Andi looked up from the table. “So, what we have so far is a missing router, a woman with GHB in her system who claims to have been with Spencer just before she lost her memory, and a black truck that we can’t find.”

Niki leaned in as if to match Andi’s posture. “Sadie Vauk didn’t knowingly take GHB—we are sure of that. It causes amnesia going forward in time, not back, so we can get an expert to testify that the gap in her memory would have started shortly after she ingested the drug. Gavin Spencer was the only person around.”

Andi looked at Niki. “It’s circumstantial.”

“We have evidence of sexual trauma,” Niki said. “And she sure as hell didn’t jump in the river of her own volition.”

Andi shook her head slowly. “You have enough to get past probable cause, but proving it beyond a reasonable doubt is going to be tough.”

“There’s something else,” Niki said. “We think he’s done this before.”

As Lila listened to the conversation about GHB, her throat had grown tight, and she gave her head an almost imperceptible shake as if to push the feeling away.

Niki opened a folder and slid a picture of a young woman across the table to Andi. “This is Eleanora Abrams. Her body was found in the Mississippi River six years ago in St. Paul. They found signs of sexual assault, although her body was pretty beat up—postmortem. She likely went into the river above the falls, just like Sadie Vauk.”

Matty picked it up from there. “She had GHB in her system, but the ME couldn’t say definitively if it was produced by her body or if it came from an outside source.”

Niki pulled a second photo out and gave it to Andi. “This is Virginia Mercotti. She was pulled out of the river at Gorge Park four years ago. Same MO: sexual trauma, fully clothed, and elevated levels of GHB, source undetermined.”

Andi put the two pictures beside one another on the table, “before” pictures of the two young women smiling at the camera, oblivious to the horrific turn their lives were about to take.

Niki slid a third picture across the table. “Two years ago. Her name is Chloe Ludlow. Found her floating in Ford Parkway. We believe all three were put into the river upstream of the falls. None of them had defensive wounds or ligature marks. All three had elevated levels of GHB, and we can prove that Ms. Ludlow’s GHB came from an external source.”

Andi laid the picture of the third victim next to the others. “Do we have a connection between these women and Spencer?”

“Not yet,” Niki said. “We focused on getting him off the streets. The guy has money—well, his mother has money. Either way, he’s a flight risk. We didn’t want to give him a chance to run.”

Andi tapped a finger lightly on the picture of Virginia Mercotti as she considered what to do. “Will you be able to shore up the case for Vauk? I can get a judge to sign the complaint, but in front of a jury…”