I stood up for Cris with a level of confidence that I didn’t fully believe. Am I trying to convince them, or myself? I pushed down the nagging doubt that had been creeping in since our last meeting, all the things I’d seen that matched up with their profile. But they didn’t know I’d been getting additional information from Beccah and I was terrified of telling them any circumstantial evidence that they may use to further villainize Cris. But the investigative part of my brain yearned to hear more details on the case, even if it pointed to him. I couldn’t imagine living in the dark now that I knew I was connected. There was also a lingering trail of guilt that if I didn’t help them, two innocent women could die. And maybe future victims after them. Hannigan stared at me thoughtfully for a second and then continued on. He could probably sense that I was wavering.

‘Liz, we understand you haven’t wanted to give up seeing your grand uncle before we had further proof but you have to understand the potential severity of the consequences if you repeat anything we tell you to him or his wife. If it is Cristian, we can’t risk tipping him off.’

‘I understand,’ I replied with a nod.

‘TSK’s pattern up to this point has been to keep the women captive for about nine months, murder them, and then discard the bodies one to two weeks later. But Addie and Zoey have passed that deadline by over a month. We aren’t sure whether that’s because the bodies haven’t been found yet or if it’s because he’s deviated from his routine. But it stands to reason that if the women are still alive, we have very little time left to rescue them.’

He paused, flipping open his notebook and retrieving two loose photos from it. He put them down on the table in front of me. Smiling back at me were two headshots of attractive women around my age. One with long brown hair, the other blonde. I recognized them from the news. I quickly averted my eyes back to Hannigan.

‘I still don’t understand how I can—’

‘We know you don’t want to believe that your grand uncle is capable of this. We’ve been working our way through your genetic connections, exploring your other male relatives. This has been difficult because of the complications of your family tree but based on the information at hand, Cristian is still the best fit for TSK. There just aren’t many living males on the Dominio side that fit the characteristics. As we’ve mentioned, we have been looking into Adam Dominio as well, but he’s been more compliant in our investigation and it’s appearing that most of the evidence is pointing toward Cristian at this stage.’