Next Kill (A Meg Thorne Suspense Thriller—Book Four) E-Book

Kate Bold

• Herausgeber: Lukeman Literary Management
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: A Meg Thorne Suspense Thriller
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 254

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

"This is an excellent book… When you start reading, be sure you don't have to wake up early!" —Reader review for The Killing Game ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Detective Meg Thorne, haunted by the years of cold cases she could not solve, retires early, in her 50s, feeling stifled by the limits of the law and determined to do whatever she has to to solve them on her own, stop these killers, and rescue any victims. Outside of the red tape, she will be free to cross all lines, and do whatever must be done—as long as she doesn't find herself, alone, in a killer's sights… When a brilliant graduate student is murdered at MIT, echoes of the past resurface for Meg Thorne as the crime mirrors long-unsolved campus killings. Drawn back into a mystery that intertwines with her late husband's death, Meg must untie twenty years of hidden knots to reveal a killer—and confront the ghosts that have haunted her badge and heart. This is BOOK #4 in a new series by #1 bestselling mystery and suspense author Kate Bold, whose bestsellers have received over 3,000 five star ratings and reviews. The series delivers an exhilarating rush with non-stop action, gripping suspense, and enigmatic puzzles that will keep you captivated well past bedtime, featuring a compelling protagonist eager to decipher the mystery. Fans of Lisa Gardner, Kendra Elliot, and Teresa Driscoll are sure to fall in love. Future books in the series are also available! "This book moved very fast and every page was exciting. Plenty of dialogue, you absolutely love the characters, and you were rooting for the good guy throughout the whole story… I look forward to reading the next in the series." —Reader review for The Killing Game ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Kate did an amazing job on this book and I was hooked from the first chapter!" —Reader review for The Killing Game ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "I really enjoyed this book. The characters were authentic, and I see the bad guys as something we hear about daily on the news... Looking forward to book 2." —Reader review for The Killing Game ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "This was a really good book. The main characters were real, flawed and human. The story went along quickly and wasn't mired in too many unnecessary details. I really enjoyed it." —Reader review for The Killing Game ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Alexa Chase is headstrong, impatient, but most of all brave with a capital B. She never, repeat never, backs down until the bad guys are put where they belong. Clearly five stars!" —Reader review for The Killing Game ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Captivating and riveting serial murder with a twist of the macabre… Very well done." —Reader review for The Killing Game ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "WOW what a great read! Talk about a diabolical killer! Really enjoyed this book. Looking forward to reading others by this author as well." —Reader review for The Killing Game ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Page turner for sure. Great characters and relationships. I got into the middle of this story and couldn't put it down. Looking forward to more from Kate Bold." —Reader review for The Killing Game ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Hard to put down. It has an excellent plot and has the right amount of suspense. I really enjoyed this book." —Reader review for The Killing Game ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Extremely well written, and well worth buying and reading. I can't wait to read book two!" —Reader review for The Killing Game ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Leseprobe

N E X T

K I L L

(A Meg Thorne Mystery—Book 4)

K a t e   B o l d

Kate Bold

Bestselling author Kate Bold is the author of numerous series in the mystery and thriller genres, including Meg Thorne, Heather King, Brynn Justice, Beth Drake, Maggie Flight, Addison Shine, Barren Pines, Nina Veil, Nora Price, Kelsey Hawk, Alexa Chase, Ashley Hope, Camille Grace, Harley Cole, Kaylie Brooks, Eve Hope, Dylan First, Lauren Lamb series.

An avid reader and lifelong fan of the mystery and thriller genres, Kate loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.kateboldauthor.com to learn more and stay in touch.

SERIES BY KATE BOLD

MEG THORNE

HEATHER KING

BRYNN JUSTICE

BETH DRAKE

MAGGIE FLIGHT

ADDISON SHINE

BARREN PINES

NINA VEIL

NORA PRICE

KELSEY HAWK

ALEXA CHASE

ASHLEY HOPE

CAMILLE GRACE

HARLEY COLE

KAYLIE BROOKS

EVE HOPE

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

PROLOGUE

There wasn't much to love about working the night shift, especially not on a stifling night like this. It felt oppressive, Jack Higgins thought as he pushed his cart along the corridor, the squeaky wheel providing a background squawk.

