“Do you really think so?”

“Yes. But he doesn’t know how to show it yet. Give it some time. He’s still new at this stepdad thing.”

Tessa was quiet.

Christie tossed her dirty clothes into the hamper, then handed Tessa three books to place on the shelf: The Cloud of Unknowing, Dark Night of the Soul, and The Way of a Pilgrim.

“So really, though,” Tessa said, “how was your weekend?”

“Nice. Quiet. Reflective. Gave me a place to think some things through.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, some personal things.”

“Okay.”

“I’m not trying to be overly secretive. I just needed some time to myself.”

“Was it me?”

“You?”

“Yeah. Did I do something?”

“Oh. No. Absolutely not. It’s me. It’s just me.”

“You sure it wasn’t me?”

“I’m positive.”

“Okay,” Tessa said, but not right away. “Gotcha.”

++++

It wasn’t unusual for me to lose myself in my work, and when I checked the time at last, I saw that it was almost four o’clock.

The agents who spoke with Reese in Phoenix hadn’t found out anything—though they did note that he seemed a little less than forthcoming.

Calvin had promised to contact me, but I still hadn’t heard from him. There was some paperwork for him to fill out if he was going to be officially brought in to consult on this case and, before we went any further with discussing things, I needed him to complete those forms, but he didn’t answer when I tried his cell.

It’s common to do a tox screen after a suicide to see if there were any contributing factors—alcohol, illegal drugs, prescription meds that might cause suicidal tendencies—so we had the results from the other deaths. They confirmed that each of the people had Selzucaine in their systems.

If we could discover where they got the drug, then finding their dealer might be the way for us to track down Blake or the Matchmaker.

However, since the suicides were in three different states, I anticipated that it would be unlikely that the victims all purchased drugs from the same person.

Also, if we could match the shipping locations of the silent ladies with known drug distributors in the cities in which the victims lived, it might lead us somewhere helpful.

Maybe that’s what Mannie meant when he said to follow the Selzucaine back to the source.

I sent an email to Sasha and cc’d Ralph requesting more info on Selzucaine trafficking and known dealers.

I thought that since the videos were posted live online there must be some way for the potential victims to contact the observer who was there when they died. So I studied the Internet histories of the victims and found that they all frequented the same chat room. It didn’t appear to be a suicide club, as Calvin had mentioned, but rather a dating site.

The Matchmaker.