“So, that’s one possibility,” Leigh said. “Another type of case I handle a lot is stalkers. In most stalking cases I see—and you probably know this—the stalkers aren’t strangers to their victims. Typically, they’re intimate partners.”

“The psycho exes you mentioned,” he said.

She tipped her head to the side. “Exes, almost always. As for the psycho part, that varies by case. I’m not a psychiatrist, I’m a lawyer. I don’t know what all these guys’ mental health issues are, and I’m not here to diagnose them. But what I see most often is a guy who’s been rejected. He feels betrayed and humiliated—especially if she’s met somebody else. So he starts stalking his ex in order to reassert control. Sometimes these guys post revenge porn, too. It’s all a form of punishment, and it usually works, unfortunately.”

“Have you ever seen a guy escalate from stalking to violence against one of your clients?”

“Oh yeah. Happens a lot. A big chunk of what I do is help my clients get restraining orders. But as far as Vanessa’s concerned? We never got to anything like that.” Leigh shook her head. “All she ever told me about was this lease problem. But that in itself is another red flag to me.”

“Why?”

“Well, she was having this whole issue with her landlord because he said she was illegally subletting her apartment. So I’m wondering, why did she move? Did she feel unsafe in her home for some reason? Was someone coming around, bothering her? And when you combine that with Kate saying how Vanessa got a new phone—”

“Vanessa’s sister?”

“Yes. Kate. She told me Vanessa got a new phone during the summer. She claimed she lost her other phone, but maybe she just wanted a new phone number. I see that all the time when clients are being stalked and harassed by an ex. A simple block-and-delete strategy doesn’t work with these guys. You have to sever ties completely—which may have been what Vanessa was trying to do.”

“So, this nightmare ex-boyfriend theory—”

“It’s a theory,” she told him. “I don’t have proof or anything. Just, you know, some circumstances that raise red flags to me, based on talking to her friends and her sister.”

“I need to interview the boyfriend. You have a name?”

“I’m a step ahead of you.”

He felt a dart of annoyance. “You talked to him?”

“Went to see him this afternoon. His name’s Cooper Collins, and she dated him last winter. He’s a grad student at UT. Works at the bookstore near campus.”

“How did you find him?”

“How I find anyone. The Internet. You can locate pretty much anybody if you know how to look.”

“Jesus, Leigh.”

“What?”