Page 5 of Absent Reason

Amber looked at him, then looked over to Joseph. "I can't help with this one, Simon. I have to be here. I have to stay and make sure that he’s okay. Joseph is hurt because of me."

"Notbecause of you; because of some scumbag who wewillfind," Simon promised her, his tone determined. "But right now, I don't think there's anything we can do here."

Nothing except be there for her boyfriend and wait for him to wake up. Joseph had always told Amber that her job was too dangerous. That she should stick to solving puzzles. Now it seemed that he was the one paying the price for it.

"I have to be here," Amber said. "I can't just leave."

"I understand," Simon said. "I told Palliser that you might not be able to come on this one, and I know she'll get it once she hears what happened. I'll handle this. I'll go to Verdice and look into the murders. You deal with things here."

Amber should have felt relief at those words, but instead, she felt torn. It felt to her as if she were letting her partner down by staying and maybe even putting Joseph in more danger. She felt as if she didn't know where she ought to be right then or even what was going on. All of this felt like a puzzle she couldn't solve, andthatwas a feeling Amber wasn't used to at all.

Amber was still trying to work out what to say next when a woman walked into Joseph's hospital room, moving quickly. She was tall and dark-haired, with high cheekbones and dark eyes that marked her as probably some kind of relative to Joseph. Amber knew that he had a sister, although she’d never met her. Could this be her?

"Denise?" Amber asked, standing, taking a guess.

"Yes, that's right, and you are?"

"I'm Amber." Amber had a second in which to decide how to introduce herself to Joseph's sister. She almost,almostjust said that she was an FBI agent because that might make things simpler. "Joseph's girlfriend."

Denise smiled. "The one who used to work with him on the News?"

Amber nodded.

"Do you know what happened here?" Denise asked. "No one will tell me anything. Joseph said you were with the FBI, right? Can you get the cops to tell you what happened?"

"We don't really know yet," Amber said. "We won't know much until Joseph wakes up."

She didn't mention the diary, didn't mention that this was all her fault. At that moment, Amber knew that she couldn't be there when Joseph regained consciousness. She couldn't sit in that room, knowing that all of it was because of her not being able to tell Joseph's sister what was really happening. She couldn’t be here, which meant that there was one other place that she should be instead.

"Denise, are you going to be able to stay with Joseph?" Amber asked. She still wanted to make sure that someone would be there. It just couldn't be her. Not when this was all her fault.

"You're leaving?" Denise said with a frown.

"I have to," Amber said. "I have a case. The call just came through a little while ago. People have been murdered. But I need to know that Joseph is safe. Can you call me or get the hospital to call as soon as he's awake?"

"I... guess so," Denise said. "You really have to go?"

"Lives might be at stake," Amber said, feeling nothing but guilt as she said it. She knew that the right thing to do was to stay, but the truth was simply that she couldn't stand being there, couldn't stand staring at Joseph and knowing that it wouldn't have happened to him without her in his life.

She needed to get out of there, and Verdice was as good a place to go as any. She would return the diary to the cops, catch up to Simon, and get over to Verdice as quickly as she could. The further away from Joseph Amber was, the safer he would be.

CHAPTER FOUR

Amber was surprised to find that she was the one driving them over to Verdice rather than Simon. Usually, when they drove, he was the one to take the wheel, but not today. It meant that he was the one reading through the case files, talking her through the details as he went.

"So we have two victims, Kelly Wasner and Mia Wilson," Simon said, flipping through the pages. Amber wondered if he looked for the same things in a report that she did, if he was picking out all those small details that didn't quite fit like it was a puzzle. "Both students at the local university, both found hanging from bridges in town. No signs of struggle and no witnesses so far."

"Any possible suspects so far?" Amber asked her eyes on the road ahead. Traffic was light, and they were making good time.

"The local PD have nothing concrete yet, but there have been reported sightings of a man in a dark hoodie hanging around near the bridges," Simon said. "Could be our guy, but there's no way to ID him. The hoodie means that there haven’t been any security shots of his face, and there are no witnesses who can describe him."

That was frustrating. Amber would have liked more to go on, but she guessed that if there were more, the local PD would already have suspects and wouldn't need the FBI's help for this. Maybe they would have already closed the case. Amber didn't know whether to be flattered or not that she and Simon only got called in at a point when the local cops had already run out of options. Did that mean that she and Simon were the best at what they did, or did it mean that they were only a last resort? Either way, it meant that they got cases where there weren’t the kind of clear leads that were going to provide an easy arrest. They would have to find something here that the police hadn’t already found.

Simon continued to read through the reports. "The bridges the women were found hanging from are in different parts of town. There doesn't seem to be any connection between them, except for the fact that they were both young female students at the university."

Amber nodded, her mind still reeling from the events of the past few hours. She couldn't shake the feeling that she was somehow responsible for Joseph's condition, and that made it hard for her to focus on anything else. Still, she tried. Two women who were both students already seemed like the beginnings of a connection.

"It seems like a classic serial killer," Simon said, "one who’s choosing young women as his targets. But with the first death, the police initially thought that it might be a suicide. It was only when the coroner found bruises on Mia's body consistent with a struggle that they realized it was murder."

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