Page 39 of Built of Illusions

She didn’t smile. “Are you fairly confident that—” Her eyes tracked to Zoey’s pictures, but Josie broke off her sentence and swallowed hard. “Do you think he started in Houston?”

Roman nodded. “It’s impossible to be sure, but we haven’t found anything similar in the month before that.”

Josie nodded again. “All the women are Latina, but not all have Latina first names.” Her voice was soft as she thought out loud. Her fingers moved while she spoke. Probably itching for her clay or a pencil.

Her gaze moved back to the letters at the top and he did the same. Then he pulled out his phone and searched for Latina names starting with Zen.

Zen. Zenn. Zena. Zenaib. Zenaida. Zendaya.

On a free space on the board, he added those. And then Amaranta.

Roman pointed at the letters. “Could be Marie or Maria.”

“Zen Anna Maria or Zenaib Amaranta or Zenaida Maria.” Josie’s voice was too soft, too robotic. She was shutting down her emotions to cope and solve the puzzle.

Roman nodded and moved to his computer. It would have a better search program than their phones. Maybe they’d get lucky and find a woman who fit the profile on their first try.

If they were on the right track, the next letter would be I or O. Not J. The rush of relief made him feel guilty, but he wasn’t able to stop it. They had some time.

If this theory was correct.

His gut said it was. Roman’s too if his intensity was any indication.

Unable to keep away from Josie any longer, Nico moved back to squat beside her chair. She sat stiffly, but didn’t move away from him when he rubbed his hand up and down her arm.

He rubbed his thumb slowly over her shoulder as they studied the board. “This is a good lead. We’re closer than we were this morning.”

“Not close enough.”

He angled his head until she looked at him. “Hey. We can’t think that way. Every step forward is worth celebrating. Most people think law enforcement work is exciting and dangerous when almost all of it is like this. Thinking, moving ideas around, researching. You’ve helped. Seriously.”

Unable to resist, Nico took her hands and brought them to his lips. “We’re going to keep you safe. How would you feel about moving in with my parents for a few days?”

Josie choked on a harsh laugh. “I’m not a foster kid anymore, Nico. I have my own house.”

Before he could argue, Roman called them over to his desk. “Okay, I’ve done a quick search of those name combinations we came up. There are a lot of them. Thousands.”

Beside him, Josie flinched. “Thousands?”

Roman grinned. “Trust me. That’s a good number, but we’re going to make it better.”

“How?”

Nico answered that one. “We’ll narrow it down by age first, then current location. Somewhere north of us.”

Roman nodded. “Then we’ll search for records of who was born in Texas and has had a single male child.”

Josie nodded. “That sounds like a lot of work.”

Roman shrugged. “It’s what we do. We’ll also have some of our colleagues help. And we have some sophisticated computer programs.”

Nico nodded. “But a lot of it is slogging through data and eliminating things.”

“Can I help?”

Roman smiled. “More than you have? Probably not with the searches. Protocols and all that.”

Her face fell but she nodded.

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