“The kind that have accordion sides, to expand?”

“Yes. Maybe if we look through those, one of these dates will jump out at us.”

“It’s worth a look, sure. Where are the files?”

“There are some in the office, in one of the filing cabinets. Let’s take our coffee with us. I’m curious now to see if there’s anything there.”

“Lead on.” He pushed the chair back from the kitchen table and stood. “Maybe we’ll find the key in one of them.”

They sat on the floor around a large round coffee table and went through first one file, then another. They were into their second hour of searching, when Mitch said, “Wasn’t there a Corona on that list?”

“Yes,” she said, and moved some papers aside to check the original list. “Here it is. August ’86. Corona.” She looked up at him. “I’m not sure I know where Corona is.”

“This clipping is from August 15, 1986. Dateline Corona, Alabama.” He skimmed the small clipping, then read aloud. “Police have confirmed that the body of the woman found in East Park on Saturday morning was that of thirty-one-year-old Andrea Long of Corona. Identification was made by James Long, the husband of the victim, who’d reported his wife missing Thursday night…”

“Does it say how she died?”

“She’d been strangled.”

“Raped?”

He read a little further.

“Yes.”

“There’s a coincidence,” she said with some sarcasm.

“I’ll bet your dad thought so.”

He took his cell phone from his pants pocket and dialed information for the number for the sheriff’s department in Corona, Alabama, but wasn’t at all surprised to find that no one on the weekend shift seemed to know anything about a 1986 murder. He left a message for someone to call him back, then snapped the phone shut.

A few taps on his keyboard, and he dialed another number.

The answering machine picked up, and he began to leave a message. “Hi, Jessica, it’s Mitch Peyton, FBI. I worked with you on a case in Montgomery a few years ago, don’t know if you remember me or not. I’m looking into an old case-murder victim named Andrea Long, August ’86-and was wondering if you might be able to shed a little light on- Oh, hey, Jessica. How are you?”

He chatted for a few moments, then cut to the chase.

“I was hoping you could… no, I don’t have any other information, just the name of the victim, an approximate date of death, and the fact that she was strangled and sexually assaulted… Well, for starters, I was wondering if the case was ever solved. If not, if there was a list of suspects… Sure, that would be great.”

He put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Regan, do you have a fax machine?”

She nodded and pointed to it where it sat atop a two-drawer file cabinet next to the desk.

He made a scribble sort of motion with one hand and she wrote the number of the fax machine on a piece of paper and handed it to him.

“Listen, anything you have, fax it to me at this number. I’ll give you my cell number and email address as well…”

He recited the information slowly, and after a few minutes of chatter, he ended the call.

“She’s going to look through the files and she’ll let me know if she finds anything. But it probably won’t be until Monday. She’s on her way out.”

“Is she with the FBI?” Regan asked.

“ Alabama Bureau of Investigation.”

“So that’s one of the ten on the unidentified list. Encouraging, wouldn’t you say?”

“Well, it certainly gives direction to our search.”

“Pass that news clipping over here, and we’ll start a file on this one.” She searched the stack for an empty file, wrote Andrea Long, Corona, Alabama, 1986 on the side, then set it on the cushion of a nearby chair to keep it separate. “Now, let’s see what else we can find in this folder…”

Over the course of the evening, they matched up one other clipping. Gloria Silver, Memphis, Tennessee, had been found raped and strangled on March 17, 1987.

Mitch reached for his cell phone.

“Let me guess,” Regan said. “You’re calling the Tennessee State Police.”

He shook his head. “ Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.”

“Do you really think you’ll get someone at eight forty-five on a Saturday night?”

“Is it that late?” He glanced at his watch.

“ ’Fraid so.”

“Guess it’s true what they say about time flying when you’re having fun. Let’s wrap this up for tonight, then start fresh on Monday. By then, I should have been able to track down a few more names, and maybe we’ll have a response or two.”

“Fine with me.” Regan rubbed her eyes. “I guess I need to put this aside for a while anyway. My eyes are all but falling out of my head.”

“What time Monday is good for you?” Mitch gathered up his laptop and put it into its case, then slid it into the larger case, along with the small printer.

“Whatever time you get here. I’m an early riser.” She stood and stretched. “And maybe by then I’ll have found clippings that match up with the others.”

“You’ll be working tomorrow, then?”

“Sure. Writers don’t always get weekends, you just sort of work when you have something to work on, so I’m used to it.”

“Sort of like working for the Bureau,” he said. “You work the case until it’s done.”

“Exactly.”

Mitch followed her down the hall to the front door.

“You’re not driving back to… where did you drive from today?”

“I drove up from Maryland. But I’m staying at a motel on Route One.”

“Well, I’ll see you on Monday.”

She opened the door and he started through it.

“But you have my card, right, in case something comes up…” he paused to ask.

“I do. And you have my number…”

He nodded and walked to the car.

She stood in the doorway while he loaded the black case into the trunk, then got into the driver’s side and turned on the engine. The headlights shone far into the back field, and in their light, several deer startled. The light swung out around the field and made a yellow path as he turned the car around, and he waved to her when he drove past.

Regan stepped out onto the porch and leaned over the rail to watch the taillights grow smaller as they traveled the long lane, then disappear after he made the turn onto the main road. She sat on the top step for a while and stared up at the sky, where the clouds were beginning to fade and the stars were starting to appear. Her eyes followed the lights from a plane as it moved across the night sky. She thought about the dates and the places on the lists and about the fact that it was beginning to look like each date and place represented another woman whose life had been snatched.

More than she’d bargained for when she first picked up the phone to call Chief Denver, more than she could have imagined when she called John Mancini. She was grateful that he’d sent someone to help her sort through all the information.

Grateful, too, she found herself thinking, that the someone he’d sent was Mitch Peyton. Their work styles were so similar, their focus equally complete, it seemed she’d been working with him forever.

She couldn’t help but wonder about him. He’d appealed to her the minute she’d opened the door and looked up into his face. Not the most handsome man she’d ever seen, to be sure. His eyes were an odd shade of blue, so pale as to almost be gray, and his nose looked as if it had met a fist or two sometime in the past. But his voice was deep and soothing, he smiled easily and often. It had been comforting to have someone to wade through the boxes and files with, reassuring to know that someone would work with her to find answers to the many questions her father had left behind. Answers that could possibly lead to finding a killer. Mitch had certainly seemed to think so.

In the past, it had been her father who had done all of the frontline investigations into the actual crimes, she who had put it all in order. This was gruesome work. Not for the faint of heart.