“Well, I’m glad the last hour before her death was good,” she noted, “because that death really didn’t give them a chance to defend themselves.”
“No,” he agreed, “not at all. This person didn’t come to hurt. He came to kill.”
“And still, the question is why? Did she have any thoughts, anything you could recognize?”
“No,” he replied. “That’s the biggest problem with all this. There are never any answers. It’s just more of the same bullshit. I can see—and, in this case, even feel—it happening, but I can’t stop it. I can’t do a thing about it.”
“In this case,” she added, “you’re also behind.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s over. It happened several hours ago.”
He stopped. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“We had a bottle of wine last night. Usually it takes more than that to delay a vision.”
“Maybe the vision didn’t come through at first try, or maybe it came through, but you couldn’t remember it until later.”
“No idea,” he admitted. “Can’t say I appreciate the thought that it waited for me to sober up.”
“No, and yet maybe that delay has to do with the fact that the vision was important.”
“Maybe, but then why? What about it is so important?” he asked bitterly. “Seems like none of this is important, now that it’s already too late.”
“I hear you,” she said calmly. “That doesn’t change anything though.”
“And again, that’s my point. Nothing ever changes. It’s always the same old, same old. People get hurt. People die. I can’t do anything about it.”
“You’ve done lots in the past,” she reminded him, with what seemed like forced cheerfulness. “So let’s not go down that pathway. If you come up with anything helpful, just let me know.”
“Wait. Do you know who they are?”
“Yes, Jenna is the blonde divorcee. You connected to her best friend, Robin. She was a mother of two, and they both lived in the same townhome complex on Pendrell Street by Second Beach. They’ve been running together for years. Apparently all the neighbors knew it.”
“So, a lot of people could have known about their jogging schedule.”
“Yes, they were also found on a pathway, a common running path, which is quite hilly. So a lot of vantage places exist, where somebody could have stopped and waited for them.”
“But he would have had to know exactly when they were there,” he argued.
“I’m not sure that would have been a difficult thing. These two women went before work every day and sometimes ran twice a day on weekends. So, anybody who’s out in the jogging community would have known. Or anybody who’s looking for a victim and chose that area would see them on a regular basis.”
He nodded. “Well, let’s hope you find the killer fast.”
“Any reason not to?” she asked, curious.
He frowned.
“Just wondering,” she said, “considering that we have two of them here, if you had anything helpful.”
“They were blindsided,” he noted. “At no point in time did I get any sense of recognition from either of them. Whatever happened was very fast, and they weren’t at all prepared for it. They weren’t expecting it and didn’t have time to do much more than try to fight. And honestly that didn’t last very long either.”
“No, so the surprise attack was well-thought-out, and, although the killer may have had some issues actually handling the killing,” she murmured, “in the end, it didn’t take very long at all.”
“What do you mean by that?”