Apart from the sounds of his equipment, the university halls were quiet now, and as he turned the corner, he saw the hands of the old-fashioned clock on the courtyard wall pointing to midnight.

He noticed them for only a minute before sighing, distracted by the glimmer of a plastic wrapper that some careless student hadn't picked up. The youth of today were entitled. He'd been working this shift for more than two decades now, and he knew that the quantity of trash he had to pick up had increased, year on year.

Of course, his back had gotten worse over the same time span. When he’d started the job, bending down, like he was doing now, to grasp the wrapper in his tongs, hadn’t sent a tingling pang through his lower back. Now it did. He put the wrapper in the trash bag on his cart, sighing as he thought of the task ahead. It would be another four or five hours of nonstop work, cleaning floors, emptying trash, working in the lecture rooms and offices that comprised the technical university in Boston that specialized in advanced mathematics, and was almost as well known as the famous MIT, a few miles away.

What was that?

Jack stopped, gripping the cart’s handle with one of his weathered hands. With his graying head cocked sideways as he listened, he looked a little like a quizzical bird. What was that noise? It was a sudden bang, and a thudding, and he thought it had come from the corridor ahead of him.

Strange.

He listened a while longer, but his ears weren’t what they used to be, and he couldn’t pick up anything else. Maybe it had been one of the lecturers, working late.

Being a science, math, and technology university, it attracted strange types who were fanatical about their research and sometimes used to work late into the night. Often, he'd hear the frantic tapping of keys and the occasional sigh coming from one of the offices. Sometimes, they didn't even turn on the lights, but worked in the dark by the glow of their computer screens.

It was eerie, but he’d gotten used to it, and he’d learned to make a noise with the cart when he approached an office where someone was working late, because otherwise, he could end up frightening the life out of them. It was often comical to see them leap out of their chairs when he suddenly entered the office, yelling out in fright as they were wrenched back to reality.

But it wasn’t respectful, and Jack was old-school, a stickler for the correct methods, and a believer in respect. It was better to alert them politely from a distance.

Having heard the noise earlier, Jack made sure to make more of a racket than usual as he approached with his cart, allowing it to rattle over the join in the tiles, as he entered the corridor where the math lecturers worked.

The bucket clattered, the wheels shrieked, the frame gave a metallic clang.

And then, it all got quiet again.

Very quiet. There was a sense of expectation in the air, he thought, with a shiver. It almost felt as if, after that noise, the silence had been too sudden.

As if someone was… waiting.

He’d been feeling that way for the past couple of nights, actually. People thought he was crazy, but he had an instinct. Yup, for a while now, in this part of the college, something had given him that prickly feeling.

Then, he chastised himself for being fanciful. He probably felt unsettled just because the night was so silent and airless.

Stopping, he used the sleeve of his overall to mop a trickle of sweat from his forehead. It really was oppressive. Funny, how in the winter, this corridor was as cold as a tomb, with a nonstop draft blasting down it, but in the summer, it felt like the mouth of hell.

He knocked on the first door, opened it, tensing again as he thought he heard something.

Oh boy, if he carried on being so jumpy, this was going to be a long night. He was like the scared young students who’d gather together in the classrooms after hours to watch horror movies, and then go back to their cars shrieking and squealing. He’d hear their screams resonating through the corridors, and shake his head in mild disapproval, because none of that sort of nonsense had happened fifteen years ago.

Something else had, though.

The office was clean, requiring no more than the trash can emptied, and the floor swept and mopped. He wasn’t doing windows this week, thank goodness.

With that done, he moved on to the next one, stopping outside in the corridor again.

He couldn’t hear anything now – the silence was absolute, but it was making him even more doubtful.

Now, he started to worry if there was an intruder around. These offices weren’t always well secured. And the people, they were absentminded. They sometimes left their computers behind, trustingly. He’d seen the worst happen once.

He remembered the time, long ago, when the most terrible thing of all had exploded into his life – a crime that had shaken the university to its core

As his thoughts veered back to that time, his mind blocked it off.

He didn’t think about that anymore. Not at all. It was a dark place that he never went back to. He’d needed to take two weeks’ leave after that, before returning to work.

Why did he have to think of that now? It had been years since he’d allowed himself to remember it.

