Page 18 of Girl, Unmasked
‘The door was locked?’
‘Yeah.I assume the perp took the vic’s key and locked it on his way out, because there’s no other way he can get in there, not unless he can scale walls.’
‘Got it.What did you find in there?’
Blythe's mouth opened and closed twice before words came out.‘We found her.Exactly how the killer left her.’
Ella studied his face.The man had walked into someone else's fever dream and couldn't find the exit.
‘Any witnesses?Anyone hear anything?’
‘We're canvassing but so far not much.Thin walls in that building, but nobody reported screaming or fighting.Neighbor heard a cat scuttling about 10 PM, but that was apparently normal.’
Ripley asked, ‘Security cameras?’
‘One on the parking lot.One in the front lobby.The back entrance leads to the alley, and that camera's been broken for months.Building supervisor says the lock on that door's busted too.’Blythe pointed to a narrow passage between buildings.‘Perp could've come and gone without being recorded.I've got a tech pulling what footage we have, but I'm not holding my breath.’
Ella processed the details.Organized offender.Planned entry and exit.The broken door was homework, not luck.
‘We got a time of death?’
'Not sure until the autopsy.Between 8 PM last night and 7:30 AM this morning is all we know for sure.You want to head inside?'
‘Have forensics swept the place?’
‘Not yet.I wanted you to see it in situ first.Only me and two other guys have been on the scene, and believe me, they didn’t want to stay in there long.’
‘Good call.’Ella glanced at Ripley and got a small nod back.‘We’re ready to go in.’
Blythe turned towards the building, then stopped.He held his arm out as a barrier and said, 'Listen, I've seen some things.Barely a day goes by that I don't see a dead body.But that thing up there.That's like nothing I've ever seen.I can't even describe it.'
CHAPTER SEVEN
Over the years, Ella had been exposed to the entire spectrum of human mutilation, from missing heads to severed feet and everything in between.
But the victim in front of her now, Ella, struggled to recognize herself as a member of her own species.This victim – Sophie Draper – was stripped bare and posed in some sick likeness of prayer.Her knees dug into the carpet, her elbows were propped on the brown couch, and her head was bowed as if waiting for a divine intervention that was never going to come.
The woman's back was a glistening slab of meat where skin and muscle should be.Flayed open from nape to tailbone, thus resembling a pair of flimsy angel wings.
And around her head was a crown of barbed wire.Perhaps not a crown.A halo of metal that had been jammed down on her skull.The jagged points bit deep and loosened her flesh until streaks of blood slicked her hair and dripped down the side of her face.
‘Christ in heaven,’ Ella said.A sudden itch ran up her arms.The kind of itch no amount of scratching could fix.
Ripley just shook her head, then moved to the victim’s side.She gestured towards her face.
Ella inched closer on wooden legs as the sour stench of death billowed to meet her.She breathed through her mouth and tried not to gag as she crouched for a better look at what was left of Sophie’s face.
And her stomach dropped yet again.
Just smooth, blank orbs the color of bleached bone.Marbles, maybe, or polished stones, wedged into the bleeding holes that should have been windows to the soul.
Ella rocketed upright and staggered back a step as she fought against the whirlpool of nausea threatening to spill over.She thought of every psycho she’d ever profiled and every corpse that had been violated in ways nature never intended, and quickly concluded that nothing in her mental catalogue came close to this.
She took a moment to ask herself some questions without answers.What kind of psychopath could look at another human being and see a canvas for whatever this was?Whoever did this wasn’t just removed from reality.They’d taken a flying leap off the deep end and taken up permanent residence there.
And then, Ella reached for her first conclusion.The white eyes, the halo, the scabbed wings.
‘She’s a fallen angel,’ Ella said.
