Lilith: a novel by Edward Trimnell Page B

with the ease of anonymously copying digital photographs, had associated Lorelei with the deadly activities of Lilith. Lilith had accomplished this much with a handful of mouse clicks and keystrokes.
    Alan removed a business card from his pocket. He placed the card face-up on Lorelei’s desk. Maribel did the same. Then Alan took the printout that Lorelei had been reading, and tucked it back into the manila folder.
    “If you think of anyone, Ms. Monroe, please give Detective Flynn or myself a call. Will you do that?”
    “Absolutely,” Lorelei replied. She was noticeably less poised now than she had been at the start of the interview. “My photos—can this person still use them? Do I need to suspend my Facebook account? I suppose I could do that.”
    “I don't think that’s really necessary or even helpful at this point. The killer already has your photos stored on a hard drive somewhere.”
    “Are you going to catch him?”
    “That’s the idea.”
    Alan took another look at the photo of Lorelei and the man on the tropical beach:
    “What sort of work does he do, if you don’t mind my asking?”
    “Ryan is a dentist,” Lorelei said. “He’s been out of dental school for three years. Ryan is working with a group of dentists right now, but he’d like to start his own practice in a few years.”
    Her hands were laid out across the top of her desk. Lorelei involuntarily glanced at the engagement ring on her left hand. “We’re getting married in September.”
    “Congratulations, Ms. Monroe.” Alan stood to leave, the manila folder tucked under one arm. Maribel followed his cue and stood, too.
    On the way out, he asked, “Oh, what is your fiancé’s name?”
    Lorelei arched her back and sat upright in her chair.
    “You aren’t going to contact him, too, are you?”
    “That shouldn't be necessary, Ms. Monroe. But we need to cover all the bases. I’m sure you understand.”
    “His name is Dr. Ryan Gaines,” Lorelei said tersely. “You can find him in all the Columbus dental directories.”
    Alan nodded. “Thank you again. We’ll let you get back to work now. We appreciate your taking time to talk to us.”
     
     
    As soon as they were in the Explorer, Maribel asked: “What do you think?”
    “I think that Lorelei Monroe had absolutely no idea that her photos were being used to lure men to their deaths. I think that she was genuinely shocked and horrified.”
    “That was my impression, too. Right from the get-go. So Lorelei isn’t Lilith.”
    “Lorelei isn’t Lilith.”
    “But what about the other, more likely possibility. Do you think that the killer knows her? Or has some connection to her?”
    Alan paused to consider this. Once again, he thought of his daughters: He did not spy on Frances and Emily, but the girls were still teenagers, and he did occasionally take stock of what they were doing on Facebook and other social media sites.
    He had noticed that both of his daughters had hundreds of Facebook “friends”. Emily’s friend list exceeded eight hundred.
    It had seemed to Alan that no one could actually have eight hundred friends; but in the online world, the power of networking brought people into brief and tenuous contact with hundreds, sometimes thousands of strangers. Emily reported that some of her classmates had more than a thousand Facebook friends.
    At the time of the father-daughter discussion about the often indiscriminate and random nature of Facebook friending, Alan had merely shaken his head at it all; but now he thought of it again. If Lilith had found Lorelei’s photos on Facebook, then there might be no real connection between them at all.
    “They might not even be Facebook friends,” Alan said. “Her profile seems to be public, with no real restrictions on who can view it. We had no trouble accessing it from the office, after all. And you know how the Internet works. People go on social media sites, and they click from one link to the other, and they randomly end up