Shuddering, he pushed his cart forward.

This office belonged to one of the women who had been working late more often recently – Libby Alton. He made sure to rattle the cart as he approached. Ms. Alton – she'd once asked him to call her Libby, but he'd refused even though the dark-haired, strong-featured woman was young enough to be his daughter - was often one of those who worked late. She was usually friendly, but he knew that you couldn't trust anyone in this life, even if they were friendly to your face.

Besides, she’d been looking stressed and preoccupied lately. Less friendly.

As he approached the door, he wondered if this was where the noise had come from. Now that he was here, he thought it had been from this office.

He frowned as he saw the door standing open.

Surely there couldn’t have been a burglary? Or had Ms. Alton knocked something over inside?

She must be there, because as he looked more closely, he could already see the faint glow that meant the computer screen was lit up.

“Hello there?” he called.

No answer.

Shivers prickled his spine as he remembered that strange, hasty noise.

Memories from far in the past caused the walls in his mind to shudder, but they held. Lightning didn’t strike twice – did it?

He trundled the cart to the door, suspicious now, and peeked inside.

Nobody in the office chair. It was empty, although that strange glow from the screen still filled the room.

She must have gone to the ladies’ room. That was the answer.

That was what he’d heard a few minutes ago. It must have been the sound of her rolling back her chair and hurrying across the room, probably knocking into the filing cabinet near the door because she was working in the dark. Although, there was a strange smell coming from this room. His nostrils picked it up immediately.

He snapped on the light.

His eyes widened, his body tensed, and a soft, low moan escaped his throat.

Libby Alton was sprawled on the floor. Her throat had been slashed, and blood surrounded her. In the blood, on the wall, a symbol had been scrawled, the crimson liquid smearing and dripping.

It was the same as years ago.

The same.

The world went gray as he sagged down, his cart upending, cold, soapy water sluicing over the bloody scene.

CHAPTER ONE

“Hello. It’s Meg Thorne speaking.”

Sitting at her dining room table, which doubled as her home office space, Meg Thorne grasped a pen in her hand, twirling a lock of her bright plum hair around it as she waited for the reply.

From the sideboard, her cat, Corrigan, lay, sleepily judging her and finding her not good enough.

“Mrs. Thorne. It’s Carter Engels. How can I help you?”

Meg took a deep breath, her gaze straying through the open plan living room to the entrance hall, where her husband’s photo had pride of place on the wall. This was why she was digging back into the past. For James. Because when he’d died, stabbed in his car, in the basement parking at their local convenience store, her world had ended.

A few years had passed since then, but at the same time, it felt like yesterday that he’d been alive. Sometimes, she still expected him to walk in at about five p.m., giving the cheery hello that had made the house feel brighter and warmer.

Now that she’d summoned up the courage to investigate his death, memories of James were surging at unexpected times.

“I’m calling because I believe my husband made a call to your company. It was a few years ago – five, to be exact. I can give you the date and time the call was made. I’d like to know who he spoke to and what the call was about.”

Over the past couple of weeks that she’d been making the calls, Meg had quickly discovered that people were flabbergasted by this request.

And Carter Engels was no different.

“Wait – you said five years?” His voice was incredulous. “Five years ago?”

“My husband James was a forensic accountant,” Meg said. “Perhaps he was doing some work for your development company.”

“Was?” There was a note of doubt in Engels’ voice.

“He was murdered a few days after he called your offices. Mr. Engels, I’m just looking for closure, and as part of doing that, I’m trying to follow his movements and make a record of what he was doing before he died.”

“Ah. I see.” Now, there was sympathy in Engels’ voice, as if he’d mentally refiled her from the ‘utterly mad random caller’ category to the ‘grieving widow’ category. “Yes, I can understand why you need to do that. Obviously, I’ll have to find out who he spoke to, and that might take time. You say it was our switchboard number?”

“Yes, that’s correct. I think it would have been a business call, but I’m not sure.”

“I’ll have to ask around, in that case. A couple of project managers and senior execs have left us since then, and our accountant also moved on. That’s going to mean a lot of research.”

“I’d so appreciate it,” Meg said quickly. After all, saying thank you immediately increased the chances that he’d do it for her. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”

Meg was carefully not saying that she was a retired police detective, and that the reason she was following up on these calls was that Naomi, James’s daughter, had heard James having a bitter, shouted argument a few days before his death.

