Girl, Sought (Ella Dark #24)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Ella's world had narrowed to the glowing screen in front of her, where a specialized reverse-image search algorithm was about to earn its taxpayer funding.

She'd loaded every angle of Alfred Finch's prized roach into the software. Each photo showed the same unfortunate specimen - Saltoblattella montistabularis , now reduced to fragments in an evidence bag. The crime scene photographers had captured it from multiple angles before collection, so she had plenty of source material to work with.

Somewhere in the vast digital ocean, there had to be a trace. No collector worth his salt would try to sell something this rare without proper documentation. Pictures were the currency of the collecting world - proof of authenticity, condition, provenance. Their killer had found Alfred Finch somehow, had seen this exact specimen advertised somewhere.

Across the room, Luca stood at the whiteboard like a man trying to decode ancient hieroglyphics. Her scrawled notes from last night's caffeine-fueled theorizing session covered every inch of available space. Red lines connected victims to theories, masks to motives, collectors to their collections. To anyone else, it probably looked like the work of a beautiful mind gone wrong.

‘You know,’ Luca said, tapping the photo of their killer in his insect mask, ‘we could try running this through the system too.’

Ella adjusted the search parameters on her screen. ‘Image quality's too poor. Besides, that thing probably came from some Halloween shop or costume website. We'd get thousands of similar hits.’

‘Yeah, you're right.’ He stepped back from the board. ‘Should we head over to the museum? Talk to Finch's colleagues ourselves?’

‘Reeves is there now, breaking the news to Finch's colleagues.’ She pictured the detective delivering that particular gut punch. No easy way to tell people their bug-loving coworker had been transformed into a human specimen. ‘Let him handle the notification. We've got bigger roaches to fry.’

Luca raised an eyebrow. ‘Getting poetic in your old age?’

‘Lack of sleep. Makes me hallucinate in metaphor.’

The software said: 1,000,000 images searched.

Ella drummed her fingers on the desk. The precinct's ancient heating system kicked in with a sound like someone trying to strangle a trumpet. Outside their window, Chesapeake went about its business, oblivious to the fact that a collector of collectors walked its streets.

5,000,000 images searched.

‘How long's this gonna take?’ Luca had abandoned the whiteboard in favor of hovering over her shoulder.

‘However long it takes to find our needle in the digital haystack.’ She squinted at the screen. ‘The software crawls everything - social media, email attachments, archived websites. If that roach ever showed its ugly face online, we'll find it.’

12,000,000 images searched.

The software kept churning through the digital universe, comparing pixels and patterns, looking for matches anywhere their rare roach might have made an appearance. Ella watched the numbers climb while her mind wandered down darker paths.

26,000,000 images searched.

What kind of person spent their time crafting insect masks and studying collector habits? Someone patient. Detail-oriented. The kind of mind that could plan elaborate murders while maintaining a facade of normalcy. Their killer probably had a day job, paid taxes, maybe even had a family. Monsters didn't always look like monsters in the daylight.

‘This could take all day,’ Luca said, dropping into the chair beside her. ‘Want me to make another coffee run? Or maybe we should-’

‘Don't jinx it.’ She held up a hand. ‘Never suggest alternate plans while tech is running. That's how you anger the computer gods.’

47,000,000 images searched.

The precinct's background noise faded to white as Ella watched numbers climb. Each million represented another layer of the internet parsed and analyzed. She'd seen this software crack cases before - finding stolen artwork on obscure auction sites, tracking down missing persons through vacation photos in strangers' social media posts.

But this wasn't just about finding a picture. This was about finding the exact moment their killer had first reached out to Alfred Finch.

89,000,000 images searched.

94,000,000 images searched.

113,000,000 images searched.

Ella's eyes burned from staring at the screen. How many images of insects could there possibly be on the internet?

‘Come on,’ she muttered. ‘Show me something.’

The search parameters expanded outward like ripples in a pond, hopefully touching every corner of the accessible internet. Somewhere in that vast ocean of data, their killer must have left a wake.

164,000,000 images searched.

Then everything stopped.

Ella's heart seized in her chest as red text flashed across the screen:

1 MATCH FOUND.

‘Whoa,’ Luca breathed. ‘Did we actually…?’

Her finger hovered over the mouse, suddenly afraid of what they might find. One result out of millions.

'Yes, we did. We got a live one.'

‘Go. Click the result.’

One click would either break this case wide open or send them back to square one. Ella held her breath and clicked.

The screen flickered, then resolved into a basic webpage; plain text, minimal pictures, no design elements. It was the website’s raw code assembled within the software – one of the loopholes it exploited to get into pages that were usually off-limits.

Text, pictures, HTML code.

And about ten pictures of a rare, preserved cockroach.

The site's header read ‘RARE SPECIMENS EXCHANGE - VERIFIED MEMBERS ONLY.’

It was an auction listing. Time-stamped three weeks ago. The images marched down the screen like a Rockette line of arthropod horror - dorsal view, ventral view, close-up of the mandibles. Each one crystal clear, each one familiar.

