Page 24 of Girl, Unmasked
‘That’s why it’s called garbage.’Ella moved onto the next drawer.More of the same – a post-apocalyptic pirate romance, something with ‘Duke’ and ‘Desire’ in the subtitle, a handful of manuscripts so old the pages were starting to yellow.Poor Sophie.Wading through this dreck daily.It was a wonder she hadn't gone postal.
But then Ella’s brain stalled mid-thought.She blinked at one manuscript in the middle of this pile, sure she had to be seeing things.
The edges of the pages were foxed and frayed, like it had been handled one too many times by ungentle hands.Not thick like the others either.More of a novella than a novel.
But it wasn't the state of it that had Ella's throat closing up or her guts knotting themselves into a sailor's hitch.
It was the title.
Ripley’s voice came through the haze.‘You alright there, Dark?You’ve gone quiet.’
The hair on the back of her neck stood to attention.A heavy hand landed on her shoulder.Ripley loomed over her.
In response, Ella shoved the manuscript into her hands.Watched her eyes go wide, then narrow as she took in the title.Saw the same certainty settle over her expression.
‘Jesus,’ Ripley said.
Ella opened her mouth to bellow a similar exclamation but she couldn’t find any words.All she had in her head was the certainty that the crumpled pages in her partner’s hands had something to do with the mutilated woman-turned-angel she’d seen this morning.
The manuscript’s title was Halo of Blood.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ella was back at her precinct, devouring the pages of Halo of Blood like she’d never read a book in her life.She'd swiped the manuscript from Sophie's office – a decision her ego was still unsure about.But her gut said it was important, and ninety-nine percent of cops would tell you to always trust your gut.
She was almost thirty pages deep in the grim little novella.She turned the pages with gloved hands, trying to suss out some kind of link between the twisted fiction and their all-too-real homicide.
According to the front page of the manuscript, Halo of Blood was written by someone named Drago LaChance, a handle so on-the-nose it had to be fake.And so far, the book reads like torture porn wrapped in a teenager's idea of deep literature.It was more blood than brains and enough purple prose to choke an English teacher.
But Ella was damned if she could put it down.
From what she’d gleaned so far, the plot followed a gentleman named Cain as he stumbled through his daily drudge of a life.According to the first line of the chapter in front of her, Cain felt like an empty shell going through the motions in a world that hadn’t forgotten his name, but never learned it in the first place.
Ella continued skimming and would have rolled her eyes out of her skull if not for the possibility of this author having progressed from novelist to murderer.The manuscript was chock full of woeful spiels about how God had, in the author's words, made it rain shit on poor Cain.There was real 'pay attention to me' energy pouring from the prose, and Ella guessed it was the kind of prose of someone with real resentment running through their veins.
She read a section:
A cockroach skittered across his periphery, and he smashed it under his boot heel.The crunch of carapace was viscerally satisfying.A fleeting hit of power, control.He imagined her face under his foot instead.Pleading, bleeding, begging for mercy, he wouldn't grant.Wouldn't ever grant again.His lip curled in a rictus grin.God had abandoned him.Left him to rot with the other dregs.But he'd show Him.He'd show them all.
Sheesh, Ella thought.Whoever wrote this probably took up permanent residence in their mom’s basement and probably needed a haircut.
Page thirty-two now, and the scene made her sit up and take notice.Cain, in all his incel glory, was stalking an unassuming woman down a back alley.
He followed, footsteps cat-soft, melding with the shadows like they were a part of him.A wraith, unseen, unheard.Death on two legs.
Ella's guts did a slow roll.The hairs on her forearms snapped to attention, charged with the certainty that this was important.She went to turn the page, to see how it all shook out – and nearly ripped the damn thing out.
Page thirty ended mid-sentence.
She eyeballed the bottom center of the page.Flipped back a page.
Three pages were missing.She’d jumped straight from thirty to thirty-four, which picked up on a completely new scene.
What the hell?She pawed through the surrounding pages, certain she’d find the absent scene wedged in there somewhere.
But nope.Nothing.Just a jump-cut in the already-disjointed story, leapfrogging the reader over what Ella would bet was the money shot.The story chugged right along as if old Drago LaChance figured his readers wouldn't notice a narrative hole the size of the Grand Canyon.
A headache was beginning to brew behind one eye, and before she could delve back into the pit of despair, Ripley shouldered her way through the door.Ella jolted so hard she nearly dumped herself out of her chair.
