Page 5 of Girl, Unmasked
‘And?’
‘I told them what I’m telling you now.I don’t know anything about them.’
Ella wasn’t buying it.‘Sure about that?’
‘I don’t know if you noticed, Ella, but I’m locked in a concrete box all day.’Creed rattled his chains.‘There are thirteen locked doors between me and the free world.Guards watch me around the clock.I can’t take a piss without a camera on me.So tell me, how exactly would I kill three of your friends?’
‘Easy.You got someone on the outside to do it for you.’
Creed’s eyes lit up like she’d just solved a riddle for him.‘It’s a seductive idea, but completely impossible in a place like this.Every single thing I do is monitored, even my mail.’
‘Charles Manson managed it, and you apparently know all about him.’
Creed went to smile, then clearly thought better of it.‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t remember mimicking Charles Manson.’
‘No, because Manson never killed anyone himself.He got other people to do the work for him, and that’s what I think you’re doing.So you can either tell me the truth, or I can-’
‘Can what?Put a bullet in me right here?Don’t think I haven’t noticed that gun in your jacket, Ella, and even if you killed me, then what?How would that stop someone mimicking the Mimicker?It wouldn’t.Like I said, you should pay more attention.I have no reason to lie to you, because the last I heard, they’re going to speed up my execution date – all because of your dead friends.Apparently I’m a high risk prisoner, so the sooner I’m dead, the better.If I knewanythingabout this, I’d tell you, because then I might have a chance at seeing next year, but I’ll be dead before the summer comes.Now, does that answer your question?’
A brief silence while Ella processed the outburst, and she hated that the words made sense.Being connected to these murders only fast-tracked his execution.Why would he orchestrate something that guaranteed his own death would come faster?
But then again, who was to say Creed valued those extra months?The man had mimicked five different serial killers not for the thrill of killing, but for the infamy.What was survival compared to a legacy the likes of Bundy and Gacy?
Except Creed was a narcissist, and narcists clung to life.They believed, even in chains, even on death row, that they were special enough to beat the system.Every day alive was another day to manipulate and exist as the center of his own universe, and would he really trade that for revenge?
Which meant either he was telling the truth, or he was willing to die to protect whoever was doing this.
'What about the card at Ben's funeral?'she asked.'The one with the quote.’
‘What quote?’
‘Death is a type of love.'Ella purposely got it wrong in the hopes that Creed would correct her.
His forehead creased.‘I don't know anything about a funeral card.'
‘It had my picture on it.With Ben.'
'I don't even know who Ben is.'
‘My ex-boyfriend.Shot in California.’
The confusion on his face looked genuine.But then again, Creed had fooled plenty of people in the past.Ella studied his micro-expressions, the way his pupils dilated slightly, the unconscious tilt of his head.After years of reading killers, she'd learned to spot the tells, but Creed wasn't giving her any.Either he was the best liar she'd ever encountered, or he was telling the truth.
‘I haven't sent any cards.I told you, every piece of mail I touch gets read by the guards.’
Ella locked eyes with him and mentally ran through everything one more time.Director Edis's voice echoed in her head:When the host dies, the parasite dies too.
Such a simple equation.One pull of the trigger and maybe the killing would stop.Maybe whoever was out there carving up her life would lose their purpose through losing their messiah.
But what if Creed was telling the truth?What if she put a bullet in his brain and the murders kept coming?She'd have killed him for nothing.Executed a man who was already scheduled to die, and gained nothing but another ghost to carry around.
The frustration began to eat her from the inside, because if Creed was being honest – and every instinct she'd honed over the years suggested he was – then she was staring into an abyss with no bottom.Someone had killed three people she cared about, and that person knew intimate details of her life and relationships and friendships.Someone who'd been at Ben's funeral, close enough to leave a card with their photo on it.
And that someone wasn't the man sitting across from her in chains.
She stood up.Today wasn’t the day for Austin Creed to die.
‘Leaving so soon?’he asked.
