“Could any of them be the two girls we found who haven’t been identified yet?” Their ghosts may have moved on, but the girl in blue and the girl in the red hoodie hadn’t left Nessa’s memory. Their faces were on her mind every morning when she woke. They were with Nessa each night that guilt and frustration kept her awake.
Franklin shook his head. “That’s one of the strangest things about this whole case. I haven’t found a single clue when it comes to those girls. But don’t worry—I’m going to keep looking till I do.”
Nessa turned to him. “So this is what you’ve been doing since you lost your job?”
“All day, every day,” he said. “I figured when I had some conclusions, I’d come share them with you.”
“I can’t believe you did all of this,” Nessa said.
“The eulogy you gave at Mandy Welsh’s funeral inspired me. I wanted to do something to deserve you.” He put an arm around Nessa’s shoulders and gently guided her out of the room. “Now, if it’s possible, let’s pick this up in the morning. I have a few important questions to ask you about this team we’re forming.”
Franklin closed the door to the office behind them. They walked back through the house to the deck and its gorgeous view. Nessa came to a stop. The migraine that had been her constant companion was gone. For the first time in weeks, her mind felt clear.
“What do you want to know?” Nessa asked.
“You like steak?” Franklin asked.
Nessa remembered the joke her daughters had made. She stepped up to Franklin and put her arms around his neck.
“I love it,” she said.
They didn’t eat their steak until midnight.
“So how was the second time?” Jo asked the next day as they did squats in front of a mirror at Furious Fitness. “Better than the first?”
Nessa glanced around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “It felt like a religious experience,” she whispered. She’d never shared such private thoughts with another woman before.
Jo laughed so hard she nearly dropped her ten-pound barbells. “You mean like angels singing and harps playing?”
“To be honest?” Nessa stopped and smiled at the memory. “Yeah. I don’t know what it is about that man. He just knows exactly what to do.”
“Well, whatever he did, you definitely needed it. You looked like a whole new woman when you walked through the door this afternoon.”
“That’s because my headache went away,” Nessa said.
“I bet,” Jo joked.
“No, it wasn’t the sex.” Nessa was suddenly serious. “My migraine disappeared after Franklin showed me all the work he’s been doing. I think there are more dead girls around here who need to be found, and they’ve been yelling at me all at once. They’re frustrated that no one’s been looking.”
Jo set down her barbells. “Shit,” she sighed, her fears confirmed. “Remember that morning we drove out to Danskammer Beach to look for the first body? I thought that was going to be the worst day of my life. Now we’re in the middle of a fucking conspiracy. You’re saying there are more dead girls out there, and we know the chief of police and Jackson Dunn are involved somehow. God knows who else is. And somehow we’re supposed to bring them all to justice.”
“I know, but what are we going to do?” Nessa asked. “We obviously can’t go to the police. And after that Newsnight special, no one in the media’s going to talk to us.”
“As soon as we’re done with our workout, let’s reach out to Josh Gibbon and see if he wants to rehabilitate his reputation. Bet he’ll be interested in that surveillance footage from the Pointe, if we can get our hands on it.”