Graham suggests we sleep on it and look at the situation afresh the next morning.

“Oh, hell no!” I bellow.  When I wake up tomorrow, Taryn will still be dead and her murderer walking free! No, G, please tell me you have another plan. Please.”

He doesn’t and I feel guilty for my outbursts. Unbeknown to me, he’d gone home after leaving my place, fired up his laptop and spent the entire night tracking Nick’s digital footprint without leaving any trace of his own.

Despite being consumed with guilt, anger and frustration, something’s niggling at me…

“G?”

“Uh-huh.”

‘Something’s off. I can’t shake the feeling I’ve missed something crucial.”

“Take another look at the photo; perhaps it’ll spark a memory,” he says, sifting through the printouts and passing it to me.

My hands are trembling.

Expelling a whoosh of air, I look at the picture.

Tracing my finger around her face I murmur, “Oh Taryn! You didn’t deserve this — to die all alone. He will pay for what he’s done.”

Blinking away the tears, my eyes fall on the title of the book in the picture: Portrait of an Artist: A Biography of Georgia O’Keefe.

I hadn’t noticed it before, not even the day I’d helped her parents clear out her apartment. It’s the one book she’d wanted more than anything else and couldn’t find anywhere. I’d promised to buy it for her on the day she died.

I feel a burning need to get my hands on that book. Perhaps it contains an inscription. That it was with her during her last moments seem pertinent to finding out how she died.

“We have to find this book, G — it’s important,” I say, jabbing my finger at the photo. “It’s the only new addition in her life.”

Graham’s tapping away at his keyboard as though he hasn’t heard me.

“G!”

“Give me a second. Almost there,” he says, still urgently banging away at the keys. “Just one more second… Got it. The book wasn’t taken into police evidence. Where did her belongings go after her apartment was packed up?”

“Everything’s in storage at her parents’ house…”

Her family had decided to hold onto a few items and donate the rest to charity, but couldn’t bring themselves to do so immediately. Her mother had said it would feel as though they’d be cutting her out of their lives as if she’d never existed.

***

Tell us what you think? What sort of paintings is the artist Georgia O’ Keefe famous for?