Girl, Sought (Ella Dark #24)

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

‘Call attempt number nine, no joy.’ Ella killed the connection as Vanessa's phone rang into the void. Her voicemail message was starting to feel like a personal insult:

Hello, you've reached Vanessa Blackburn of the Curated Value Group. I'm either authenticating priceless artifacts or avoiding your calls .

‘Jesus, how far out is this place?’ Luca muscled their SUV around another curve in the country road. Their journey had taken them through miles of barren land flanked by dead trees, windmills and the odd group of cows. They'd left civilization behind twenty minutes ago.

‘Another mile.’ The GPS showed their little blue dot crawling through a dead zone where cell reception went to die. ‘Why the hell isn’t she answering?’

‘Let’s hope she’s busy. Appraising or whatever the hell she does.’

Ella tried not to think of the worst case scenario, because it usually turned out to be true. Instead, she thought of the unsub – Lawrence Winters – or at least who she hoped was her unsub. 'This guy fits the profile to a tee, Hawkins. We knew he'd be a desk jockey, we knew he'd feel inferior to these collectors. That's why he's doing this because he wants to inherit their prestige. I told you – he's a cannibal without the consumption.'

The GPS chimed. Destination ahead.

‘There.’ Ella pointed to where the treeline broke. ‘Hang a left.’

Vanessa's house rose from the winter-dead landscape like a glass castle. Three stories of architectural hubris wrapped in floor-to-ceiling windows. The kind of place that screamed richer than you to anyone with eyes. It was one of only about four houses she’d seen in the past ten minutes, and out in the sticks, no one could hear you scream.

The SUV jounced up the pitted gravel drive and skidded to a stop by the front steps. She was out of the car before conscious thought caught up, Glock drawn and feet churning wet earth. Leaped the porch steps two at a time and caught a flash of Luca doing the same in her peripheral.

There was no time to take in the scenery. Ella hammered on the front door and yelled, ‘Vanessa! It’s Dark and Hawkins. Open up!’

The wind snatched her cries away. Ella moved to the front windows, peered in, and caught sight of a front room with a modest set up.

‘Vanessa!’ Luca shouted as he pounded he door. ‘Answer!’

Nothing. Just the sigh of the wind, the patter of rain on sagging gutters. Ella slammed a fist into the door. It rattled in its frame but held fast, unyielding as the woman Ella prayed was somehow oblivious to their intrusion on the other side.

No time for pleasantries, or proper procedure. She stepped back, raised one booted foot. Felt Luca tense beside her, ready to add his own considerable bulk to the effort.

Then she heard it.

A scuffle, a scrabble. A choked-off gasp, a sound like meat slapping stone.

‘Ell. You hear that?’

‘I hear it. Vanessa? Where are you?’

More choking. Wet, desperate gasps that spoke of airways compressed and oxygen denied. The sound came from beyond the house's western edge.

‘Side gate.’ Luca was already moving. ‘Come on!’

They sprinted around the corner. A wooden gate blocked their path – seven feet of solid oak between them, and whatever horror waited on the other side.

Ella didn't hesitate. She put on a burst of speed and hit the gate at full tilt, using her shoulder as a battering ram. Pain shot through her burns, but adrenaline buried it deep. The gate gave with a crack of splintering wood.

The scene hit her retinas in freeze-frame fragments:

A narrow passage between house and fence.

Vanessa Blackburn sprawled face-down on dead grass with one hand clutching her throat. Vanessa convulsed, retched, then spat a gobbet of bloody drool onto the flagstones and sucked in a whistling, agonized breath.

Ella's legs nearly went out from under her. Relief hit like a freight train. She scrambled forward and fell to her knees at the other woman's side.

‘Vanessa! Oh Christ.’ Vanessa's neck was a ruin, flayed and purpling with the imprint of a garrote. ‘What happened? Who did this?’

Vanessa's eyes rolled, unfocused. She coughed, choked. Fresh blood bubbled over her lips. Behind them, Ella could Luca hear on the phone.

‘Woods..’ The word was mangled, forced out through a bruised throat on a thread of air. ‘He went… woods.’

‘Medics are on the way.’ Luca closed in and helped Vanessa up to a sitting position. Her face was flushed red where the blood had rushed in after being denied oxygen. ‘Vanessa, hey. Stay with me.’

Ella caught one icy hand and chafed it between her own. Tried to will warmth back into mottled skin, to coax the fading light back into those glassy eyes. ‘The medics are coming, okay? You just focus on breathing. In and out, nice and slow.’

‘Mask… attacked me…’ Vanessa said.

