Page 45 of Intertwined Souls

“Who’s next?”

“Bethany Wright, a social worker.”

What feels like only an hour later, someone knocks on the door and then steps inside. Harley and I are bent over opposite sides of the middle desk pouring over all the pages we have made for each person.

Harley’s head shoots up and glares at Ryker, who is standing in the doorway. “What?” she snaps, and then winces. “Sorry, didn’t mean for that to be so harsh.”

Ryker rubs the back of his neck. “You guys have been in here for almost six hours. Do you want to take a break?”

We both shake our heads at the same time.

Ryker sighs. “Okay, alright, fine. But I’m going to go get food, and you both are going to eat it,” he demands before leaving the room.

Harley blinks a few times before glancing at me. “Six hours?”

I shrug and look at the clock. “Apparently.”

“I think we have this. But we’re missing something.” She chews on her lip.

I peer down at everything, running my eyes over each paper with a different name; we laid them out by who overlaps with who and common locations.

“Tammy. We need to do her, and then that’s everyone,” I sigh.

Harley grimaces but nods. We sit back down at the computers, pull up her tracker, and begin pouring over it. “What’s this place?” Harley points out a spot it seems Tammy goes to at least twice a week.

“A recreation center for the youth. It looks like Tammy takes Tabby there twice a week for some kind of cheer class they have. And Tammy makes donations to their assistance program.”

Pinching her lips together, Harley drums her fingers on her leg. “No, I mean, maybe Tabby goes there, but Tammy has to have other motives for being there. If there is one thing I can say for certain about the type of person Tammy is, it’s selfish. She isn’t going to waste her time and money with that, even if it’s for her daughter, unless she always gets something out of it.”

“Okay. We can make a note to bring it up to everyone, and maybe a few people could follow her and try to figure out what’s going on,” I say, jotting it down.

“Let’s map out her locations and see if there is any overlap with any of the others,” Harley suggests.

She stands at the map with a marker and marks spots as I give them to her from the tracking history on the computer. It takes another few hours, including Ryker stopping back in to watch us eat and then leaving again.

Sitting back in my chair, I stretch my arms over my head and let my eyes wander over the map. There has to be something we’re missing here.

The door suddenly bangs open, jolting both of us out of our thoughts. Ryker and Cade both come into the room and shut the door. “Alright, Nerds is out there losing his mind, and I’m starting to lose mine, too,” Ryker says exasperated.

“That’s what happens when you sit outside a door for fucking hours on end,” Cade grumbles quietly.

Ryker shoots him a glare and then continues, “Fill us in and let us help you wrap up whatever you’re doing because you both need to get some sleep.”

We start at the beginning, showing them all the pages we made and laid out on the desk. After we finish filling them in, Cade takes a seat and looks over the pages of notes we have, and Ryker walks over to the map looking it over.

Harley runs a hand through her hair and slumps back into the chair with a sigh.

“You okay, beautiful?” I say softly.

She offers me a small, sad smile. “Yeah. This stuff just makes my mind go down paths I wish it wouldn’t.”

Taking her hand, I give it a light squeeze. “That’s understandable, but don’t hold it all in. If you need to talk, fight, or cry it out, tell us. Let us help you.”

She nods and blinks away the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes.

“Hey, did you guys notice this?” Ryker calls.

Harley and I both head over to him. He points to the location where most of these people have been but only ever stay for five minutes.

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