“I don’t know.” Nate shrugged. “I guess we’d need to look at census data for that, and it may not be accurate.”
Laura dug out her phone, doing a quick search. “The population of Milwaukee is currently around five hundred and seventy-seven thousand people,” she said. A moment later, she found the next result she was looking for. “The average percentage of people born as twins in the US is three in every one thousand. So, that’s…”
Nate did the math while she was still staring off into the distance, trying to work it out. “A bit under two thousand people.”
“No way we can cover them all,” Laura said. “We need to narrow it down. We could at least start with this, see how many of them were both delivered by Dr. Fairmont and still live here. It could be a lead.”
“And then what? Try to protect them all? There could still be hundreds.”
“Or what? We just do nothing, sit on our hands and wait for him to kill someone else?” Laura snapped. She had had enough of Nate arguing with her. Not trusting her. Second-guessing every decision she made. “I’m going to do it, because it’s the only thing I can think of to do. You do whatever you want.”
She turned away from him, her eyes burning, and started to go through the files. She took a whole stack of them out of the box, as many as she could get at once, to dump them onto her desk and start discarding the ones that weren’t relevant. She already had a stabbing headache from the stress that Nate was causing her, and…
No, that wasn’t stress. That was—
Laura found herself staring at a woman from behind, as she walked down the street. A quieter street this time. A residential area, not one surrounded by stores and cafes. She was wearing a smart uniform—a skirt suit with black heels. Like she worked in a professional, customer-facing job.
Not at all like the vision of the woman in the café, who was dressed casually. But Laura recognized her all the same. Her hair. The shape of her body, which was the same even if she hadn’t been able to fully clearly see her face before. It could be the same person.
Which Laura knew, by now, meant that she wasn’t.
She was a twin.
The man she saw through was hiding, ducking behind buildings, staying in doorways. Letting her get far away and then following her another short distance to a hiding spot. Doing everything he could not to be seen.
Where were they? Laura didn’t recognize the neighborhood, wasn’t familiar enough with the city. And there were no landmarks, no businesses she could track down. He was following her home. He had to be. She was alone. She walked toward a small row of houses, turning onto the path, getting her keys out of her purse as she approached the door…
Laura jolted back into herself with force, feeling like she had whiplash with how quickly the vision had come and gone. It was frustratingly short, light on details. She’d still only seen the woman from behind or at a distance, no clear view of her face. And even if she’d seen her face, that wouldn’t do her much good. Not if she didn’t know where to find her, or how.
And there were two of them. Which of them was the target? Was the killer going to go after both of them? Or was this going to be like the Wurz twins, and he would only kill one?
The only thing she knew was that they had to get to them quicker than they had last time—and that the clue to who she was looking for had to be somewhere in the pile of documents that she had picked up. It was touching them that had triggered the vision.
Laura took a deep breath. “Nate,” she said. “I really think the person we’re looking for is in here somewhere.”
She knew her tone would sound odd. That she had layered meaning under it. Stressing the point: trust me.
There was little point in pretending anymore, was there? Nate knew something was off with her. That she was able to know things. He didn’t understand how, but there was no longer any way to put him off knowing that she did it.
She needed to save someone’s life. And her secret was only a secret in the how, not the what. So, why keep the what from him anymore?
“The person?” he said, frowning. “You mean the killer, or the next victim?”
“The next victim,” Laura clarified. She looked down at the files on her desk. “Or victims. I still don’t know if he’s killing one or two. Whether Kevin got away because we saved him, or because Kenneth was the only target all along.”
“And how are we supposed to find them?”
Laura hesitated. She bit her lip. He was asking her not just a rhetorical or procedural question. She knew that. She heard the undertone in his words, too. He was asking how. But she could only give him what.
“I think we’re looking for a woman next,” Laura said. “It fits the pattern, doesn’t it?”
“The pattern,” Nate said, with a heavy dose of skepticism. “Sure.”
“She would have been different as a baby, of course,” Laura said. “But she has long, curly brown hair now. Messy curls. Her sister, too.”
Nate frowned at her. Laura met his gaze for only a moment, then looked away, almost afraid to hold it. It wasn’t just a look. It was a glare. He was furious with her, and she knew exactly why.
“How would you know that?” he asked.