Girl, Haunted (Ella Dark #22)

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

According to every database Ella had access to, Cassius Auctor didn't exist.

She'd scoured every nook and cranny of the digital world; turned over every virtual rock. Nothing. The guy was a ghost – or more likely, a phantom conjured up by her unsub’s imagination.

Ella's eyes burned from staring at the screen. She blinked hard; felt like her eyeballs were covered in sandpaper. A glance at the clock told her it was 9:20PM. The precinct had gone quiet hours ago, leaving just her and Luca burning the midnight oil.

She glanced over at her partner, who was frowning at his laptop like it had insulted his mother. He'd been combing through Carter's videos for the past two hours, searching for any hint of the creepy mask.

‘Don't we have tech experts for this kind of stuff?’ he asked.

Ella snorted. ‘Tech experts to search YouTube videos for a mask? No dice, Hawkins. We're the tech experts today.’

Luca huffed and chugged his coffee like it held the secret to eternal life. The bags under his eyes had bags. ‘I’m worried, Ell. I'm starting to think this shutdown might bite us in the ass. What if we've lost our killer for good?’

Ella swiveled in her chair to face him. ‘And what's the alternative? Another body on a slab? An uncaptured killer's better than a dead civilian.’ It was the ugly truth. In this line of work, you took your wins where you could.

‘Maybe. But what if we opened just one haunt? Use it as bait, lie in wait?’

‘Not a bad idea, but this isn’t some braindead Arthur Shawcross type. Our unsub will smell a trap a mile off.’

‘True. How many killers in the past have changed up their methods like this? If these murders didn’t have the haunted house connection, I’d think they were the work of three different people.’

A carousel of names and faces circled in Ella's head. While drastic deviations in MO were rare, they weren't completely unheard of. 'Richard Ramirez mixed things up a lot. Dennis Rader shot, killed and strangled. Israel Keyes traveled across the country and made all his kills look like accidents. The difference is that disorganized sociopaths change their approaches because they get over-confident, while methodical psychos consciously adapt to avoid detection.'

‘Right,’ Luca said, ‘but our guy isn’t trying to avoid detection. He’s practically screaming that he committed these three murders. Same town, same environment. So why’s he so insistent on changing his approach?’

‘Opportunity? Over-confidence? He stabbed, strangled, stabbed – in that order. The killing methods haven’t been drastic deviations, but the rituals have been all over the place. What connects a teddy, mirror shards and a mask?’

Luca pressed his fingers against his temples. ‘I don’t know, and I’m getting a headache thinking about it.’

Frustration bubbled up in Ella's gut like bad whiskey. She launched herself out of her chair and started pacing. The psychological profile of their perp danced just out of reach, like a word on the tip of her tongue. She grabbed a marker and attacked the whiteboard.

‘Alright, let's break this down. We've got an organized offender. Not a lust killer - sex isn't the motivator here. He's used strangulation and stabbing, and he’s got a unique ritual that changes with each vic.’

‘And the victims have nothing in common.’

‘Go through them again,’ Ella said.

Luca flipped through his notes. ‘Gregory Van Allen, forty-two. Owner of the Screamatorium. Bit of a penny-pincher, according to the locals. No family in the area.'

‘Right. And Natasha Langston?’

‘Twenty-eight, special effects artist. Worked on various haunted attractions in the area. Found dead at Shadowland.’

Ella nodded, scribbling on the board. ‘And our latest, Benjamin Clarke?’

‘Fifty, electrician. No direct connection to the haunt industry that we know of, besides being hired to work on the place.’

‘Okay,’ Ella said, stepping back from the board. ‘So what's the connection?’

Luca drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘Is this where you tell me you’ve already figured it out?’

Ella fixed him with a stare. ‘Come on, Hawkins. You wanna get back home? Quit joking and figure this out.’

‘Alright, sorry, I was just…’

'Well, don't just . Making quips isn’t going to close this case.’

Luca went silent and stared at her. Ella let the moment hang, then thought that maybe she’d crossed a line. She sat back in her chair and breathed a weary sigh. ‘I’m sorry. This case is just getting to me.’

‘No kidding.’

Ella went over to him and placed both hands on his shoulders. ‘Seriously. This was how me and Ripley used to function. We were at each other’s throats until we got back home.’

Luca stiffened his shoulders and rejected the impromptu massage. ‘Well, I’m not Ripley, and you’re gonna have to get used to that.’

Ella loosened her grip. ‘You’re right. I didn’t mean it.’

‘So, maybe we ought to forget the victims. Our guy’s clearly got a hatred for haunted houses, so maybe we could look at themes. For all we know, our guy applied to work at these places and got rejected.’

Ella nodded slowly. Rejection. Now, there was a motive as old as time. It lit a fire in just about every creep out there. 'Good thought. But remember what that interviewee at the Crypt said? The killer said that haunted houses weren't real. ’

She glared at the crime scene photos, willing them to give up their secrets. Three scenes. Three vics. Three different MOs. The only constant was the killer's post-murder ritual.

‘I don’t know,’ Luca said.

A silence settled over them, as thick as grave dirt. Then a knock at the door brought a new face. Sheriff Redmond barged in and planted a stack of papers on the desk.

‘You want the bad news or the bad news?’

Ella's guts clenched. In their line of work, 'bad news' could mean anything from a broken coffee machine to a new body. ‘Start with the baddest.’

Redmond scrubbed a hand over his beard – a habit Ella had already come to associate with him delivering crap sandwiches. ‘My boys finished going through the CCTV footage outside the haunts. Nada. Our psycho must've known their blind spots.’

Ella cursed under her breath. Another dead end.

‘Also got the autopsy and forensics.’ Redmond pointed to the stack of files. ‘Nothing new. No prints, no DNA. This freak's careful.’

Ella felt something snap inside her. She was staring down a dark tunnel and the only light was coming from eighty YouTube videos that may or may not provide a lead, if they could even find it at all. The killer danced just out of reach, taunting her with each body he left behind. And here she was, the FBI's golden girl, spinning her wheels like a rookie on her first case.

‘And we can only keep these haunts closed for one more night. The mayor’s talking about taking legal action. It could cost me my job. Maybe you guys, too.’

Ella felt like face-planting the table. ‘We’ll get something, Sheriff, even if we have to stay here all night.’

The game was far from over. And Ella had a sinking feeling they were playing by rules they didn't even understand.