Strings of Fate (Mistresses of Fate) Read Free

lucky if she managed to shower and find shoes that didn’t offend Tavey’s good taste. Her lips curled as she glanced over at Tavey’s lovely burnt-umber suit with a green velvet jacket and alligator heels. She often wondered how Summer would be dressed if she were here. Would she still insist on choosing her clothing by texture? She’d always liked the feel of velvet, leather, silk, and cotton. She hadn’t worried too much about color.
    “Did you hear about the case Tyler stumbled on?”
    Chris glanced warily in Tavey’s direction, checking to see if her friend was still occupied with the church ladies. “No, what’s up?”
    “They found the body of a woman just outside Rome. They’ve connected the murder to several others throughout the northern part of the state.”
    “A serial murderer? Working in Rome?”
    “Not just Rome,” Raquel clarified, sliding her gloved hands into her coat pockets as if afflicted with a sudden chill. “They’re still checking with the sheriffs in the surrounding counties and the local police departments. The FBI has gotten involved.”
    Chris frowned. “Why didn’t I know about this?”
    Raquel gave her an are-you-serious? expression. “Honey, you’re a little obsessive. I doubt you’ve looked at much else now that you suspect this Martin Hays guy of the Atlanta kidnappings. If you’d looked at the news out of Rome, you’d have seen references to ‘the Boyfriend.’ That’s what the media is calling the unsub.”
    Unsub stood for Unknown Subject. Raquel had schooled her on the lingo a long time ago. “The Boyfriend—ugh.” Chris made a face. “Why?”
    “I’m not sure. I haven’t had a chance to see what I can find out. I don’t suppose you want to call Tyler and ask him?”
    Chris glanced at Tavey again. “Why don’t you call him?”
    Raquel rolled her eyes. “All right, chicken. She won’t hate you, you know, just for talking to the man.”
    “Are you going to tell her you called him?” Chris challenged.
    Raquel attempted to look indifferent, but after a moment she shrugged. “Probably not.”
    Chris snorted righteously and changed the subject. “So, about Martin Hays—” But Tavey approached, marching up the steps to the gazebo.
    “All right,” she announced, clapping her hands together, her laptop bag on one shoulder, purse on the other. “Let’s get over to the graveyard and then to the café before we freeze to death.”
    Sunday meetings in the graveyard were a tradition. After church, the three of them would walk to the graveyard near the railroad tracks—the forgotten one that disappeared beneath the weeds in summertime—and renew their promise to Summer.
    The irony of following church with lunchtime chatter about murderers and child predators didn’t escape Chris, but she figured she and her friends were doing God’s work, though perhaps less conventionally than the women who held food drives and bake sales for the needy.
    “So, about the info I sent you on Martin Hays—”
    “Chris, wait till we sit down at the restaurant,” Tavey interrupted. “I need to get my laptop out.”
    Chris nodded, but kept talking as they walked. “Yeah. I’ll go over it again. Raquel, you think it’s enough for Atlanta PD to follow up?”
    Raquel, who walked a careful line between her two strong-willed friends, answered patiently, “It sounds like a start.”
    Chris grimaced—that meant Raquel thought it was thin and that she would have to work her ass off to get any detectives to pay attention to it. Most of the detectives who worked with Raquel thought Chris was crazy and that searching for the missing should be a job for the police, but Chris felt compelled to do it, to search, and for as long as she was able, she intended to keep doing it.
    For some reason she was even more anxious today. The air seemed charged somehow, more finely drawn, as if the world were waiting for something explosive to happen. The smallest events seemed to have a