Page 58 of Girl, Fractured

Brooks folded inward as if he’d suddenly lost all skeletal integrity.

Ripley reached down, grabbed a fistful of his shirt and twisted it.She pressed her forearm against his trachea with the right amount of pressure – enough to restrict, not eliminate, oxygen flow.The Bureau manual specifically prohibited this maneuver.Ripley had long since returned her copy.

‘Why did you kill Frank?’she screamed.

The emergency exit banged open again.Ella burst through with her service weapon drawn.‘Mia, step back.We need him conscious.’

Ripley obliged her partner.She dropped the bloody and bruised Michael Brooks back onto the ground.As much as she wanted to cave his skull in, a concussed suspect didn’t make for a good interrogation.Ella moved in, rolled Brooks over and slapped the cuffs on his wrist.

Sarah was standing off to the side, flexing her wrist.

‘Webb, you okay?’Ripley asked.

‘Think I broke a nail.Maybe my wrist too.’

The adrenaline that had propelled her through the alley began its inevitable retreat.It left behind the wreckage of a fifty-something body that had temporarily forgotten its limitations.

And this return to state had awarded Ripley a sudden clarity.

Maybe Sarah Webb wasn’t so bad after all.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Michael Brooks hadn’t said a word since they’d brought him in, and Ella doubted he would.She, Ripley and Sarah watched him through the glass outside the interrogation room.The split lip from Sarah’s right hook had swollen to cartoonish proportions.

‘He hasn’t asked for food or water or a lawyer.Is that normal?’Sarah said, still nursing her swollen knuckles.She’d declined ice but accepted two extra-strength ibuprofen from a sympathetic deputy.

Ripley turned away from the window.‘No.Ten bucks says he pisses himself before he talks.’

‘My money’s on selective mutism,’ Sarah offered.‘He’s retreated into himself.Classic dissociative response.’

‘You get your criminal psyche degree off the back of a cereal box, Webb?He’s not talking because Florida has the death penalty, and he’s ripe for it.’

The questions were piling up, but none were as pressing as how Ripley found this guy.Ella hadn’t had a chance to question her partner since they’d stuffed Brooks in the back of their car, and she’d have to lay the whole thing out when the paperwork storm came.

‘Mia, talk me through it.’

‘Ha.Well, while you two were stalking that library, I was next door at the coffee shop.’

‘That’s a very you thing to do.’

‘Yeah it is.Anyway, I put two and two together.See, the sign outside his café said they didn’t have Wi-Fi.Not only that, but the café shuts at 4 PM.’

Ella waited for elaboration but none came.‘Okay?’

‘All our guy’s emails came between 4 and 5, apparently from the library’s network, but that doesn’t mean the sender had to beinthe library.This guy was just using the library’s Internet.’

The realization came fast, and Ella felt foolish for not catching on a few seconds sooner.‘Brooks signed up to the library one time, got access to their Wi-Fi then leeched it going forward.’

‘Yeah, then I hit him with a piece of wood.’

‘Nice,’ Sarah added.

‘Oh great.How am I supposed to justify that?’

‘You want this guy caught or not?’Ripley asked.‘Just tell Edis I fell on him.Don’t mention the nails.’

‘What nails?’

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