She didn’t know who he had been speaking to, but that was very unlike James, and that was the reason Meg was following this up.

Perhaps he’d been involved in a work project that had gone wrong, perhaps he’d discovered fraud, perhaps someone had asked him to do something illegal during an audit and he’d refused.

She was determined to find out, and now, she wished that she’d had the strength to start this investigation earlier. Five years down the line, it was taking far longer. And of course, it just so happened that during those final few days, James had made more calls than usual.

Some of the numbers were out of service. She was having to track them down using her old connections at the phone companies.

At least she had a promise now from this sympathetic CEO, who had been so busy that it had taken Meg about a week to get hold of him.

This was not a quick project, and it wasn’t easy either. It took it out of her, and she found herself feeling surprisingly drained.

She couldn’t afford to be drained, because in two weeks’ time, she would be doing a full-length triathlon. Today, she had a forty-mile cycle scheduled, and she was going to leave the house in a few minutes and head out of Boston, to one of the shady woodland trails that wound its way through a park. She’d do a few laps of that until she’d gotten the distance under her belt.

Time to get going. In her early fifties, she needed all the fitness training she could get.

All to win a stupid bet that she’d taken with Gabe Reeves, who’d been her investigation partner in the Boston police department before Meg had taken early retirement.

Humph. Her competitive spirit was her own worst enemy, it seemed.

As she headed out, her phone rang. Talk of the devil. It was Gabe, and she picked up as she headed into the garage, where her car was parked, and her bicycle was propped against the side wall.

“Hey there, Gabe.” It was ten a.m. Was there a new case on the go?

“Meg, we’ve just wrapped up a murder scene investigation,” Gabe said.

Immediately, her heart quickened. She might not be in the police any longer, but her hunting instincts were still triggered by the words.

“What murder? What happened?”

“It’s one of the cases that you have a cold case file for,” Gabe said. Now, Meg could hear the exhaustion in his words. “We were called out just after midnight, to the Tech University.”

That rang a bell. Meg listened, intrigued, as he continued.

“It’s the Equation Killer. You remember those two murders, about fifteen years ago?”

“I remember those well,” Meg said. Memories were flooding back. The name brought a whole rush of trauma and stress.

“This one is identical, Meg. There’s only one thing we can conclude – and that is that this killer is starting up again.”

“What?” Meg gasped. That case had stuck in her mind, because of the intense pressure she’d been under while investigating two murders in as many days. It had been at about the same time she’d met James. They’d been dating when this case had landed – and if anything it had put a downer on those first heady, amazing months of her relationship with her husband to be; a dark shadow, gradually fizzling out into hopelessness, and turning cold.

“Yes,” Gabe said. “I’m heading out now to interview a couple of witnesses. The janitor at the university is the same person who discovered one of the earlier bodies, so we’re going to need to speak to him again. That’ll take a couple of hours. You available for lunch?”

Meg felt guilty that her day consisted of a pleasant, though physically taxing bike ride. But if she headed out now, she’d have time to review the earlier case.

“I am available for lunch,” she said firmly. “Giovanni’s – my treat. I’ll bring the information on the old case, and we can discuss.”

.

When Meg walked into Giovanni’s, breathing in the aroma of garlic and fresh baked bread, she saw Gabe already sitting at the corner table, munching on a breadstick, with a large glass of soda in front of him.

She hustled over, taking in his red-eyed look. His dark skin looked dull, his big shoulders sagged with tiredness, and he’d undone his shirt collar. She guessed his tie was stuffed into his laptop bag.

“What time did the case land?’ she asked, skipping the pleasantries.

“One a.m.,” Gabe said. “And I worked late last night, and went with my wife and daughters to a school theater production straight after. Two hours of sleep, and then I got the call. Yeah, I’m tired.”

Meg shook her head in sympathy. From the time she’d gotten into her forties – where Gabe was now – those late nights and small-hour callouts had gotten more and more brutal.

But the case itself? That was disturbing, and she wanted to hear more.

A waitress came by, and they ordered their food. Meg went for pasta Bolognese, needing both carbs and protein after her bicycle ride. Gabe went for the lasagna, clearly craving his usual comfort food.

