Page 69 of Girl, Empty
It was going to be a long night, but somewhere in those thousands of hours of mundane footage was the face of a killer.And once she had it, that's when the real hunt could begin.
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People spent their lives staring at screens six inches from their faces, so much so that they'd forgotten how to look up.Tonight had been a perfect example.Amanda Pierce had been screaming outside that building for fifteen minutes until the cops showed up, and none of them–not her nor the police – thought to check the rooftop.
Tonight had gone well, but the only problem was Amanda herself.She wasn't supposed to survive.The notification he'd sent to her phone should have lured her into that server room and trapped her there, but unlike the other buildings, he had to work remotely for this one.His only view was via the CCTV camera in that corridor, because he couldn’t risk being in there himself.Not to mention that he’d heard enough stories about terrorists blowing themselves up with their own explosives, so he could only imagine how much the press would make fun of the terrorist who froze himself to death.
The press.That was another issue entirely.Now he sat at his monitors and browsed the news, and he’d fully expected those vultures to jump on this story.It was as seductive as a story could be, but all coverage had been disappointingly shallow.CNN had given it a brief mention on the banner that ran across the bottom of the screen, Fox had given it about 20 seconds, news articles positioned it alongside celebrity gossip and high school football scandals.Local news were doing better, but they were all missing the point entirely, not to mention they were framing it as a serial killing spree.
Of course, the term serial killer drew eyeballs.It got people to sit up and pay attention, much more than an honest report about fundamental flaws in America’s infrastructure would.Fear sold.Technical analysis didn’t.
Amanda Pierce’s death was yet to hit the news, but no doubt it would by morning.Three murders would certainly qualify this is as a serial case, and that would just cement the unwanted title even further.To classify these murders as serial killing was doing them a disservice, like calling a brain surgeon a butcher.Jeffery Dahmer couldn’t hack a bank vault.Gacy couldn’t move his fat ass through an accounting firm without a single camera picking him up.No other predator on earth had done this before, and the media were treating it like some garden-variety hacking and slashing.The disrespect was insulting.
Though maybe there was a reason for the media's reluctance to embrace the locked room angle.
They hadn't done it years ago, either.
They’d buried that story too.Heart attack, they'd said.Natural causes in unnatural circumstances.Case closed.Life goes on.
But life hadn’t gone on.Not for him.
Some stories were too complex for sound bites, he guessed.They were too challenging for audiences who wanted simple narratives about good and evil.The truth required nuance, but nuance didn't generate clicks.
He went back to the final target on his board.Four targets, two down, one unattainable, one left to go.Amanda Pierce being alive admittedly threw a wrench in the works, because she’d actually seen him in the flesh.If she could connect the dots, maybe someone with a brain could track him down.
Which is why this had to end tomorrow night.One final target.The person who set this whole mess in motion all those years ago.
And this one was too special to do remotely.This time, he needed a front row seat.
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
Ella was mid-surreal dream; the sort of dream that came with uncomfortable sleep, when a hand landed on her shoulder.
‘Dark!You promised you wouldn’t do this again!’
She jerked back to life with a sound that was no doubt embarrassing, looked around, and suffered that brief window of disorientation when your surroundings, no matter how familiar, made no sense.
‘Huh?What did I promise I wouldn’t do again?’
‘Fall asleep in the office.You’re going to be in a wheelchair at 30.’
‘I’m already past 30.’
‘Then you’re old enough to know better.Happy Martin Luther King Day.’
‘Is that today?What time is it?
‘Nine.I’m late.What have you been doing all night?’
Ella shook off the cobwebs and thought back to last night.Most of it was a blur, and not in the hangover kind of way.‘I found a few things.What about you?’
‘Me and Riggs went through the CCTV from Blackglass.We saw the whole ordeal with Amanda and Noah, but there were no camera blackouts.You know what that means?’
‘That the killer wasn’t in the building.He orchestrated the whole thing from afar.’
‘Yeah.No idea how he pulled it off, unless he just got lucky.’
‘If he can hack a bank vault, he can hack a camera feed.He probably watched the whole thing through that.’
