Some mobile traffic complicates Linda’s records, but her home account is clean.”
Kelly took the HearthSpace activity table while Dana opened the provider logs. Selena stood between them, reading times as they built the first comparison.
Karen’s home connection had reached HearthSpace at 8:14 p.m. on a Sunday. Thirty-one candidate accounts showed activity during the same minute. On the following Tuesday at 10:07 a.m., only eight of those appeared again. A third session reduced the list to two.
One account remained across every later connection.
PaperSparrow.
Dana opened the account archive.
The earliest posts were cautious. Karen described a husband who treated her ambitions as foolish and controlled the practical parts of their life until she doubted her ability to manage them alone.
Later entries discussed the divorce settlement, possessions lost during the separation, and boxes stolen from a storage unit.
A post from five days before her death filled the screen.
I found a cabin where I can work. It’s isolated, but maybe that’s what I need. Three months with no one telling me I’m wasting my time.
Selena read it twice.
“That’s Karen,” Connor said.
“Mark it confirmed,” Selena told Dana.
Ruth took longer. Her provider records contained shorter sessions and several evenings without HearthSpace traffic. By nine thirty, Kelly had isolated an account called OpenDoor78.
Ruth’s posts referred to handling insurance claims from home and a man she had begun seeing after years alone. At first, she described Oliver as patient. Over several weeks, the tone shifted.
He wants more time than I can give him. He says twice a week isn’t a relationship. Maybe he’s right, but every time I ask him to slow down, he makes me feel as though I’m punishing him.
Linda’s account surfaced shortly before eleven.
SecondAct39 complained about Phil’s spending, the posters filling their home, and the way every disagreement ended with him defending the collection instead of listening to her.
One thread discussed leaving after an argument and staying away for several days while she decided whether the marriage could be saved.
Connor read the final line in silence.
If I go back tonight, nothing changes.
The room had grown warmer as the morning advanced. Selena opened the blinds. Sunlight filled the station parking lot and reached across the table, exposing fingerprints and pencil marks on the printed records.
Three usernames now stood beneath the victims’ photographs.
PAPERSPARROW
OPENDOOR78
SECONDACT39
“They were all in the same private community,” Kelly said. “New Beginnings.”
Dana opened the group description. “Invitation only. For women considering separation or rebuilding after troubled marriages.”
“Any direct contact between the three?” Connor asked.
Kelly searched the message index. “No private messages. They replied in some of the same threads, but there’s nothing suggesting they knew one another offline.”
Selena studied the group membership list. “Then find the people who knew all three accounts.”
They began reading backward.
Dana worked through Karen’s posts while Selena took Ruth’s. Kelly built a separate list of every username that replied to more than one victim. Most appeared once or twice, offering brief sympathy before disappearing into other discussions.
By noon, six names remained.
At one fifteen, the list had fallen to three.
MorningGlory44 appeared beside every victim.
Selena opened the account’s replies to Karen. The language was warm and assured, written by someone who understood how fear could disguise itself as hesitation.
You’ve already done the hardest part. Don’t tell him where you’re going. Protect yourself, leave, and don’t look back.
The same certainty appeared in Ruth’s threads.
Possessiveness doesn’t become love because he speaks softly. Trust the discomfort. You don’t owe him more access to you.
Linda had received similar advice after writing that Phil wanted her to come home.
Going back teaches him that he can wait out your anger. Stay away until you remember that your life belongs to you.
Nothing in the words threatened violence. Read separately, the replies sounded compassionate. Together, they carried a pressure that unsettled Selena. MorningGlory44 never encouraged compromise, caution, or another conversation. Every road led outward.
Kelly rotated her laptop. “Here’s Karen asking whether the cabin is too isolated.”
MorningGlory44 had replied within six minutes.
Isolation can be peace when the person who hurt you doesn’t know where to find you.
Connor read over Selena’s shoulder. “That could’ve put Karen in the cabin.”
“Karen had already found it,” Dana said.
“But this account encouraged her to go,” Kelly replied. “The killer might not have stumbled across the victims on HearthSpace. She could’ve helped shape the choices that left them alone.”
Selena opened MorningGlory44’s complete history.
The account had once posted almost every day.
Hundreds of public replies filled the archive, most aimed at women doubting whether they should leave.
The last public post appeared eight months earlier.
After that, MorningGlory44 stopped contributing to group threads but continued using the account for private messages.