Page 12 of Girl, Unmasked
‘So… a whore.’
‘You know what I mean.’
Ripley’s comments rarely got under her skin, but this one definitely penetrated the surface.‘First of all, I’ve had four boyfriends in my whole life.That’s one every four years since I turned sixteen.Secondly, I think you just don’t like Vernon for some reason and you’re trying to justify why I might not agree with you.’Ella stuck her thumb in her partner’s face.‘See that?Is my thumb jittering?Am I lying?’
Ripley slapped her thumb away.‘Whatever.Come on, let’s head upstairs and see what this douchebag wants with us.I guarantee you it’s not going to be good.’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘These are new times, and exciting times,’ Vernon said.‘Things are going to be changing, but not in ways you might think.’
Rick Vernon didn’t fill out the desk like Edis had.Edis had commanded the space, but Vernon sat neat and contained behind it.Ella thought it looked a little like a kid playing dress-up in his dad’s office.
Everything remained exactly as Edis had left it, too.Usually, Ella and Ripley would have sat in the leather chairs facing the desk because it was their standard formation, but today they both stood.Neither had discussed it, but maybe they’d spent so much time together they now shared a single mind.Ella felt that assuming the old position was a betrayal to Edis, like claiming ownership of a dead relative’s sofa before they were even buried.
‘Would either of you like to sit?I promise the chairs aren’t booby-trapped.’
Neither of them moved.
‘Or stand.Whatever makes you comfortable.’
‘What can we do for you, sir?’asked Ella.
‘Look, I’m going to be honest with you.Edis has a reputation in our circles, and people get reputations for a reason.’
Ella felt Ripley tense beside her.The woman was itching for a confrontation, Ella could tell a mile off.‘What reputation might that be?’
‘He was good.I’d never deny that.But he was old school, and the world is changing.Crime is changing.You two know the criminal mind even better than me, so you should know exactly what I’m talking about.’
‘How is crime changing, sir?’
‘You’re originally from Intelligence, is that right Miss Dark?’
‘Yes it is.’
‘How many serial cases are there per year in the United States?’
‘Twenty new cases per year on average, with around thirty active cold cases.’
‘Bingo, and that number is decreasing, thanks to you two.Almost one hundred percent of serial cases fall into your hands, and what’s going to happen in a few years when that number drops to zero?’
‘Then we’ll do something else,’ Ripley said.
‘The majority of high-profile crime is terrorism, crimes of passion, excessively violent murders, mass killings, mass shootings.I’m trying to put a lot more emphasis on these types of crimes, which means there isn’t much room left for the Behavioral team.’
‘Come again?’Ella snapped.‘No room for the BAU?’
‘Not like that.The BAU gets better results than any other division, to the point that it’s skewing the data quite drastically.Do you two know how many people work in the BAU?’
Ella looked over at her partner, and then back at Vernon.‘Two.’
Despite sometimes working with other agents, only Ella and Ripley were official BAU agents.The others – including Luca – either fell under specialist departments or standard field agents.
‘Yes.You two.A two-person department with a hundred percent close rate sounds like a dream, but the question then becomes; why aren’t you two putting those skills to work elsewhere?’
Ripley crossed her arms and laughed.‘What, you want us cleaning the toilets?Running errands?’
‘No.Nothing like that.’
