I didn't think the first online dating profile I set up would feature me posing as a murder victim's look-a-like.

When I created the account, I kept it simple as a 26-year-old male who worked in city planning. I had short blond hair, dimples, fair skin, and a wild guess of a height of 5'10" since I'd never seen Dustin stand, but his legs seemed long-ish. I had to take a few liberties such as 'I' enjoyed outdoor activities like cross-country skiing and ice fishing as I could field a question or two should I have to catfish someone for information, although I hoped it didn't come to that.

Once the account went live, I searched for people named Alexia Moore within 50 kilometres of me. Several accounts showed the women were online or recently active. I took screenshots of each profile, feeling stalkeresque, but if one was a murderer, this would benefit us all, especially since the killer targeted women too. Only one profile, the socialite's, matched the results I'd found earlier online. The probability of a person broadcasting her true identity across multiple platforms and being a sneaky murderer who kept contacting Dustin's family after his death was pretty low.

On Saturday, I browsed more, looking for Alexias or Alexia Ms in case she'd shortened it, or she had only shared her full name with Dustin later. Curiously, since last night, one Alexia Moore profile had vanished. I kicked myself for not getting a shot of the entire description, just the photo and a few details about her job, florist, age, 24, and part of her blurb about her favourite place for a date, the tropical gardens. That wasn't anywhere near the area of the river where he died. Had Dustin gone out with her more than once? That question had to wait until Monday.

A big hurdle to solving this crime was the limited time Dustin and I spent together. To solve that, I found the start of the line and would ride the bus from there. Since the bus had undergone maintenance last week, it should run its normal route.

Monday morning, I travelled on another bus as far south as my regular route reached. It would have been a lot easier had Dustin's bus not been an express one-way bus I could board southbound, but that wasn't the case, so my first ride was sadly Dustin-free. Today's temperature was more seasonal at a balmy -8 Celsius with minimal wind as I waited for Dustin's bus.

When the 595 bus pulled up way out in the suburbs, a grin tugged at my cheek muscles. I cheerily greeted the bus driver, scanned in for the second time, popped in my earbuds, and sat beside the only other passenger.

"Good morning," Dustin said with a wide smile. "Did you visit someone out here?"

"I did some investigating this weekend, and I figured I'd need more time to pick your brain for enough information to catch this killer."

"Thank you, my little Sherlock Holmes." As he beamed at me, my cheeks warmed.

I scrolled through my photos to show him each Alexia I'd found, but he didn't recognize anyone, not even the florist whose account had disappeared on Saturday. She must have just given up or met someone.

I opened up a notes document on my phone. "What do you remember about her?"

"We connected over our love of the band, Glass Lung, and saw them on our first date. Small venue, super crowded." He shuddered like the memory bothered him.

"What about her? What did she look like?"

Dustin looked at me as he spoke. "She's pretty, wore thick dark-framed glasses, and her hazel eyes cut right through me. She also had medium-length red hair and freckles."

Her hair colour would narrow down the suspect list. My fingers struggled to keep up with his words. Once they had, I asked, "Any birthmarks, tattoos, defining features, very tall or short?"

"About 5'5" with pierced ears. Nothing else stood out."

"Did she mention a job or an area of the city she frequents?"

"She said she did administrative work but didn't give a company name. We met up twice, both times downtown."

That was too vague to be helpful. But she acted stable enough to lure him in twice and potentially remain employed. Though she may have eccentricities to narrow the search.

"Did anything weird happen on your dates?"

"You mean besides dying?" He chuckled, but pain lurked in his eyes.

"Sorry."

"It's fine." He cleared his throat. "She seemed off the night we got for drinks, the death date. I should have known something was up. She kept playing with the rings on her right hand, and her gaze darted around the room like she feared someone was watching us. When I asked about it, she said she'd gotten out of a bad relationship, so I wanted to comfort her, you know?"

I nodded. What possessed others to use hardships people struggled with every day to lure others to their death? "Any good person would do that."

"Glad we're on the same page."

