Page 95 of Love Me Fierce

All along, I’ve felt the burner belonged to our killer, but without the content of the text messages, it was just an educated guess and not enough for a phone company to turn over what meager information they had.

Marin used her smartphone to text the burner three times. The first was two months before she died, the next two were a few weeks later. Then nothing. Now I know why.

Marin had switched to using her secret phone to communicate with the killer.

When I open the most recent text message, I’m confused. It’s a picture.

“Shit,” Zach says.

Then it hits me what I’m looking at. My lungs freeze. I blink, but I don’t want a clearer image of what’s on the little screen.

“It’s him,” I say. Before I lose my nerve, I force myself to flip through the other messages, but they tell the same story. Marin was sending pictures of herself in various states of undress to the man who took her life.

“She was sending selfies to him,” I say.

“He was grooming her,” Ballard says with a heavy tone. “Do any of the messages have content besides the photos?”

“Not that I saw.” I set the phone in the evidence envelope and peel off my gloves.

“God, her parents,” Zach says in a pained voice before looking away.

I ball my fists and tap my steering wheel. Though I know Marin was coerced into this situation, it’s so frustrating I want to scream. Parents and teachers warn kids about sending photos of any kind via their phone or social media. It’s too risky.

Yet Marin decided it was okay to send these to a man she thought she trusted. That it was okay to keep secrets. To lie.

Lies that her killer used to manipulate her.

Lies she paid for with her life.

“What happens now?” Zach asks.

Ballard launches into a detailed explanation of what his forensic team will do to access the serial number of the burner phone, which will reveal where and when the phone was purchased.

If, by some miracle, the killer kept location tracking on when he bought the phone, then we would get GPS hits from where each text and phone call was made from.

“If we have the time and place the phone was sold, at the very least, we can review security footage and get a visual,” Zach says.

“If they still have it,” I say, leaning back in my seat. It’s been over a year since Marin’s murder. Most stores only keep footage for ninety days. Keeping them past a year is almost unheard of.

“I thought this guy wasn’t sexually motivated,” Zach says, shaking his head. “Why these pictures?”

“Remember, it’s about power. He used her vulnerability to manipulate and control. Plus, we have no idea what he did with those pictures.”

My stomach sours and I close my eyes, but it doesn’t erase the images flashing through my mind.

“It bothers me that all these girls were smart,” Zach says. “Science majors and graduate students. They were all conscientious. Independent. Good girls in every way. And yet this guy still got to them.”

“It stokes his fragile ego,” Ballard says. “Makes the process even more meaningful to him.”

It’s fucking twisted.

“We found one other thing in that false bottom,” I say. “An empty valentines candy box.”

“Like chocolates?” Ballard asks.

“No. The kind shaped like hearts, with words stamped on them.”

“Conversation hearts,” he says in a thoughtful tone, like he’s mulling this over.

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