Once the waitress had gone, Gabe updated her, as Meg hitched her chair closer to the table. Giovanni’s at lunchtime was loud, and she didn’t want to miss a word.

“So, who was murdered?” she asked.

“A professor who specializes in some branch of math, who’s been at the university for a couple of years,” Gabe said. “Her name is Libby Alton.”

“That’s a similar profile,” Meg remembered. “The last victims were also professors and researchers.”

It tied in with the does-not-equal sign scrawled in blood on the wall, that had shocked her to the core when she’d first arrived on the scene.

“Yes, they were,” Gabe said. “The janitor was a wreck. Poor guy. I wouldn’t be surprised if he retires after this. He had to take leave after finding the first body.”

Meg remembered that one of the two previous victims had been murdered in her lecture room while working late. The other, she thought, had been murdered at home.

“Did he see or hear anything?” Meg asked.

Gabe nodded. “Yes. He heard noises coming from that office while he was cleaning an earlier one. He said he didn’t know what it was at first, and then thought she’d probably just collided with a piece of furniture. Poor guy. He was incoherent.”

Meg nodded in sympathy. Now that her mind was flashing all the way back to this case, she actually remembered interviewing him. He’d been traumatized. Stammering, shaking, and she’d also had to come back to him a couple of times because his memories had been fragmented.

She had worked on his alibi and tracked his movements, and cleared him. And, of course, he'd been nowhere near the university when the second murder had happened. He'd been staying with his family at home, on medication after the stress of finding the first body.

“Nothing unusual at the university?” she asked.

Gabe shook his head. “The dean – who you might remember from the previous case, because I believe he’s the university’s original founder – is also beside himself. He’s furious, and already micromanaging the entire situation as if we’re working for him. He did say that things have been normal this past week. No threats, no conflict, nothing unusual. They canceled a few of the classes today, because a lot of the staff needed to take time off after hearing this.”

All normal reactions for such a traumatic incident. She had plenty of them written up in the last case file. Meg remembered the dean had been toxic. Admittedly, they hadn’t met at a good time after multiple murders, but still, he’d been controlling, interfering, and critical of everything she did.

“Things are different now,” Meg said. “More cameras, better footage. Surely someone saw something?”

Gabe shook his head. “Problem is it’s a big university and there are several entry and exit points. Not all of them have working cameras. There’s a side entrance that’s supposed to be locked after five, but generally isn’t. There’s a way in through the back where deliveries are made – there are cameras that capture the vehicle license plates, but it’s possible to get in on foot without being seen at all. Apparently they’re closing all the entrances off and adding security now, but that ship has sailed.”

She recalled from the previous case that one woman and one man had been murdered. Now, another woman. Was there a pattern there? Would a man be next?

A gap of fifteen years wasn’t quite long enough for a new generation of students to be studying. Meg remembered that they’d questioned all the students who’d attended the classes of the victims. In the end, after days of interviewing students, they abandoned that line of inquiry, having found no-one with a motive. But now, she was wondering all over again if they might have missed something. Could a student have committed that pair of murders, and then come back again for a second series of attacks?

“My immediate worry is that this won’t stop at one,” she said.

“My worry is exactly the same,” Gabe rumbled.

Why had the killer stopped at two? Why not more than that? Meg had agonized for weeks over the possible reasons. Poor James had been a good sport about all the canceled dates, as they’d tracked down further witnesses and suspects, to no avail.

That case had been entangled with the start of their romance, and she remembered now that James had mentioned it for years afterward.

He’d always said that he had wished it had been solved, fearing that the murders might have been an omen for their future together.

Luckily, for a decade and a half, their future had been the best and the happiest that she could ever have wished for.

With James having a financial background, she’d even gotten grudging permission from Whitaker, her boss, to let him take a look at those crime scene photographs, to see if he could make sense of the sign written in blood. James had said that he couldn’t. It was a sign commonly used in math equations, that was all.

So that hadn’t led them anywhere. With nothing else to go on, James hadn’t been able to say more, and nor had the other experts they’d consulted.

But now there was a third scene, and Meg was curious.

“Do you have the pictures from the new scene?” she asked.

Gabe nodded. “I do,” he said. “They don’t make much sense to me, but maybe you’ll see more.”

