Jack looked up to her, smiling as the idea of it fully ensnared them both. And then, without a single word spoken between them, they hurried to their workspace in the back of the building, already pulling up Facebook on their phones. They had a potential lead and, as was becoming more and more the case within the bureau, something as simple as social media may very well provide the answer.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

It was a peculiar feeling that Rachel wasnt sure she would ever get used to, and it had settled over her like a veil in the two hours following their initial interrogation of Maria Oliver. Over the past several years, it had become commonplace for a lot of research work to be conducted on social media. Rachel had personally spent hours on Facebook and Instagram, tracking the movements and chatter of suspected killers and small-town terrorists over the last three years or so. She knew such digging was becoming more and more effective, but it still sometimes felt like she was doing little more than goofing off on social media.

Okay, so Ive got two links between Gloria Larsen and Lucinda Masters, Jack said, sitting on the edge of the tiny desk. The first is that they both like Trader Joes. The second is a mutual friend by the name of Wendy Timmons. Looking at Wendys profile and some of her posts, though, I think it might just be a single, common shared friend from a local gym.

Rachel jotted down the name Wendy Timmons and then went back to her own search. She found that Lucinda Masters had been a member of lots of Facebook groupslike a lot. She was a fan of at least twenty pages for various television shows, from a Friends fan group to a True Crime on Netflix group. She followed different chain stores, several celebrities, and local businesses, too.

She fished through them all, getting a rather widespread look into Lucindas life. It was both informative and creepy to be peering through the interests of a dead woman in such a digital and impersonal way. It paid off, though. In her search, she found two groups that jumped out to her. One was called Family Focus Fertility and the other was Baby Blues. She scribbled these down as well and then checked the profiles of Gloria Larsen and Hannah Kettleman. She wasnt expecting much, as she could only imagine how many groups there were out there to help support and encourage women that were having trouble getting pregnant.

Yet it took less than a minute to find a connection. She double-checked just to make sure she was seeing it right and then sat forward at the small desk. This could be pretty big, she said, showing her phone to Jack. All three of our victims were members of a Facebook group called Family Focus Fertility.

That could be big, Jack said. How many members?