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Abby Maddox.’” He paused for dramatic effect. “I’ll confirm once I receive photos.”
    She stared at him, tempted to ask him to repeat what he’d just said, even though she’d heard him perfectly. Keeping her face straight and her tone appropriately somber, she said, “You know I have some disturbed fans, Bob.”
    “Yes, you do.”
    Abby wasn’t being arrogant with her use of the word fans . She was well aware of her social media celebrity status. There was a fan website called FreeAbbyMaddox.com. Someone hadset up a Facebook page and it currently had over a hundred thousand “Likes.” There were at least six fake Twitter accounts in her name. A bit twisted perhaps, but so what? After a year in here, she needed all the support she could get. Fans sent her all kinds of donations, which helped enormously in prison.
    “Any fan in particular stand out?” he asked.
    Abby allowed a small smile to play at the corners of her lips, never allowing it to fully materialize. “Nobody special comes to mind.”
    “They’re going to check your mail. See who’s been writing to you.”
    “That’s a ton of mail. They won’t find anything.”
    “That’s their problem.” Borden put his hand over hers.
    A shudder of repulsion passed through Abby. Not that she let it show, of course. She didn’t like to be touched unless she initiated it herself. But it was important to let him think she liked him. She needed him to work hard for her, especially since he was doing it for free. She allowed his hand to remain.
    “What’s happened here, Abby—as much as it’s a tragedy that a woman was found dead, of course—is not necessarily a terrible thing,” Borden said. “For you, I mean. There are indications that this murder wasn’t the first. Another woman, also resembling you, was killed a week ago, but I haven’t received definitive word from my sources yet as to whether the two murders are related. They likely are, though.”
    Abby sat up straighter. “They think it’s a serial killer?”
    “A serial killer who’s obsessed with you. Somebody desperately wants you out of prison. And whoever he is, he went to great lengths to send the police a message.”
    Abby wanted to smile, but she held back. A smile would not be an appropriate reaction to news like this. “So the killercarved ‘Free Abby Maddox’ into the woman’s back. That’s a serious way of sending the prosecuting attorney a message, Bob.”
    Her lawyer paused, a slight frown passing over his face. Immediately, Abby bit her lip. Shit . The man missed nothing, which was exactly the reason she’d picked him. Had Borden specifically said that the carving was on the woman’s back ? Maybe he hadn’t.
    She squeezed his hand, and it immediately had the desired effect because his face reddened. “Those poor women.” Her voice was husky. “How did she die, Bob? Blood loss?”
    “Actually,” Borden said, his tone matching hers, “she was strangled with a zip tie before she was carved. You know those long plastic doohickeys you can buy at a hardware store?” He grimaced. “It’s actually a very efficient way to kill somebody. The ties are cheap, they’re quick to tighten, and once they’re on—”
    “You can’t get them off unless you cut them off,” she finished. “With scissors.”
    “Exactly. No blood. No mess. No fuss.”
    Abby said nothing as she processed this. It was a rather horrific way to die, wasn’t it? She closed her eyes for a moment, picturing what the death would have been like. She imagined the sound the zip tie would make as it was pulled tighter, ridged plastic against ridged plastic, and how it would feel cutting into her throat, cutting off air, cutting off the ability to even take a breath, small hands clawing at the plastic to try and tear it off, but to no avail. The world eventually going dark, until there was just . . . nothing.
    A zip tie. Who knew something so cheap, so readily available, and so easy to hide in a