Meg leaned forward as he opened his phone, scrolling through the photos and showing her the image that she remembered so well from before – that strange, scrawled sign, with blood running down.

She’d thought at the time that there was something especially horrific about the combination of a logical math symbol, and the illogical violence of the dripping blood.

Meg thought the same now.

Her gut instinct was that it wasn’t supposed to make sense.

“Anything on the professor’s background?” she asked, her mind now taking wild leaps forward, and wondering if someone had objected to new blood joining the university.

But she’d been there a couple of years, Meg remembered. And there wasn’t any connection between the tenure at the university, and the choice of the other victims. One had been there a few years, and the other an established professor who’d worked there for about two decades.

Gabe shook his head in a perplexed way.

“I want this to make sense, Meg. I want so badly to see a pattern. But last time, the team didn’t see one. And this time, I worry that it’s going to be the same.”

Meg shook her head. Their food arrived, which did more to lift Gabe’s spirits than anything she’d managed to say so far. Staring down at the steaming plate, he looked happier than he had done since she walked in.

“Well,” she said, “I’m going to go back after this, and focus on that case again, and compare it with the new information we have.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Gabe agreed, “because with this being at a major university, there’s a surge of panic. We’ve assigned one of our junior officers who’s basically having to field calls and questions fulltime, and update students and parents and university staff and the media.”

Meg sympathized with him.

“I think the key to the case lies in this question – why did the killer start murdering again?”

CHAPTER TWO

That question was topmost in Meg’s mind as she left the restaurant and headed home, feeling troubled that these killings had started up again. At the same time, though, she realized she’d never really stopped worrying about it: that symbol, written in blood, and the fact that the killer had never been caught.

She’d always worried that another body might be found. And she’d never fully gotten over the sense of defeat and fear that had overwhelmed her after that case.

Sometimes, when she was feeling down and discouraged, those thoughts would flood back, infusing her mind with a sense of dread. She’d tried her best to fight them, telling herself that the killer had probably died, since the murders had occurred within less than two days, and had then stopped for no apparent reason. She’d tried hard to make herself believe that this killer must have been a reckless person who’d probably perished behind the wheel, or been shot in a botched robbery, or – something.

Knowing that he or she had been lurking in society for a decade and a half was deeply disturbing. Why had this started up again?

One of her worst ever cases. Inexplicable, violent, and deeply troubling.

Meg tried to get past her frustration now by telling herself that this was a fresh chance for them to catch him. By killing again, by showing her and Gabe that he was still around, he’d made a bad mistake, and this time, she wouldn’t let him get away.

If you think you’re going to be able to do this a second time, you’ve reckoned without us, she thought.

Fifteen years? What had this person been doing?

As soon as Meg got back to her apartment, she called up the case again, sitting at her dining room table, with her printer – which was now permanently installed on the Welsh dresser – whirring as she made hard copies of the old case notes.

That made it easier to look between cases and compare the information.

Meg didn’t think that she’d missed anything last time, but now, there was new information. She could compare three cases, instead of two.

First, the common factors.

All the victims had been involved in the university in some ways – but the second victim in the previous pair of killings, the math professor, Mike Donnell, had been murdered at his home. He hadn’t been murdered at the university, although the first of the two victims, Dana Kaye, had been.

So this wasn’t purely a killer looking for victims at a particular university, or even at any university. It was a killer who seemed to have been looking for those victims, and finding the place where they could be killed without trace.

She said their names aloud.

“Libby Alton. Mike Donnell. Dana Kaye.”

Meg had researched Donnell and Kaye exhaustively at the time. She’d made a list of common connections, and this list was still in the case file.

They’d both lived in the same area, and she’d wondered for a while if that was a common factor. However, Libby Alton lived in a different area.

What did that mean? Was it just coincidence that the first two had lived in close proximity, or had the killer also moved, and decided to focus on a new area? It might mean nothing. She’d knocked on doors the whole way through the suburb where Donnell and Kaye had lived, and it had brought no results.

She could do it again, though, if that was what it would take. Libby Alton hadn’t lived far from Meg herself. She could park her car at the bottom of the street, and walk up it, asking anyone if they’d seen her being watched or followed.

At that moment, a knock on the door startled Meg.