Thunder was purring up a storm as he made himself comfortable next to me on the couch. I moved one of the blue decorative pillows down to the wood floor so he could have more room. He was a fat black cat that made his heart my home, even though my nose may have despised him. Having a cat while also being allergic to said cat wasn’t the ideal arrangement, but there was no letting him go the day he stumbled onto my doorstep as a kitten. That was six years ago, and a hundred nasal sprays later, I still loved him like a family member.

Besides, it helped keep me on top of cleaning my apartment. If I didn’t vacuum every other day, even the Flonase would have trouble preventing the sneeze attacks.

I gave him a few head scratches and then got back to focusing on the laptop. The second my eyes turned to the screen, Thunder sensed it, got up, and stretched across the keyboard, hitting every possible key he could. I chuckled and lifted him up and set him back down to the side. It was futile. The moment my attention went back to the screen, Thunder activated his attention-grabbing systems and went into full-throttle purring, paw swiping at my fingers. I resisted for a few more minutes before he finally tired and climbed up onto the couch cushion so he could curl up behind my head. I went back to my work.

Investigations were a part of me. I loved every aspect of it. I loved turning over stones, connecting dots, and finding answers for other people’s problems. Since I was a kid, I’d set out to solve problems. Especially in my teenage years, after my silence spell. Whether it was trying to figure out who was stealing my brother’s lunch at school everyday, or if it was figuring out one of the neighbor’s problem of someone egging their house every week. I would write out plans, set up interviews, and go on with trying to figure out the answers.

I also really enjoyed digging and looking for any unfound gems of information, which was what I was currently doing. One of the first steps to any investigation was to check social media. Many people tended to overshare through status posts and filtered pictures, but sometimes it wasn’t even the oversharing that did it. I had one case a few years back where the suspected thief had posted random song lyrics but forgot he had his geotag setting on. It traced him right back to the scene of the crime, at the exact same time the robbery had occurred. Some people were simply dumb and made stupid mistakes, and social media tended to amplify the stupid by a magnitude of a thousand.

Whoever killed Luanne and Oscar wasn’t stupid, though, at least not as far as I could tell. No mistakes seemed to have been made. Not yet, anyway. I needed to do serious digging. I first started by combing through Oscar’s social media accounts, which took a total of three minutes. He wasn’t active online, which would have thrown up a cautionary flag if he were younger, but he wasn’t raised in the social media era so I didn’t worry much about it.

Luanne, on the other hand, was much more active. Her profile was public, which made my job a little easier. I went through her wall posts, not noticing anything out of the ordinary—no signs of an obsessive stalker or an angry ex-husband. She would post things about her dinners and movies she’d seen. There were plenty of political posts, all with articles that looked like they were sourced out of a trash can. She had an average amount of friends and would get random comments on her wall, which was currently being flooded with “we’ll miss you” posts.

Those were the ones I focused on first. It wasn’t uncommon for a killer to insert themselves in some way to the deceased, whether it was a bouquet of flowers sent to the funeral or by simply writing a grieving post on social media, or in more extreme cases, showing up at the scene of the crime after it happened. Some suspected the guilty party would do it so they’d never seem suspicious, while others said the primary motive was pleasure for the murderer. They enjoyed treading knee-deep into the pile of steaming shit they left behind, leaving wrecked lives in their wake.

I’ll Always remember You, Lulu.

That was Tonya Carpenter, an accountant based in the Bronx. Blonde, bright blue eyes, warm smile, two kids and three dogs, judging by her profile picture.

miss you soo much, Lu

That was Bianca Del le Rosa, who appeared to be Luanne’s cousin and someone really into Harley Davidson.

Details for the funeral have been posted. Thank you to everyone who’s offered their help and hearts. Luanne will be forever missed.

That was Susan, Luanne’s sister, and someone I wrote down on the top of my list for questioning. I didn’t enjoy reaching out to family members so soon after they’d lost a loved one, but I needed to make sure I caught them when their memory was the freshest. Most times a brother or a sister, a mother or father, they were the ones who knew the answer to a crime before any questions were even asked.

I kept scrolling down her wall, looking for any red flags. Once I read past the recent messages, I started seeing much less activity on her Facebook. Seemed like it took her passing to bring back old friends. The only people who wrote to her were Tonya, Susan, and Luanne’s mother, Pauline. It was sporadic posting for the most part, aside from Susan, who seemed to make sure to write on her sister’s wall at least three times a week from the looks of it. There were also few pictures of Luanne, and most of them were old, dating back five years or more. The more recent ones showed a smiling Luanne, skinny with big brown eyes, and her husband at Disney. There were pictures of them with Mickey, waiting in line at Thunder Mountain, standing outside of the magical castle, and looking up at the fireworks show. They seemed happy and in love, which made me wonder if there was someone else involved. That person could have easily seen these pictures and felt a spark of jealousy, strong enough to lash out at the object of their affection. But, if that were the case, which one was cheating? Was it Luanne who had another man, or was it Oscar who had a murderous side chick?

I spent the next couple of hours digging through the internet, trying to find any old blogs or secret Twitters linked to Luanne or Oscar. I did manage to find an old food blog Luanne appeared to manage for a few months and then abandoned. I checked the last post and noticed it was written a year ago, three days before Christmas. It was a recipe for “snow-covered Jell-O”. She was a regular Emeril Lagasse.