EXTREMELY RARE SPECIMEN – Salto-blat-tella monti-stabularis (Jumping Cockroach).

Posted by: A_Finch_Entomology.

Location: Chesapeake, VA.

Price: $70,000 (Serious inquiries only).

Ella clenched her fist so hard it hurt. ‘We got you, you son of a bitch.’

‘Stupid hyphens,’ Luca said, tapping the Salto-blat-tella monti-stabularis on the screen. ‘That’s why we couldn’t find it before.’

Ella was too busy reading to reply.

SPECIMEN DETAILS: Adult male, collected 2019. Perfect condition, no damage. Professionally mounted in museum-grade display case. Full documentation of origin and collection circumstances. One of only three known preserved specimens in North America.

This exceptional specimen represents one of the rarest insects in any private collection. The Salto-blat-tella monti-stabularis, discovered in 2011 in South Africa's Table Mountain, is notable for its unique jumping capabilities and is considered the ‘missing link’ in cockroach evolution.

Current mounting includes custom-built display case with UV protection and specialized preservation techniques. Specimen shows excellent detail of key taxonomic features including: Specialized jumping legs; Distinctive wing structure; Original coloration preserved; Complete antennae.

Specimen has been professionally appraised by the Curated Value Group (Documentation available upon request).

‘Shit, Ell. We got it. We need to get this to tech and dig into this guy’s private messages. We find out who Finch was talking to, we find our killer.’

Ella barely heard him over the rush of blood in her ears. Her hand shook as she scrolled down, taking in every damning detail.

Alfred Finch. Selling his precious specimen to the highest bidder. And someone had taken the bait.

But Ella's eyes had snagged on something else. A single line of text, buried in Finch's item description.

‘Wait.’ She grabbed Luca's wrist then tapped one of the paragraphs on the screen. ‘Look at this.’

Specimen has been professionally appraised by the Curated Value Group (Documentation available upon request).

Luca frowned. ‘Curated Value Group? What's that?’

His pulse was steady under her fingers. Sometimes she envied his ability to stay calm in moments like this, when her own mind was burning through neural pathways.

‘I've seen that name before.’ She attacked the mess of files and printouts scattered across her desk. Case notes, witness statements, financial records.

‘Have you? I don’t remember seeing it.’

‘It's here, I know it's here.’ She pawed through the chaos, chasing that elusive thread. ‘I just read it, I swear.’

But the connection she sought wasn't buried in this paper graveyard. Her hands moved to her laptop, clicking through tabs with the precision of muscle memory. Medical museum fire. Insurance fraud. Something about that article had stuck in her brain like a burr, waiting for the right moment to snag on something important.

The tab was still there, buried amid a dozen others. She clicked it, and there it was, laid out in black and white.

‘Here, read this.’

Luca leaned in. ‘Historic Chesapeake medical museum owner convicted of insurance fraud. What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Keep reading.’

‘St. Andrews Museum of Medical History, clear case of arson, financial woes, blah blah. What am I looking for here?’

‘Last paragraph.’ Ella saved him time and read it aloud herself. ‘ It's a tragic end to a vital piece of medical history,’ said Miss Blackburn, owner of the Curated Value Group. ’

‘Oh, snap. Curated Value Group. Blackburn?’ Luca's expression shifted from confusion to revelation in the space of a heartbeat. He dove into his own stack of papers on his desk.

‘Yeah. I’m guessing they’re an appraisal group. Appraising a dead man’s collection and being suspiciously close to a museum fire? Doesn’t that-‘

‘Hold up,’ interrupted Luca, ‘there’s something else.’

‘Is there?’

Luca emerged, holding a sheet of paper like it was a winning lottery ticket. 'Eleanor Calloway's credit card statement. She made a payment last month to a V. Blackburn. Five grand.'

The evidence lay before them in sterile black and white: a five-thousand-dollar payment to Vanessa Blackburn, dated just weeks before Eleanor's death. The kind of detail that could look innocent until you held it up to the right light.

Ella's mind raced ahead, connecting dots faster than she could process them. Two victims with no obvious overlap - except maybe there was. Both had used the same appraisal service. Both had trusted this company to put a value on their precious collections. Both had presumably let strangers – or the same stranger – into their private sanctums and shown them their obsessions.

‘The Curated Value Group,’ she said slowly. ‘They’d have access to everything. Client lists. Collection details. Values. Storage locations.’

‘Perfect hunting ground for someone looking to target collectors.’ Luca's voice had dropped to a near-whisper, like he was afraid speaking too loud might scare away their breakthrough.

‘And the perfect cover for getting close to them. What better way to learn about rare collections than through a legitimate business? You gain their trust, learn their routines, catalog their precious things.’

The implications spun out like ripples in a bloody pond. If the Curated Value Group was the nexus point between their victims, what else might they know? How many other collectors in their database might be potential targets? And most importantly - had their killer found his victims through their connection to the company?

‘Come on, Hawkins. We need to find out everything about this group – and then pay them a visit.’