She had learned nothing in her time out of the office, except that the art gallery had closed at 10:30 the night of the murder. It was open late for some event. The owner didn’t notice when the victim left, but the cameras had caught her leaving by herself ten minutes before close. Stephanie had the owner make a copy of the security tapes to watch when she got back to the office. Nobody seemed to follow the victim after her departure, but she would have to watch carefully to see if someone appeared to be paying her an unusual amount of attention.

Speaking of attention, those agents were interesting. Especially Liam, something about his gaze made her shiver with excitement. Part of her felt as if he was a long-lost friend, but she shook the thought. She didn’t remember anything prior to the day she was found in the woods near Gavinmire. Sometimes she wondered if that wasn’t a good thing, especially with the nightmares she couldn’t remember, the mornings she woke with a hoarse voice because she had been screaming all night. She had soundproofing installed in her apartment because of it.

She hadn’t missed the way his eyes raked over her body, searching for something. She was terrified of what it might mean. If she knew him from before, would he know what had happened to her, why she had been found in the woods outside Gavinmire, naked, alone, injured? Would he be able to tell her who she was, who her real family was? Isiah hadn’t been able to find them, nor had Carmen. They had adopted her in her parents’ stead. Hale watched over her like a brother would. He obviously felt responsible for her, especially since he was the one to find her.

Stephanie shook her head and tried to think about what she had learned, or rather not learned. Kaylie Summers was a good student but didn’t socialize with her classmates. Her professors were impressed with her work but knew nothing of her personal life. Nobody could even tell if she was behaving differently in recent days or weeks. Nothing was conspicuous about this woman, at least not to the outside world. What had attracted the killer? What had drawn them in?

Stephanie started the drive back to the office. She rubbed her left shoulder and frowned when she couldn’t ease the tension there. She noticed Hale looking at a stack of files with the agents. “Hey, Steph,” one of the officers greeted her quietly, as if trying to avoid capturing the group’s attention.

“The chief told me to have you meet him at the coffee shop. That suit has been asking a lot of questions about you,” the man gestured to Liam.

“What type of questions?” Stephanie asked.

“Well, I overheard him asking if you had a boyfriend when you went to fetch the evidence. Ever since you left, he keeps dropping random questions about you. We haven’t told him anything, and we won’t unless you decide to say something, but I just thought I’d let you know.”

“How’s Hale handling it?” Stephanie asked. He was as protective as they came. She wouldn’t be surprised if her partner came to blows with Liam if he got too nosey.

“He keeps on getting more and more agitated, but I think the agent notices and backs off for a while until Hale cools off,” the cop sighed.

“Well, I’ll go talk to the chief and see where he wants me.”

“Right, be careful out there.”

“Will do,” Stephanie replied waving to the cop and slipping back outside before Hale could notice her and ask for help with that dreadfully large stack of files. She would join in that battle later.

She made the short five-minute walk to the coffee shop without incident and noticed the Isiah stand when she arrived. “I assume you are done checking with the art gallery and her classmates.”

“Yes, I plan on going over the security tapes more carefully later today. None of her professors or classmates seem to know anything about her personal life and she seems to avoid any sort of social interaction, except with her boyfriend.”

Isiah sighed, “Stephanie, you should have had someone go with you when you were in the field. This is a murder investigation, a bad one at that. I don’t want to see you get hurt again.”

“It seems worthless to limit our range by keeping us all working on the same exact thing at the same exact time. I doubled our information by going on the field,” Stephanie argued.

“We know next to nothing about this murderer. I don’t want you to get one of your hunches, go off on your own, and get yourself killed,” her boss sounded worried.

“I’ll be more careful,” Stephanie gave the only answer that would get him to stop pestering her about the topic.

“On another note, you should be wary around these agents. I don’t know which organization they work for within the government, but secret task forces like the ones those agents are a part of can be involved in some really dangerous things. The one agent, Liam Peterson, seemed overly interested in you. I don’t want them to involve you in something dangerous without protection.”

“You worry too much. I won’t just go along with anything without reason,” Stephanie tried to reassure him. Isiah hadn’t been able to find anything about her past. It was like she never existed prior to her appearance in Gavinmire. She wouldn’t leave the place where she had built her life, not without a very good reason. She doubted the two strangers would be able to give such a reason.

“Right, don’t just listen to them blindly. People like that tend to manipulate the facts to get what they want. I don’t want them to give you false information or hope only to put you in a dangerous situation.”

Stephanie nodded and rubbed her shoulder. It was feeling worse than usual. “I hear you,” Stephanie sighed. She could tell that they were hiding something, and she didn’t want to get caught up in anything fishy.

“Your shoulder’s hurting?” the concern in Isiah’s voice made her wince. Of course, he wouldn’t miss that.

“Not too bad, it’s mostly just tight,” Stephanie knew it would get worse if she didn’t do something about it, but she didn’t have the time with the murder case hanging over them.

“Right,” he obviously knew what she was thinking, “go to the doctor. That’s an order. I don’t want to see you back at the office until you do.”

“But I have to go over the security footage,” she complained, “and the files the other agents produced.”

“Make a copy of the security footage, and I’ll tell Hale that you can take some of the files home to look over.”

“The agents won’t like that,” Stephanie didn’t want to push her luck.

“Well, this murder happened in my jurisdiction, so things will go by my rules not theirs,” Isiah frowned. Stephanie nodded in resignation and had the chief copy the footage and send it to her phone. Stephanie followed him outside and parted ways as she headed towards the doctor’s office.