“Here’s the thing—Greg had a brother. His name’s Nicholas Miller. Based on what I could dig up—which isn’t a lot—I believe he lives in the area.”

My eyes light up. It has to be him. Who else would want to kill Kelly? “Where does he live? Where does he work? Let’s find him.” This is it. This is my lifeline. This is my miracle. Everything is going to be okay.

“See, here’s the thing. I called the home and spoke with the mother. The conversation I had with her is also why I didn’t think the parents had anything to do with this. She was so friendly and nice. I enjoyed speaking with her. I might just call her regularly since my own mom is such a jerk.”

“Okay, get to the point, Rebecca. We can talk all about your family problems after I’m cleared of this.”

“Sorry. Anyway. I asked for Nicholas since when I pulled the background report on Greg, I saw he had an older brother. Well, the mother told me he had just visited and left the other day to head back to Maryland.”

“Maryland. That’s not Virginia,” I say.

“Correct, but it’s very close. There are so many cities, and towns he could be in that are less than two hours from here. He could have easily done this.”

“How do we find him?”

“I’m still looking. I haven’t been able to locate a Nicholas Miller, but I have found some others with that same last name. I was going to start there and see if anyone knows him. It’s not that common of a name, so I might just get lucky,” she says.

“Well, how ‘not common’ is it?”

“I have a list of seventy-two people with the same last name within a two-hour radius, and since you have nothing going on in the meantime, I thought you could help me tackle half this list.” She hands me a page full of names, addresses, and phone numbers.

“There’s like fifty names on my list. That’s not half.”

“I know. Because some of these don’t have phone numbers, so I’m going to need to make some home visits. I wouldn’t be complaining if I were you. Your life is literally on the line,” she reminds me.

“Trust me. I know.” I roll my eyes.

“Great. Well, you get to work on those, and I’ll be back late tomorrow. Call me if you find anything.”

“And you do the same.”

“Oh, I will.” She packs up her stuff.

Before she leaves, I call her name. She turns to look at me. “Be safe.”

She smiles, nods, and then leaves me there with a page of phone numbers. One of these sets of numbers just might be my winning ticket—my very own lottery. I pick up the corded phone and start dialing.

35. Sarah Morgan

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