Page 67 of Girl, Unmasked
'Jesus, Dark, would you listen to yourself?'Mia's stoicism morphed into frustration.'What, you think you're the hero that can save everyone?'
‘No, I didn’t mean…’
'You know how arrogant that is?It's not up to you to save these people.'Ripley gestured towards Kane's limp figure.'It's up to these assholes to not go around slicing people up and drawing wings with their blood.Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was telling you this back when you were a rookie.Have you learned nothing?'
Ripley with the pep talk.Just like old times.
And like always, she was right.
‘Alright.I’m sorry.I didn’t mean it like that.’
Ripley spun around and grabbed her by the shoulders.‘Dark, you're in this psycho's head.You're thinking like him, predicting his moves.That's not nothing.Trust those instincts.WWPD.What Would Psycho Do?’
'I appreciate it, Mia, but we're nearly out of victims, remember?Sophie, Martina, Kane.That's three down, and no idea who's up next in this freak's hit parade.The final kill was missing from the manuscript, and it's not on the web.'
But even as the words left her mouth, the gears started turning.Slowly at first, then faster, rust flaking away as long-dormant synapses fired.
She thought of the manuscript.The missing pages.The careful staging, the loving attention to detail.This wasn't some amateur hour slash-and-dash.The Angel Maker was an artist, in the most grotesque sense of the word.
‘Then get creative,’ said Ripley.‘Someone dented this guy’s ego, maybe last year, maybe last week.Figure out the final vic and we might just cut him off at the pass.’
Ella drew herself up, shoulders set and heart blackened with purpose.A new surge of determination coursed through her veins.One more life.She could save one more life if she just focused, if she pushed everything else aside and zeroed in on the killer's backwards logic.
‘I’ll head back to the precinct.’
‘That’s the Dark I know.I’ll stay here and see if anything crops up.’
She turned on her heel, ready to march right out of that abattoir and back to the barn.But she paused at the threshold.Looked back over her shoulder at Mia.‘By the way, it’s the milk ratio.’
‘Come again?’
‘Never mind.’
And Ella was headed back to her office, to dig deep – and maybe find some gold in this garbage pile.
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
Ella's office looked like a paper bomb had detonated.Pages fromHalo of Bloodcovered every available surface, and she’d been over the damn thing so many times she could recite passages in her sleep.Not that sleep was an option right now.
But for all her studying, for all her attempts to pry open the lid of this psychopath's skull and peek at the maggots writhing inside, she was still coming up empty.
Oh, she had pieces, but nothing she could sink her teeth into and use to claw her way to the truth.
The first two killings had followed the script to the letter, right down to the barbed wire halos and posed bodies.But the third, the slaughter at Bookshop Obscura, had been a deviation.A detour into unknown territory, and damn if navigating it didn't make her feel like a blind rat in a maze built by a sadist.
But it was the specter of victim number four that really had her guts churning.Judith, the mysterious final woman.The cipher without a last name or distinguishing characteristics, just a blanket hatred from a man unhinged enough to consider murder his magnum opus.
Ella ground her knuckles into eye sockets that felt lined with crushed glass.She was burning out and she knew it, running on fumes and stubbornness, but what choice did she have?The clock was ticking, and every second she wasted was another secondJudith'snumber ticked closer to coming up.
‘Think, Dark, you dumb bitch,’ she snarled at herself.‘There's gotta be something you're missing.’
But the pages just stared back at her.The words blurred and ran together until they looked like blood swirling down a drain, and wasn't that just a kick in the head?Even the goddamn ink was taunting her now.
Fury rose up and pressure built behind her temples until she was sure her skull would split at the seams.She wanted to scream, tear her hair out at the roots, punch something until the world made sense again.
No.She had to channel the rage into something beneficial.The walls in this place had enough holes as it was, and another hole wasn’t going to bringJudithany closer to safety.
She picked up a handful of pages of the manuscript and began rifling through them, drawn to the scenes that Ryland had found online.At the first crime scene, they’d found pages of the book stuffed down the victim’s throat, but that little ritual was noticeably absent from the second and possibly the third.
