Page 14 of Girl, Unmasked
‘He skinned her,’ Ella said quietly.‘Made her into...’
‘An angel,’ Ripley finished.‘We’ve got an angel maker.’
Vernon cocked a brow.‘An angel maker?Don’t tell me there’s a profiling term for someone who does that?’
Ella said, ‘No, but theatrical killers utilize angel imagery a lot.It could mean a lot of things.’
‘Like purification, or it’s a satirical way of saying the victim is evil, or the perp could be religious.’
‘See what I mean?’Vernon said.
Another good point, which Ella conceded.This was the kind of case thatdidrequire behavioral analysis from the beginning, because any perpetrator capable of this was capable of doing more.Ripley was skimming through her file, probably trying to avoid admitting that Vernon had been right.
‘Wait a minute,’ Ripley said.‘What’s wrong with her eyes?’
‘Huh?’
‘Look.’
Ella rifled through her own folder until she found a photo that showed the victim’s eyes in full detail.They were glazed over, too white, too perfect.
Then she realized they weren’t eyes at all.
‘What the… are they stones?’
Where Sophie Draper's eyes should have been, two smooth, white orbs stared blankly at nothing.
‘Could be stones, marbles, glass eyes.Definitely not contact lenses.’
Ella stared at the photograph, and despite every reservation she had about Vernon's political maneuvering, despite her loyalty to Edis and the old ways of doing things, the case sank its claws into her.Someone had spent hours with Sophie Draper's body, carefully flayed her skin, positioned her in prayer, crowned her with barbed wire, and then, for the final touch, removed her eyes and replacing them with perfect white spheres.
This certainly wasn’t a case of random violence.Ella caught Ripley’s eye, and her body language said she was thinking the same.Ripley snapped her casefile shut.
‘Alright, Rick, we’ll investigate this.’
‘Great.Forgive me, but I don’t know the procedure from here.I’m still learning, you see.’
Ripley waved him off, ‘Call the admin team, arrange our travel, our transport and our hotel.They’ll notify a handler who’ll get us through the security gate.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about that.I’ll send you private.You just get yourselves to the airport, I’ll figure it out.’
‘Private?’Ella asked.‘Connecticut is only an hour away.’
‘That’s what I said, now get out of here.Oh, and one more thing.The expanded unit means expanded resources.I'm bringing in six new behavioral analysts over the next month.You two will be team leaders, not partners.’
Ella froze.'Excuse me?'
'Think about it.I've got the two best behavioral analysts in the Bureau, and you're joined at the hip.That's a waste of resources.You could be mentoring junior agents, spreading that expertise across multiple cases simultaneously.'
Ripley pinched the bridge of her nose and said, 'You're splitting us up?'
'Not permanently.Major cases, you'll still collaborate.But day-to-day?You'll be mentoring, training, spreading that expertise around.That's how we build a stronger Bureau.'
Ella and Ripley exchanged glances, and something told Ella that neither of them were going to let this happen.
Ripley put her folder under her arm and made for the door.Ella followed behind.Before leaving, Ripley turned back and asked, ‘This will place won’t have burned down before we get back, right?’
‘We’re not going anywhere,’ Vernon smiled, ‘and neither is the Ultra-Violent Crime Unit.’
