Free Fatally Bound by Roger Stelljes

the files. Is there anything not in the files we saw that provides insight on what these women did?”
    “How do you know they did something?” Delmonico asked.
    “I’m assuming based on the biblical verses. Reaping what you sow. Taken literally, that suggests to me that they’re being punished for something. What?”
    “We’ve been through their lives,” Gesch responded. “Nothing hits on them, at least yet.”
    “Is there any connection between the three of them?” Wire asked.
    “We’re probing that as we speak,” Delmonico answered, “but nothing as of yet. They’re all from different places, never went to any level of school together. As far as we know, they never crossed paths with each other.”
    For another hour, McRyan and Wire walked the house, looking in every room of the main level, checking every window and looking in all the closets. They next inspected the basement, which was simply a storage area.
    “Thick cinder block,” Wire noted. “You could scream down here and might not be heard upstairs, let alone outside.”
    Next was the second story. Wire searched Donahue’s bedroom while Mac worked through her office. Wire searched her dresser and spent some time looking through her personal drawers, sifting through pictures and keepsakes but not finding anything probative.
    At her desk, Mac looked through the file drawers, finding the typical items, bills, banking information, her mortgage and other papers about her house. There was a computer monitor on top of the desk but no computer tower, although there was a stand for one underneath. The FBI probably had it. In the center desk drawer were pens, paper clips, random photos and a series of business cards, one for an auto dealership, another for a roofing contractor, a series of business cards for various people and other random business cards and phone numbers written on sticky notes. To the left of her desk was a small bulletin board with flyers for events posted, a couple of pictures drawn by kids from her elementary school class and a hanging calendar with notes of events listed on various dates. Her father was a key political figure and Hannah was clearly interested in politics. Her office walls were adorned with campaign posters of candidates. She also had her college diploma from Cornell on a bookshelf, along with her high school diploma and a certificate for the American Honor Society for scholastic achievement in high school. Mac recognized it as he had one himself. All in all, standard stuff, nothing unusual or eye popping. Maybe when he looked at the other victims’ lives in this fashion, something would emerge.
    Wire stuck her head in the office, “Anything?”
    “No, you?”
    She shook her head as he followed her down the stairs and back into the living room where Gesch, Delmonico and Wente were sitting, reading through the case file and waiting.
    It was time for first impressions.
    “What are you thinking?” Mac asked Dara, as they both stood in the middle of the living room.
    “Say I’m the killer. How do I get in the house?”
    “No sign of forced entry,” Mac said, looking at the forensic report. “The dead bolts were pretty new, no damage indicating they were jimmied in any way. No signs any of the windows were compromised. So how does he get in the house?”
    “We had the same question,” Gesch intoned. “We were thinking he perhaps grabbed her outside and forced her to bring him in.”
    Mac and Wire walked outside and into the backyard. There was a two-car garage detached from the house with a fifty-foot mostly exposed walk from the garage to the house. The backyard had one fairly large tree on its south side but there were no low-hanging braches, the tree having been well trimmed. There was a cement slab patio with four chairs and a small table leading to the two steps up to the back door. The landscaping around the house consisted of some small perennials, hostas and other small short plants and bushes. There