CHAPTER TWO
Ella's landlord wasn't picking up. Again. The call went straight to voicemail, same as the last four times she'd tried. A grand wasn't exactly chump change, but it wasn't the money that burned. It was the principle. Ella had paid a thousand-dollar deposit when she first moved into that apartment two years ago, with the presumption that it would be repaid when she finally left. But Julianne Cooper, a professional landlord in more ways than one, had suddenly ghosted her.
It was funny, Ella could track down serial killers across state lines but couldn’t get hold of a woman despite knowing her name, face, address and cell number.
‘Still nothing?’ Luca asked from across the living room. He hunched over his laptop, fiddling with video call settings.
‘Nope. Think she blocked me.’
‘Want me to try? Different number might do the trick.’
But that was a lie. She wouldn't swing by anywhere. Julianne Cooper would keep dodging her calls, keep making excuses, keep holding onto that money until Ella got tired of chasing it. Landlord 101.
And where the hell was Jenna, her old roommate? It was a similar story. Radio silence for weeks. No responses to texts. Like they’d both vanished into thin air.
On her screen, Jenna's contact info stared back at her. Last message sent: October 12th. Two months ago. Maybe she'd changed her number. People did that, didn’t they? Changed numbers, moved cities, ghosted their friends without warning.
Maybe they’d both conspired against her, Ella wondered. Julianne might have given Ella’s half of the deposit to Jenna too, then Jenna had done a runner. It seemed unlikely, but stranger things had happened.
A string of curses erupted from Luca's direction. ‘Come on, you piece of... ah, there we go.’
Director William Edis's face appeared on screen, pixelated and too close to his webcam. Half his forehead was cut off. ‘Agent Hawkins? Can you hear me?’
‘Loud and clear, sir. Though we're only seeing about sixty percent of your face.’
‘What? Hold on.’ Shuffling sounds. The laptop shifted. Now they could see Edis's entire face, plus an impressive collection of ceiling tiles. ‘Better?’
‘Perfect, sir.’
Ella kept her distance, staying just out of frame while pretending to scroll through her phone. But her attention locked onto the screen as Edis spoke.
‘Sorry for the abrupt summons, Agent Hawkins, but we’ve got something unusual in Chesapeake. Something that’s not in our usual remit. Email coming your way now.’
‘Oh? What’s unusual about it?’
‘You’ll see.’
Luca navigated to his email client then clicked the unread email at the top of the pile. Compared to Ella’s inbox, Luca’s had a lot less bold text.
A row of PNG attachments sat just below the (no subject) title. Luca clicked the first.
Then, a full-color crime scene photo filled the screen.
One unlike Ella had seen before.
Not just a body, but a parody of life.
The victim – a brunette woman – sat propped in a high-backed chair with her limbs arranged with unnatural precision. Someone had painted her face like a porcelain doll, complete with rosy circles on each cheek and lips sculpted into a perfect crimson bow. The frilly dress belonged in a Victorian dollhouse, not on a dead woman.
But it was the eyes that sucker-punched Ella's gut. Whoever killed her had glued them wide open, coating the lids with something that sparkled under the camera flash. They stared straight ahead, glass-bright and empty, like the dozens of antique dolls arranged in perfect circles around her chair. It was a macabre tea party with their new human companion as the guest of honor.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Luca said.
‘Victim’s name is Eleanor Calloway. Local PD found her this morning when she didn’t show up for work. Haven't seen anything quite like it in my thirty years.’
‘You’re not kidding. Do we know anything else about her?’
’42 years old. Widow. Lived alone. Worked as a librarian.’
Luca clicked through a few more crime scene photos. Ella watched from afar.
‘She’s the only victim?’ Luca asked.
‘Like I said, this is unusual. It’s not a serial, but given the premeditated nature, they can label it an ultra-violent crime. We’re not obliged to help, but me and the Mayor of Virginia go a long way back. I promised him I’d send someone to take a look.’
Not a serial yet, Ella thought. Give it time. The positioning of the body sent fresh anger through her veins - hands folded in the lap like some demented Victorian portrait. The kind of obsessive detail that meant a mind gone wrong. Someone who got off on control, on turning living flesh into dead props for their private collection.
Ella shifted in the shadows behind Luca's chair. She knew she shouldn’t be eavesdropping, but the profile of this offender was already taking shape in her head. This wasn't about art or beauty or any of that pretentious crap. This was about power. About taking something alive and making it just another piece of property. Another toy in the toy box.
‘Alright, sir. I can check this out. Have you briefed Nigel already?’
Since Ella and Luca had ended their field partnership, Luca had taken the rookie position alongside senior agent Nigel Byford. Ella hadn’t been assigned a new partner yet.
‘I’m afraid Nigel is tied up in Baltimore until at least the New Year. You’re going to have to fly solo here.’
Ella’s heart plummeted to the depths of her stomach. Every instinct in her body screamed that this was wrong. You didn't send one agent to handle something like this. Not when the killer had staged their victim with this kind of care.
