Page 71 of By the Time You Read This

Logan:But you couldn’t solve your brother’s murder so you tried to solve others ...

Carmichael:Yeah, that’s a good way to put it ... yeah.Triedbeing the key word there. I didn’t solve any. We all just talked, mostly. Bickered. There were power struggles. It felt like a community with a goal that we didn’t really work toward at all. That sounds harsh, but I mean it in a good way. It was kind of just an online place for all of us to hang out and make friends. It was nice, especially for people not into sports or video games.

Logan:So you never contacted investigators or did your own digging?

Carmichael:No.

Logan:Oh. Okay. So you said youwereinvolved, does that mean you aren’t anymore?

Carmichael:About two years into being an active participant with the group, someone in the forum somehow found my mother’s cell phone and landline. They called her incessantly, and then when she couldn’t answer their questions to their satisfaction, they said terrible, nasty things to her. Blaming her for Mitch’s death, stuff like that. And she had just started to get better, too. I had thought maybe she’d turned a corner.

Logan:Having to talk about the crime reopened her wounds?

Carmichael:You could say that. She took a bottle of sleeping pills on top of a fifth of vodka a week later. She never woke up.

Logan:Oh. Oh. I’m so sorry.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Raisa

Day Three

Roan Carmichael agreed to meet Raisa at a nautical-themed pub a few streets down from the police station.

She had texted Essi to see if she had contact information for him, and had gotten his email. He’d responded almost immediately and confessed he’d come to town after he’d heard the news.

He wasn’t the only person in the pub, but she spotted him easily, sitting in the back corner away from the family who had taken over two booths in the front and the couple at the bar itself.

Roan was tall and lean with messy hair he’d tied up in a topknot. He wore a poncho that looked like it was made out of alpaca hair and Birkenstocks with woolly socks despite the summer heat.

He shoved the chair out with his foot, inviting her to sit.

“Larissa Parker,” he said, and Raisa narrowed her eyes.

She was tired of being addressed by a name that had never really been hers.

“FBI Agent Raisa Susanto,” she corrected and he nodded.

“Of course, sorry.” He seemed genuinely contrite, which she appreciated. “How can I help you, Agent Susanto?”

“I wanted to talk to you about your time with the anti-FreeBell movement,” Raisa said.

“That’s a popular topic these days,” he muttered.

“Is it?”

“Yeah, even before Isabel died,” he said, and then he winced. “Someone wanted to interview me about it.”

“Emily Logan?” Raisa asked. It wasn’t unusual that, in a niche group, so many members would know each other and interact, but she did find it notable that Emily had been quite the presence in a community Gabriela said she didn’t have much interest in.

“Yeah,” Roan said, his brows going up in surprise that she knew the name. “I feel like I should start earlier than that, though.”

“How about the fact that there’s no Carmichael on Isabel’s victim list,” Raisa suggested.

He smiled sheepishly. “That’s as good a place as any. My brother actually is on the list of known victims, we just had different dads. Mitchell Johnston.”

“Stabbing, outside a bar.” Raisa hated that she had them all memorized, but she would have felt guilty had she not.

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