Luca jumped to his feet. ‘Keep her breathing, Ell. I’ll take a look in the woods, see if he’s still there.’

‘Be safe.’

Luca rushed across the lawn, stopping to inspect some patches in the mud, then he leaped across the fence at the rear of the garden.

She swiped a hand over her face, brushing away rain, tears. Crouched at Vanessa's side once more, shedding her damp coat to drape over the other woman's shoulders. Vanessa flinched from the touch.

'Vanessa.' Ella worked to keep her voice steady. 'I know it hurts. I know you're scared. But I need you to stay with me, okay?'

She squeezed one birdlike wrist, felt the thready flutter of a pulse beneath her fingers. ‘Just until the medics get here. I promise, we'll get the bastard who did this. But right now, I need you to focus. I need you to remember. What do you remember?’

‘He was… waiting.’

‘Could you tell who it was? I know he has a mask, but did you see anything else? Hear his voice?’

Vanessa coughed up another globule of blood, then shook her head.

Ella could tell she wasn’t going to get much out of Vanessa, at least not until the shock had subsided, by which point it might be too late. So, she had to trust her instinct, and her instinct said that Lawrence Winters was her unsub.

‘Vanessa, this is going to sound strange, but I need the address of Lawrence Winters. Your accountant.’

The poor woman’s bloodshot eyes met Ella’s, asking a million questions at once. Ella felt like a prize fool, because there was probably a part of Vanessa that was considering that maybe Ella was just looking for tax advice.

‘I believe Lawrence Winters is responsible for these murders.’

‘Larry?’ she choked out.

‘Yes. Our killer is targeting what he deems to be pure collectors, which are people who don’t donate collectibles for financial gain. Winters has access to all of your clients’ information, doesn’t he?’

Vanessa nodded.

'We know that he also filed tax returns for all of our victims, as well as the returns for your company and lots of other collectors in the area.’

‘Yes,’ Vanessa spat. ‘I use Larry… for everything.’

‘Why didn’t you mention him to us? When we asked you?’

She began to sob, then scrubbed her eyes with her sleeve. ‘I… didn’t think.’

Footsteps sounded ahead. Ella glanced up and saw Luca making his return journey. He knelt down next to Ella and Vanessa and said, ‘Woods are crazy. There’s no way to know which way he went, so I’ve called in backup to canvas the place. He must have stashed his car somewhere around here too.’

‘Inside,’ Vanessa uttered. ‘Table. Kitchen. Phone.’

Ella obliged. She went through the French doors into Vanessa’s sunroom then to the kitchen. Under other circumstances, Ella would have taken a minute to admire the décor. She found Vanessa’s cell on the table beside some kind of ugly egg-shaped vase.

Back outside, she handed the cell to Vanessa. Luca was holding her by the shoulder.

‘Address… here.’ Vanessa massaged her throat, then began hammering away at her screen. Her breathing had evened out now, but the bruise around her neck was swelling to a monstrous size. By Ella’s quick math, they’d gotten here about ten seconds before permanent brain damage had settled in.

Vanessa handed her cell to Ella. There, as a screenshot, was Lawrence Winters’ address.

2951 Harbor View Boulevard.

Apartment 3C.

‘Got you, you bastard,’ Ella said.

‘Ell, a guy like this? He wouldn’t go home, not after nearly being busted.’

‘He needs to be somewhere safe, and where’s safer than home?’

‘What if he thinks that Vanessa recognized him? He’d be hightailing it out of state,’ Luca said.

‘Not before grabbing his things. I need to check his house, Hawkins. We’d be stupid not to.’

‘Alright, I’ll-‘

‘Actually,’ Ella interrupted. A sudden thought came to her. If this was the end of the road, it wasn’t her right to slap the cuffs on this guy. It was Luca’s. ‘Why don’t you go?’

‘Me? Why?’

Ella managed a smile – the first real one in days. ‘Because this is your case, partner. You got us here, you finish it.’

Luca rose to his feet. ‘Are you sure?’

'You fought a man about to blow up a storage unit yesterday. An accountant is nothing you can't handle. I'll call Reeves and make sure every unit is behind you, so you're not alone. What do you think?'

‘You’ll stay with Vanessa until medics arrive?’

‘Yes. I’ll look after her.’

Luca dug out his car keys, nodded his goodbye to Vanessa. He went to say something else, but Ella cut him off by pressing her lips to his. She was saying with her body what she struggled to with words, but when she pulled back, she tried anyway.

‘And I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘Me too.’

‘Go. Be safe.’

And Luca was gone, back from whence he came.

Now it was just her and Vanessa, all she could do was wait.