The crime scene photo burned into her retinas - that woman posed like a life-sized doll, surrounded by her own collection. The killer had known exactly what they were doing. Had probably watched the house, learned the victim's routines, planned every detail down to the shade of rouge on those dead cheeks. This wasn't some random act of violence. This was a ritualistic killing with a purpose.
And here was Edis, about to send Luca in alone because his new partner was busy elsewhere.
She was in front of the camera before she had time to second-guess her decision.
‘Sir, you can’t send Hawkins in there alone.’
‘Agent Dark?’ Edis's pixelated face registered surprise. ‘I didn't realize you were there.’
‘Sorry. I’ve been eavesdropping. I’ve heard every detail.’
‘Well, that’s not good. You’re not supposed to be privy to these details.’
‘Whoever did this, sir, they pulled off a home invasion, subdued the victim without alerting anyone, killed her without spilling a drop of blood and spent hours staging her body.’
Edis sniffed. Whenever Ella tripped him up, he tended to just stare and make a noise until she continued. So she did.
‘Look at the prep work here. The makeup alone would have taken an hour, minimum. Getting the eyes right, positioning the limbs, arranging all those dolls? This isn't some tweaked-out punk who got lucky. We're dealing with someone patient. Someone who probably planned this for months.’
She felt Luca's eyes on her but couldn't look at him. Not yet. Because the moment she did, she'd have to acknowledge what she was doing - throwing away three weeks of careful boundaries because her gut was screaming that this killer wasn't finished. That somewhere in Chesapeake, this monster was probably already watching their next target.
‘So, Miss Dark, are you volunteering?’
Now, she did look at Luca. Saw the mix of concern and relief in his eyes. Three weeks, they'd managed to keep work and personal lives separate. Might as well have tried to split an atom with a butter knife.
'Yes, sir. I'll go with Hawkins.'
Papers rustled off-camera. ‘Very well, but you’re supposed to be on medical leave, so don’t get too physical, understood? Don’t risk aggravating those burns.’
Ella caught Luca’s glance. She couldn’t quite read his expression, but she knew she’d made the right call. Some cases were bigger than office politics. Bigger than relationship advice from the FBI handbook. ‘Of course, sir.’
'I'll send over the full brief now. Print what you need, and for God's sake, keep the details away from the press. We don't need a clown show.'
‘Crystal, sir.’
‘I’ll be checking in with the mayor before the day is out, so keep me in the loop. Are you okay to drive down? It’s only 200 miles.’
Luca nodded. ‘Yup. It’s a scenic trip.’
Ella did her best not to kick Luca's ankles. He still hadn't learned that you never joked with the big man because it either annoyed him or extended the conversation. Neither were good career moves. With Edis, you got in, got out and made as little mess as possible.
‘Very well. Speak soon.’
The screen went black. Ella stared at her reflection in the darkened laptop, trying to process what she'd just done. Three weeks of careful planning, of keeping their personal and professional lives in separate boxes, all gone in the space of a few minutes.
‘So.’ Luca's voice pulled her back. ‘That was something.’
Ella gritted her teeth. ‘Sorry. I just thought… You don’t mind, do you?’
'Mind? The second I saw that crime scene photo, I knew you'd be tagging along.'
She tried not to laugh. ‘That obvious?’
‘You can’t resist a deranged mind. Besides, you’re right. I shouldn’t be doing this alone.’
‘Not saying you couldn’t handle it, but
Maybe we ought to promise to not be at each other’s throats this time. The past three weeks, I haven’t wanted to kill you once. How about we keep it that way?’
‘Deal. How’re your burns doing?’
Luca inspected his forearm. The bandages had come off, but the blisters remained. 'Fine. Yours?'
A month ago, Ella and Luca had been in a barn fire out in Oregon. The incident had left Ella with first-degree marks on her legs and Luca with second-degree burns on his arms. Ella’s wounds would heal. Luca’s might not.
‘It doesn’t hurt, but my legs go numb after walking for ten minutes.’
‘Then I guess I’m driving. Did you get a hold of your landlord?’
‘No. Maybe she changed her number.’
‘Maybe she died. She was about eighty.’
‘Landlords don't die,’ Ella said. ‘They just evolve into worse landlords.’
‘When we’re done in Chesapeake, we’ll pay her a visit. Mob style.’
Ella headed to the bedroom and grabbed her things. Standard FBI issue - change of clothes, toiletries, enough ammo to start a small war. She added fresh bandages for her legs. The burns might be healing, but three hours in a car would test that threshold.
‘I’ll let it go. I’m not going to cry over a grand.’
Back in the living room, Luca's printer kept spitting out photos of Eleanor Calloway's final performance. Each new angle just pissed Ella off more. Some sicko with a doll fetish thought they could play puppet master with real people. Well, they'd picked the wrong town to set up shop. Ella had spent her entire career studying freaks like this - memorizing their patterns, learning their tells. Somewhere in Chesapeake, this one had left breadcrumbs. And Ella was going to follow them straight to the source, medical leave or not.
Her stupid deposit could wait. The dead couldn't.