With that idea turning over and over in her head like a rough stone being polished, Rachel started the car and headed back to Baltimore. She was leaving with no real leads, but with a personal awakening she was not quite ready to face and an idea that might help them pry this case open just a little farther.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

Sitting down with a glass of wine, she grabbed her phone off of the coffee table. Her hands were trembling a bit as she swiped up to unlock it. She was not nervous, but anxious. It was not too dissimilar from the feeling shed once experienced in college when shed been sleeping with her roommates boyfriend. The thrill of sneaking around, of knowing it what she was about to do was wrong. Back then, the anticipation and build-up of meeting with him was often more satisfying than the act itself.

That was, of course, after shed been gang raped and beaten ten minutes after leaving a bar. Sleeping with her roommates boyfriend had been another mistake in the chain of bad decisions that followed.

But that was not the case nowthe anticipation was not quite as good as the final act. No, what she planned to doand had been doing for a little over a week nowwas much more satisfying than the build-up. She still felt new to it…like she had no idea what she was doing. Then again, taking a life was taking a life. There were lots of ways to do it, she supposed, but the end result was the same: another death dealt out into the world.

She opened up Facebook and typed out the same search in the search bar that shed been using for the past month or so: Family Focus Fertility. The page came up and she clicked on it…but something was different. Something had changed. She stared at the screen for a moment, a flood of rage storming her heart.

The screen was white and grey, with a simple message in the center: This is a private group.

She took a sip of her wine, hoping it would battle the anger that was rising up in her. She could feel it consuming every nerve and muscle and before she knew what she was doing, she threw the wine glass across the room. It exploded against the wall, red wine splattering the wall like blood spray.

Oddly enough, she briefly thought of her students. What would they say if they saw her reacting in such a way. Such rage…such hatred.

Well, theyd likely frown upon me killing people, too, she thought. It was a thought that brought a dry, breathy laughter up out of her throat. She went back to her phone and picked it up, doing her best to settle herself.