I was about to click out of the page when I noticed something toward the bottom, underneath an unflattering photo of red Jell-O covered in powdered sugar. The comment read “make this for me, lu.” I looked at the username: Scara-3. Clicking the username brought me to an empty profile page, with the comment history just as empty, besides the one note he left for Luanne. I noted it down, copying the username and comment.

This didn’t seem like a random spam comment, whoever left it added Luanne’s name to it. It also didn’t feel like Oscar’s account, simply because I didn’t think he really knew how to use a computer, much less create an account and name himself Scara-3. From my preliminary research, Oscar was a regular guy who did well in school and had a good job with great prospects. Why would he create one anonymous page just to comment on his wife’s food when he could say it to her face?

Scara-three…. What is that supposed to mean?

Racking my brain for the next half hour didn’t do much in terms of getting an answer. If anything, I was feeling the familiar precursors of burning out. My gaze was jumping around my living room, my leg was bouncing, and my hands couldn’t stay still. I had been staring at my computer for hours, and it was beginning to take its toll.

I set my laptop down on the couch and got up for a stretch. I twisted my body, holding my arm up against my chest and feeling the muscles in my shoulder flex and tug and release the tension I held inside. I switched arms and did the same. Thunder, who’d been sleeping on the top of the refrigerator, noticed I was up and leapt down onto the counter, where he could jump down onto the floor and stroll over to me, his engines purring and his tail swishing in the air. I relaxed my back and stretched my neck, reaching down to the floor as Thunder reached my ankles and rubbed himself against my legs. I gave his head a few good scratches before lifting myself back up, focusing on my breathing. It wasn’t full-on meditation, but it still did the trick.

It wasn’t always that way. For practically my entire life, I lived by suppressing my anxieties and fears until they just blew up and left me incapacitated. It was what happened when I lost Jose. My worst fear had become realized, and I might as well have become a paraplegic. I’d become paralyzed. Weeks passed with me lying in bed, getting up for crumbs of bread and some water. I had to give my cases to another detective at Stonewall, that was how incapacitated I felt. It wasn’t until my brother had something close to an intervention and helped bring me back to myself. It was a really tough fucking road, but I had come a long way, and meditation had actually become a crucial tool in getting me back to working order. I made sure to set aside as much time as possible, usually half an hour as soon as I woke up and then another half before going to sleep.

I considered it now, just to hone my focus back into the investigation. I looked up at the clock on the wall, the hands pointing to ten o’clock. I’d been working since I woke up, meaning a little over thirteen hours now. Underneath the clock was a wooden bar table, painted over in a luxe navy blue, the legs solid and curved toward the bottom. It used to belong to my grandfather and was said to belong to his grandfather and so on and so on. On top, a few books were sitting with their colorful spines pointed outward, next to a white lamp, the base shaped like a deer’s head, its antlers painted in solid gold.

But none of that was what caught my eye. Toward the opposite edge of the table was a framed photo. Looking back at me were two smiling men, arms wrapped around each other’s sides, the thundering Niagara Falls sending up a curtain of mist behind them.

I walked to the photo, my toes feeling the hard wood beneath them, a purchase on this world, a sensation to keep me grounded as I threatened to break down some heavy-duty emotional dams. Thunder weaved through my feet and stopped when I did. He looked up and gave a chirp, as though he knew what I was doing. Was he warning me? Telling me to stop? Or was he telling me to go ahead and do it, to focus on a wound I never thought would heal completely?

He was probably just telling me he wanted food. I reached for the frame. The photo felt heavy in my hands. Like an anchor. But instead of mooring me to shore, this anchor was threatening to pull me down with it. The two faces staring back at me looked like strangers, and yet I could paint each crease, each wrinkle, each pore, all with my eyes closed from memory. Maybe not so much mine, but I knew I could damn well replicate Jose’s face. I had spent hours over my years with him just looking at his face, etching his features into my mind, never knowing just how hard I’d hold on to those memories in the future. How could I have known? Never. Even with my line of work, I wouldn’t have dreamed of what happened to Jose, not even in my worst nightmares.

And then, the darkest parts of my fears became real. They solidified and struck, taking away the one man I loved in this world with everything I had. He was my other half. My entire world. He taught me what romance meant and the power that love had, and then he was taken from me. Ripped from my side, from one day to the next. He was there when I woke up and then gone before nightfall.

He was taken by the Unicorn, and now the killer was back. It made me sick thinking about it. I knew the police were hard at work trying to figure out who the killer was, but that still didn’t make me feel good.

I wasn’t taking the case this time, though. No. It was too personal for me. I knew I would be consumed by chasing the Unicorn if it was the only case on my desk. I decided I would put another detective on it, someone with a fresh outlook. Maybe they could see something everyone else missed. I still had to decide who that detective would be, but I already had a few ideas.

I put the photo back down. This wasn’t the way Jose would have wanted me to be three years after his death. He was always such a force of energy, always wanting everyone around him to be smiling and enjoying themselves, even if it was after standing three hours in line for a new ride at Disney. He’d have everyone around us laughing and having a good time, even if they weren’t part of our group. His positive energy was just that infectious. I knew he was looking down and yelling at me to go out and have some fun. And to also pick up my socks and to stop peeing on the toilet seat.

I smiled, feeling the hole that was left inside me throb with need. Thunder was looking at me from the couch, sitting next to my phone as if even he was telling me to pick it up and get out of the house.

“Fine, fine,” I said to myself, walking over to the phone. What was the worst that could happen by going out?

A question I wish I had known the answer to before I decided to make plans.