Page 69 of Girl, Fractured

‘No,’ Ella stopped her partner before she got there.‘Sarah was with me when Thomas was killed.Plus, it’s herdad.Don’t be ridiculous.’

Ripley began to pace the room.She tried not to touch anything as she peered behind Thomas Webb’s desk.‘You seeing what I’m seeing, Dark?’

‘I’m seeing a crucified body and not much else.’

‘Alright, I’ll rephrase.Are you seeing what I’mnotseeing?’

‘Give me a clue.’

‘This is an office, apparently,’ Ripley said as she gestured to the desk, the bookshelf, the power cords dangling from various outlets.‘Where’s this guy’s computer?’

‘Who’s to say he had one?’

Ripley prodded the desk then stuck her finger in Ella’s face.‘Dust doesn’t lie.Look.’

Ella did.She inspected the desk too.The faint outline of a monitor and keyboard were present.She checked below the desk and found a notable lack of hard drive.‘What’s this dust say?’

‘See these edges?’She traced her gloved finger just above the surface without touching it.‘The dust accumulation is disrupted here, here, and here.When dust settles on a surface, it does so at a consistent rate in a consistent pattern, unless something disturbs it.What we’re seeing is thicker dust around the perimeter but almost none inside these margins.’

Even after all of this time together, Ripley still had the ability to impress.Ella added dust forensics to Ripley’s resumé.‘So, someone moved whatever was here recently?’

‘Yeah.’

‘How recently?Weeks?’

‘No.Hours.Dust behaves like a fluid in slow motion.When an object that’s been sitting in place for weeks or months is suddenly removed, it creates a micro-disturbance in the air, like a slow-motion splash.These particles haven’t fully resettled yet.’

‘Jeez, Mia.And you call me a nerd.So, what, something was sitting on this desk a few hours ago?’

‘Three hours max.’

Ella processed that.‘You’re sure?’

‘I told you.Dust doesn’t lie.’

‘So, not only did our unsub nail Thomas Webb to his chair, but they took his computer too?’

The question hung in the air between them, neither wanting to voice the obvious question: what was on Thomas Webb’s computer that was worth killing for?

The office door creaked, and Sheriff Bauer’s face appeared in the gap.There were bags beneath his eyes that hadn’t been there this afternoon.Three homicides in as many days had aged the poor guy a decade.

‘Techs need the room,’ he said.‘Gotta get the body to the M.E., stat.’

Ella glanced one final time at Thomas Webb’s unseeing eyes.Someone had positioned his head to stare directly at the door, thus ensuring whoever entered would meet his dead gaze immediately.It was a theatrical touch that spoke of ego, and it just so happened that the first person through the door was his closest relative.

‘Is Sarah still outside?’

‘Yeah.Girl’s a mess.Had to stop her from calling her mom three times.Ex-wife’s in Hospice with late-stage Alzheimer’s.No point traumatizing someone who won’t remember it tomorrow.’

Another micro-data point filed in Ella’s mental evidence locker.Sarah had never mentioned her mother’s condition.An omission born of privacy, or calculation?

‘We need to talk to her, Mia.Let’s go.’

***

Ella found Sarah Webb sitting in the back of a police cruiser.Her legs were dangling outside the open door, as if she couldn’t commit fully to either remaining inside or stepping back into a world where her father no longer existed.There was no easy way to question a woman who’d just found her father crucified to a chair, but Ella at least had to try.

‘Sarah.I’m sorry,’ Ella began.

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