So you found something she didn’t tell you. Big deal.

But this wasn’t small. It might seem small to a casual observer and even normal that she was looking for her sister. But they’d talked about Jayne. They’d hammered the subject to death, and he’d tried to be supportive about her decision. She’d agreed to let it go. And now he could see that she hadn’t.

It worried him.

God fucking damn it.

Ava was happier when she didn’t think about Jayne. Why was she doing this to herself? And why did she feel the need to hide it? Mason realized he was hurt by the discovery. Doesn’t she trust me? He’d opened his trust to her unconditionally. He trusted her and understood her drive to look out for her sister, so why didn’t she feel that she could talk to him about Jayne? Maybe she had more doubts about their relationship. Maybe she struggled with his age . . .

“Jesus Christ.”

“What?” asked Zander behind him.

“Aw, nothing. Just talking to myself.” Mason turned and looked at the agent. “You’re not married, right?”

Zander paused and glanced down at his keyboard. “Not anymore.”

“Girlfriend?”

He gave a half smile, looking back at Mason. “Not now. Problems with Ava?”

No way would Mason dump his insecurities on the table. “Only in my head.”

Zander nodded knowingly. “That’ll eat at you every time.” He went back to his computer screen, leaving Mason to deal with his annoying doubts.

“I’m an idiot,” Mason mumbled to no one.

“Do you need a beer?” Zander asked.

Mason snorted. “Yes. Or something stronger. Any of that around here?”

“I wish. Maybe later.”

“I might hold you to that.”

Ava stepped back into the room. “I’ve got Joe Upton’s cell phone records cross-referenced with the other two victims. Again, nothing matched up. If someone called them, he didn’t call from the same phone number. Or he didn’t call their cells.”

“Upton’s email came up clean, too,” added Zander. “Going on the chance these guys were contacted by our killer, what are we missing?”

“Euzent seemed pretty certain he would have communicated with them somehow,” Mason said. “Email, cell phone, landline. He could have called them at work. What about a chat room? I know we have agents going through their social media.”

“I heard back on their social media,” said Ava, digging through the papers next to her laptop where Mason had found her notes on Derrick Snyder. She yanked out a page. “Aaron King had virtually nothing. An old Facebook page that hadn’t been touched in six months. Carson Scott had quite a bit of stuff, but the majority of it was handled by one of his staffers. And neither Aaron King nor Joe Upton shows up as a contact. Scott’s private accounts don’t show any odd activity that caught our investigator’s eye.”

“What about Joe Upton?” asked Mason.

Ava smiled. “Exactly what you’d expect for a reclusive science fiction fan. All sorts of profiles and discussions on every science fiction site on the web. He has a strong interest in space travel, both real and imaginary. The computer forensics team is still digging through Joe’s hard drive, but they haven’t found anything resembling a message of the type we’re searching for.”

“We saw spaceship models in one of the rooms in his house,” Mason said, remembering the plastic Star Wars and Star Trek replicas. “They made it look like a teenager’s room. Did we follow up on the yearbooks from their high schools?”

“I have a call in to Laura King, Aaron’s ex-wife,” Zander said. “She thought she might have yearbooks in her garage. That would be quicker for us to get than sending someone out to Gladstone. I sent an agent to Carson Scott’s Vancouver high school to borrow copies, since it wasn’t too far. Usually the libraries keep copies of all the yearbooks. Let me go see if he’s back.” Zander pushed out of his chair and left the room.

Ava tapped on her keyboard and frowned at the screen. Mason took a breath, reached out, and slid the paperwork off the notes about Derrick Snyder. She glanced at the pages and did a double take. Blue eyes looked up at him.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Derrick Snyder. The guy who stole your TV.”

“I know that. But why are you looking into him?”

“I want to know where he is. I don’t think Jayne is safe with him.”

Mason sat down in his chair and rolled over beside her. He took her hand and looked her in the eyes. “Why now? Why are you worrying about your sister now?”

She set a finger on one of the pages. “Look at this. This guy is dangerous. He’s been accused twice of rape and abuse. This isn’t someone I want Jayne hanging around with.”

Mason glanced at the sheet. He already knew what it said. “You’re trying to find him so you can get Jayne to leave him. What will you do then? Where will you send her?”

Ava stuttered. “I don’t know. I just need to know she’s safe. That reporter we met the other night, Brody, told me Snyder is worse than we’d first realized.”

“When did you see Brody?” Mason’s nerves vibrated.

“He hunted me down,” Ava said ruefully. “I guess my routine is a bit predictable. He put himself in my path after our interview with the Uptons.”