Page 29 of If She Sensed

"It doesn't sound silly at all," Kate said.

"My daughter thinks it's silly."Hanover smiled briefly and rolled her eyes with affectionate self-awareness."She says ‘Mom, you don't have to comment on every single post.’But I remember what it felt like to put something out there and have nobody respond."She smoothed the dish towel across her knee."I don't want to be that person who just reads and never gives anything back."

Kate let that settle before she moved forward."We noticed that your activity on the forum is quite different from your activity on your public Facebook page.Different tone, different engagement style."

Hanover considered this for a moment without any apparent anxiety about it.Kate didn’t even see the slightest indication of anger."My Facebook is a mess, I’ll admit,” she said.“My brother posts things and I argue with him constantly about politics.I've been trying to mute myself more but it just…" She paused and made a small helpless gesture with the dish towel."It gets away from me.I know I'm a completely different person in those two spaces.The forum just brings out something better in me."

It was, Kate thought, a completely believable answer.Frustratingly so.And yes, that was also true no matter how vile or confrontational the comments had been.

"Tell me a little about your own experience with the program," Kate said."How did you find it?"

"My therapist recommended it, actually.After my divorce was final.I was—" She stopped and corrected herself."I was married at twenty-two, and we were married for almost twenty-four years, and then we weren't.Just like that.It just sort of fell apart and we realized we weren’t in love with each other… that we’d fallen out of love several years before.I went through the program and I did all of it.I finished every component."She said it with a quiet pride, but it was tinged with sadness given the nature of the news Kate had just delivered."And now I'm dating."She laughed a little at her own delivery of the word."That's a very strange thing to say at fifty-three.I've been on six first dates in the past six months.Not exactly a success story."

"How has that been going?"Kate asked.

"About how you'd expect," Hanover said dryly."One man talked about his ex-wife for two hours.One showed up with a gift on the first date, which sounds nice until I tell you it was a monogrammed hand towel.One seemed completely perfect and then texted me the following day to explain that he'd decided to pursue things with someone else."She ticked these off with the weary good humor of someone who had turned the material into something she could laugh at."So, I haven't found my person yet, no.But I'm still out there."She gestured vaguely at the vision board."Hence the board."

Kate glanced at it, now feeling even worse that she had viewed it as cheesy."You mentioned that the forum helped you.Did you feel like it was a safe space?That people were careful with the personal things members shared?"

"Always."She answered immediately and firmly, nodding her head."That's one of the things I try to reinforce when I see new members come in.What goes in the group stays in the group.We're very clear about that.And from what I always saw, everyone respected it."

"Did you ever feel that any member was using the forum in a way that seemed off?Not in the spirit of the thing?"

Hanover thought about that with genuine effort, her brow furrowing as she worked back through her memory."There was that CoachSteve, who was pushing his services.Carol dealt with that very professionally.But I can't think of anyone who gave me a bad feeling."She looked at Kate with a directness that was not challenging but honest."Is that what happened?Someone from the forum?"

"We're following several leads," she said, keeping her tone level with a bit of bass.A way of sayingThat’s not up for discussion.

Hanover nodded slowly.She looked down at her lap and then back up."Well...what should I do?Is it safe for me to be a member of that forum right now?"

It was a fair question, and Kate didn’t have an easy answer.If the killer was selecting victims specifically from posts in that forum, any active member was a potential target.But issuing a broad warning to every Fresh Horizons graduate would almost certainly reach their killer before notifying all of the women it was meant to protect.

"I'd recommend limiting what you share publicly there for the time being," Kate said."And if anything feels off to you—a message, an interaction that seems strange—I want you to contact me directly."She took a card from her jacket pocket and held it out.

Hanover took it and read it carefully, turning it over."Okay.I can do that."

Kate stood to leave.Hanover walked her to the door and opened it, holding it again in both hands, that same slightly wide-open gesture that seemed less about hospitality and more about wanting to be useful in whatever way she had available.

"I'm sorry I can't be more help," Hanover said."I just—I love that group.I know that sounds small given what you've told me tonight, but I do."

"It doesn't sound small," Kate said."I’m glad you found a community that you feel so passionately about when you needed it the most.”She smiled and wrapped up with a simple: “Thank you for your time."

She walked back down the path to the car.The neighborhood was quiet and dark now, the kind of late November stillness that settled in after nine or so on a weeknight.She sat behind the wheel for a moment without starting the engine.

She typed a reply to Sloane's earlier text:Nothing here either.She's genuine.Enthusiastic about the forum, recently divorced, back in the dating pool with not much to show for it.Nothing that raises a flag.See you at HQ?

She set the phone in the cupholder and stared through the windshield at the quiet street.The night had turned up nothing useful, but something was stuck.Not a suspicion, exactly, and not anything she could point to and name.But she could sense a small, persistent friction somewhere at the edge of her thinking, the way a word or the lyrics to a song sometimes refused to surface even when you were certain you knew it.There was something about the conversation that didn't sit quite right, and the frustrating part was that she couldn't locate what it was.

She thought back through it all, slowly: Hanover's easy explanation for the two-faced social media presence.The divorce at twenty-two, the twenty-four year marriage, the six first dates and the vision board.The enthusiasm for the forum, immediate and fluent and entirely consistent.

Kate finally started the car.Whatever was catching on the edge of her thinking would reveal itself eventually.She put the car in drive and pulled away from the curb, the porch light of 714 Aldermoor Drive still burning in the rearview mirror.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The field office had fallen into its usual after-hours lull by the time Kate got back.A handful of agents were still at desks in the main bullpen, but the second floor conference room was dark when she pushed the door open.She hit the lights, dropped her jacket over the back of her usual chair, and sat down.She barely had time to get properly situated before Sloane arrived.

"Marlo's a dead end," Sloane said, dropping into her chair and opening her laptop."His alibi for last night is sort of lame, but the other two are credible.He was publicly called out by Carol in the forum and he didn't love it, but the man is not our guy.He's embarrassed and trying to build a client base and that's about all there is to him."

"Hanover's the same," Kate said."She came across as completely genuine.Divorced after a long marriage, finished the program, and stayed in the community because she said it helped her.The gap between her forum persona and her Facebook was exactly what she said it was: she argues with her brother and a few old friends about politics and gets carried away."She leaned back in her chair, letting out a sigh."The woman has had six first dates in six months, a vision board on her living room wall, and not a single thing that raised a flag."