Jack ended the call and set the phone back into the console. That girl might be too cute, he said. I dont know how you can stand it.

It takes practice, thats for sure.

Theyd come to a red light and it then occurred to Rachel that they could literally drive all night, going to every bridge they happened to pass by and not put a scratch in the number of places they could possibly go. They had no leads, no clues, no idea as to where they should even start.

So is she just super well-behaved or are you that good of a mother? Jack asked.

Yanked out of her despair, Rachel jerked a bit, almost having missed what hed said. What do you mean?

You told her you couldnt talk as sweetly and as rationally as you could and she was fine with it. She understood. Thats pretty cool.

Yeah, I guess it is pretty cool. Shed always been really good at understanding things like that, though. Rationalizing things like that with a kid her age isnt easy. It takes a lot of practice.

The light turned green and as she passed through it, the comment that had just come out of her mouth seemed to catch on something in her mind. Rationalizing things…it takes a lot of practice.

Then, almost as an afterthought and not part of her conversation with Jack at all, she added: You really have to know how to talk to someone…

What? Jack asked.

Something just occurred to me. That one last number that we dont have an identity for…would you say its a safe bet that the caller knew the four men had once had suicidal tendencies?

I think they at least knew theyd been having issues. Maybe even that theyd been to therapy.

So the caller would have to know something along those lines. But theyd also need to have their number. Which, thanks to our suspects so far, we know isnt very hard to do. Deringer hired someone to do it and Alberto Spears knew how to do it himself. So really, all three people weve questioned all had access to these mens names, their history of depression and/or suicidal thoughts, and their phone numbers. And of all three of our suspects so far, theres only been one who would have access to those things without any outside help.

You mean Lisa at Better Days.

Yes.

But she checked out. Shes clean…right?

Rachel considered it for a minute. Is she? Her mind started to take a turn it had shied away from at first but as she started speaking the idea out loud, it started to make a dark sort of sense.