"Did you catch a different name on a credit card or hear any bits of conversation she had with anyone else to give you a clue of her true identity?"

The brakes groaned as the bus came to a more sudden stop. Cold air whooshed in with the open doors.

He sighed. "I wish I did."

As I finished taking notes, the bus had filled up halfway, and we'd left the land of cookie-cutter houses for the mixed residential and commercial area closer to my apartment. I glanced at my notes. All I could use from Dustin's description were red hair, potentially her administrative job, and enjoyment of the music scene, unless that had been part of her lure. I flipped open Heart of Soul and changed some of my match preferences to see if I'd get lucky and stumble upon her in the next ten minutes. My boot tapped on the ground. Our luck didn't improve, even with new parameters.

"Don't stress out about this. Finding my killer won't bring me back," Dustin spoke with a gentle voice.

I wasn't sure how he acted so relaxed about this. In his shoes, I'd be fuming and dying for justice. "But it might help you move on to the next stage of the afterlife. Plus, the police are still discovering bodies, so this person is dangerous."

Dustin stiffened and sat up straighter. "They're finding more bodies?"

"Remains in the most recent case."

"Where?"

"About three hours north of here in Bear Claw Lake, so I doubt they're yours unless your... attacker took a road trip to dispose of your belongings, sorry."

A man in a trench coat eyed me, so I readjusted my headphones and spoke a few more normal phrases into the mike.

Dustin stared at the passengers opposite us with lips parted. It must be hard waiting helplessly for your truth to come out. Although some truths stayed buried forever with their victims. But I wouldn't let that happen to him.

"She didn't mention Bear Claw Lake, did she?" I asked.

He ran his finger along his temple and forehead, a scratch standing out on the back of his hand, probably from fighting for his life. "I think she did. Something about visiting a friend too."

"From there?" Hadn't Josh said the victim wasn't from town? Perhaps someone from Bear Claw Lake was an accomplice who disposed of the bodies.

"She might have been from a town or reserve nearby, but they'd go there to party."

An icy chill travelled through my body. My overactive imagination had suspected that connection, but confirmation that it was real spooked me.

"This is huge," I muttered. Last week, editing slides ate up my brain power, and now I'd help protect people from a monster. It would shock Josh when I told him about it. He would remember visitors, not that he partied a lot, but some of his friends did.

I swiped through more profiles on Heart of Soul to get Dustin's input with nothing but 'no's until he said, "I remember something about our first date."

I waited with bated breath.

"A man recognized her. I didn't catch the name he called her, but he asked about a project she was working on. He wore a t-shirt that said 'River City Expression'."

A quick search confirmed they were a local videography business. Since they were small, they even had profiles of their staff.

"That's him!" Dustin pointed at the portrait of a Filipino man in a suit jacket and jeans. We didn't have similar luck finding his killer, but I was sure Stella had mentioned this company before. We could reach out to them under the pretence of a potential partnership or licensing some of their old footage, and I could pick the guy's brain about 'Alexia'.

The bridge near the train station came up far too soon. Dustin took a few deep breaths but didn't glance at his watch.

"We'll find her, Dustin. This is the break we needed, and I can use your insights."

"If I believed in heaven, I'd say you were sent from there. My life may have ended horribly, but this makes up for it."

I bit my lip and nudged my free hand toward his. Despite not meeting solid flesh, a refreshingly cool sensation shot through my veins, twisting, turning, and inverting like a rollercoaster. From Dustin's dropped jaw, I figured he felt it too.

The bus bell dinged, announcing my stop. Today this connection was all the goodbye we needed.

My palms were sweating enough that I didn't bother protecting them with my mitts as I slipped toward the door and shot a parting gaze back at him, his mouth still open and eyes wide. 

Photo credits: Kateryna Hliznitsova (hands), Matthew Kalapuch (concert), Ivy Shirn (redheaded model), Tom Morel (blonde model) all sourced from Unsplash. 

Thanks for reading! Any new theories or characters that you're growing suspicious of? Love to hear your ideas.