Binary Witness (The Amy Lane Mysteries) by Rosie Claverton

sip of tea. “Nothing. They think it’s related to that other girl, but they’re not sure. She didn’t know her—I don’t know her, neither do John or Ryan.”
    “It must be worse, not knowing what happened.” He felt genuinely bad for Teresa. It must be awful to have your friend die, but to have them murdered and not know who did it, not have a body and funeral? He couldn’t imagine how that must feel.
    “She was just out with some people from the bakery.” Teresa gestured with her hand as if trying to work through what happened, but with a tone that suggested she’d already replayed this in her head many times. “She wasn’t going to stay out, because she had a piece of coursework due in Monday. She said she’d be home by midnight, but she always said that.” Teresa smiled through her tears. “Melody loved to party. So, we just went to bed, and the next day she still wasn’t back. We called her phone and the friends she was with, but they said she left them at twelve. That’s when we called the police. With that other girl being missing, they got serious about it straightaway. Then her dad came round here, shouting and calling us things, telling us we shouldn’t have let her go out alone.”
    Teresa shook with the memory and Jason felt helpless. She looked up at him, swiping viciously at her eyes and running mascara.
    “God, I’m sorry,” she said, reaching for the kitchen roll to dab at her eyes. “You’ve helped me out and I’ve just blubbed all over you.”
    “It’s all right, Teresa,” he said softly. “Anything you need.”
    “I’ll make it up to you. I’m having a little flat-warming thing tomorrow—you should come. Bring...your girlfriend.”
    Jason recognised a water-testing exercise when he saw one. “I don’t really have anyone, but I would love to come. I’d like to...get to know you.”
    She smiled at him and wrote down her number and her new address, pressed it into his hand with a shy smile.
    Teresa waved him off at the door and Jason got back into his car, the little piece of paper safely folded into his jeans pocket. If this was being a detective, he could definitely live with that.

Chapter Eighteen: Sunday Morning Coming Down
    It had been a miserable Saturday.
    Amy huddled on the sofa as the light of Sunday morning filtered through the gaps in her blackout curtains. Despite managing for years without Jason, she now found the flat oddly cold, and the tea remained unmade. She hadn’t had anyone in the house except Bryn and Owain for almost five years now, and they only came when they needed something. She had never called them, never reached out. This was business. She tried not to kid herself that it was anything else.
    Before that, there had been Lizzie. Her big sister had always taken care of her, since before their parents abandoned them, but Lizzie had to follow her dreams. And her dreams took her to Australia.
    Amy guessed she had Lizzie to thank for Jason’s appearance at her flat. Her sister worried about her, whether she was eating and keeping the place tidy. That was what sisters did. Amy, in turn, worried about whether Lizzie had picked up a long-haired loser boyfriend of the kind found on Neighbours or whether she was going to die from the bite of an exotic snake. Amy had always tried to get Lizzie to stay in and Lizzie attempted to drag Amy outside, and that struggle had persisted even as Lizzie took her taxi to the airport and Amy couldn’t cross the threshold to wave goodbye.
    Amy’s imagination conjured up one thousand ways to die in Australia. It was a rational fear—anything could happen to her on the other side of the world. Of course, anything could happen outside their front door, as these murders proved. Amy stood by her decision to stay where it was safe, and she had lost her sister because of her conviction. Some days, she wished she could be the kind of girl who followed her sister across the world, but she couldn’t even follow her out the