7. Cold Case Coincidence

In her spare time Kathy took an interest in cold murder cases. As she prepared to start profiles on people connected with Shaye Alderson’s murder, she thought back to another knife murder that had happened seven years ago. A college student on March break was found naked in a rented lakeside cottage, stabbed in the heart.

Police concluded she had walked out of the shower and surprised a burglar. No sign of a struggle, no bruises on her arms or hands, and just one stab wound to the heart. Perhaps the burglar stabbed her in a panic. Perhaps he was high. The really strange thing was the body had been washed and placed carefully on the bed and covered with a duvet. Her hair spread out on the pillow. It seemed like a lot of care for a burglar to lavish on someone they had killed in a panic. And the weapon had never been found.

Could it have been a dagger? she wondered. Was the student somehow connected to the Stormont family? She made a note to pull information on that old case.