Page 30 of If She Sensed

Sloane looked at her over the top of the laptop screen."So, we're back to nothing."

"On those two, yes."Kate turned her phone over on the table and stared at it for a moment."But something's been bothering me since I left her house."

"What kind of something?"

"We flagged Hanover because she had interacted with all three victims.Likes, comments, and the enthusiastic cheering-on she apparently does with everyone.And as it turns out, that's exactly the problem.We could find her because she left a clear record.She's all over that forum.Anyone who wants to look can see every comment she's ever made, every post she's ever liked, every thread she's ever touched."

Sloane frowned and said, “So she’s a dead end, too.”

"Seems that way.But whoever is doing this has been reading those posts and moving on them within hours.Carol posted about her date, and she was dead that same night.Same with Donna.Same with Nancy.That's not just plain and simple surveillance work; that's someone sitting inside that forum in real time and watching the feed."She paused, a bit flummoxed by the fact that their solution seemed so simple yet here they were, tied up in knots."Someone that careful is not going to leave a comment trail.They aren't going to like anybody's posts or respond to threads."

Sloane was quiet for a moment."Do you think we’ve been looking at the wrong metric?"

"Maybe.I mean… we've been looking for activity," Kate said."But the person we want may have none.No comments, no likes, nothing posted.Maybe not even a profile for all we know.A registered account that just sits there and reads."

Sloane pulled her laptop closer."So, like a ghost member."

"More than one, probably.The forum has over four hundred members going back six years.Some of those accounts will be people who signed up and drifted away—people who never really engaged even when they were active in the program.But some of them will be accounts that have been logging in consistently and leaving no trace at all.That'swhat we need.Every account with zero activity.No posts, no comments, no reactions.Nothing."

"That's going to be a short list or a long one depending on how the platform tracks logins," Sloane said.

"Either way, it's the list we should have been building since this morning."Kate reached for her phone.

"Isn’t hindsight great?”

Kate let out a small chuckle and said, “I'm going to call Hale and see if he’ll cooperate with getting us that list.”

She placed the call and was actually shocked when he answered on the second ring.But he did so with the clipped energy of a man who did not take calls after a certain time very lightly.

“Yes?”he snapped.“Who’s this?”

“Hi, Mr.Hale.It’s Agent Kate Wise."

“Oh.Is…is everything okay?Did you need something else?”

"Yes, actually.And I'm sorry for the hour, but I need to ask for your cooperation one more time."

The sigh he let out was, Kate thought, only for dramatic effect "What do you need?"

"We need a complete list of forum members who have never generated any activity on the platform.No posts, no comments, no reactions of any kind.Accounts that exist, but which have never visibly engaged with any content."

There was another sigh that rattled through the phone, but once again he answered."That's going to require me to pull some backend data I don't normally access directly.I'd have to go through our platform administrator."

"I understand that.Our technical team will be reaching out to you shortly, and they can work directly with your administrator to get what we need.I wanted to call you first so you're not caught off guard by the contact."

"You're asking a lot, Agent Wise.This is sensitive membership data.People join this program with certain expectations of privacy."

"I'm aware of that," Kate said."And I wouldn't be asking if I had another avenue.Three women are dead, Mr.Hale.I need you to help me make sure that number stays at three.I’m sure your forum and social media members would appreciate the lengths you’re going to in order to help us so we can ensure their safety"

The silence that followed was brief and resigned."I'll make sure my administrator is available and cooperative.Tell your people to call before midnight if they can manage it."

"Thank you.I appreciate it."

She ended the call and set the phone on the table.Across from her, Sloane already had her own phone to her ear, one finger raised in Kate's direction as she waited for someone to pick up on the other end.

"Hey, it's Sloane.I need you back on the Fresh Horizons platform pull."She listened for a moment, and Kate nodded to her.She wasn’t sure who Sloane had called, and that was fine.With her new consultant gig, it wasn’t her business to know every single contact Sloane had at her disposal. "I know,” Sloane went on, speaking to the person on the other line.Yes.Here's what we're looking for—" She turned slightly in her chair and walked the IT analyst through it all, her voice low and precise.She gave them Hale's name and told them to expect cooperation.She gave them the timeline.She ended the call in under two minutes and turned to Kate with a look of appreciation.

"They'll start tonight," Sloane said."Depending on how the platform stores login data versus engagement data, they think they can have something preliminary in two to three hours."