CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
Austin Creed’s basement spun through Ella’s dreams again. Ever since she’d sent Creed to death row, he’d been paying nightly visits to her on the occasions that sleep came. This time, Ella had been stuffed in a cage like one of Creed’s animals, and in front of her lay a woman, young, pretty in a corn-fed sort of way. Her rosebud mouth was stretched wide and her vocal cords strained for notes her throat could barely reach. She lay pinned with her limbs splayed and twitching. Above her, Creed grinned that good ol' boy grin.
She tried to scream, but dream-Ella didn’t have the necessary bodily functions, so all she could do was watch.
‘Ell?’
A voice cut through. Not Creed’s syrupy drawl, but something safer. Ella snapped awake with her heart doing ninety, and she found herself at her desk in her office. The last thing she remembered was poring over crime scene photos from Carpenter’s basement. She must have faceplanted here, probably around the 6 AM mark if memory served her correctly.
It definitely hadn’t been a good night’s sleep. Her brain was still fried, which is why she couldn’t be sure if the man in the doorway was a mirage or not.
‘Luca? Where’ve you been?’
Everything but her partner's annoyingly handsome face was obscured by two boxes cradled in his arms. The bags under his eyes suggested an equally restless night.
‘Trying to get one step ahead. You?’
Ella surveyed the detritus of paperwork on her desk. ‘Same. The hell time is it?’
‘Eleven.’
‘Eleven? In the morning?’
Luca planted the boxes on the table. ‘In the morning.’
‘Jeez. I never…’ Ella put aside her excuses, because there were more pressing matters right now. Guilt tweaked at her, because Luca had put up with her obsessive, erratic behavior and hadn’t even raised his voice in return. So first on the agenda was groveling to the man in front of her. ‘Hawkins, about last night at Carpenter’s. I didn’t-‘
‘Save the Hallmark moment, Ell. We’ve got bigger problems to worry about.’
The apology she’d been rehearsing last night crawled back up her throat. Part of her wanted to lance that particular boil before it festered any deeper, but the intensity radiating off him said this wasn't the time for emotional housekeeping.
‘What problems do we have? Apart from the obvious.’
Luca tapped the boxes. ‘See these bad boys? This is the information for every client the Curated Value Group have had in the past five years.’
‘Seriously? You got them already?’
‘Yup. I called Vanessa last night, the moment that warrant hit our inbox. She was kind enough to set me up on a date with her receptionist who met me at their offices. An hour later, I came out with this. The receptionist assured me these are the master copies of all the legal paperwork they’ve had since the business started.’
‘A date, huh?’ Ella knew he was being facetious, but she was pathetically irked by the joke.
‘Ell, please, be serious here.’
‘Right. How many clients are we talking?’
Luca grabbed his laptop, which he’d balanced on top of the boxes, and flipped it open. ‘Over five-hundred of the bastards, but I managed to narrow them down pretty quickly.’
‘Narrow them down? By what?’
He spun his screen around to show her a spreadsheet that looked like a rainbow had vomited on it. Names, dates, addresses, monetary values. ‘Some collectors died, some moved out of state, some were never local to begin with. By the time I’d narrowed it down to people who could be potential victims, I was at 120.’
‘Jesus, Hawkins. This is…’
‘Bad choice of words, Ell, and I’m nowhere near finished yet. Because after that, I called up HQ and got us access to FALCON. God bless the IT nerds there that work all night.’
Ella’s head was beginning to spin. FALCON was the Financial Analysis and Ledger Correlation Network, a database used by the FBI, CIA and Homeland Security to monitor anomalies in tax data. It was basically VICAP for financial crimes.
‘And don't tell me - you found something in the tax records?’
‘Yeah. Any sizable charitable donation gets registered in FALCON, and every single collector I checked - apart from three - had donated high-value items to museums, galleries, religious institutions, you name it.’
The revelation hit Ella like a shot of pure adrenaline. ‘And those three were…’
Luca pulled out three stacks of paper from the top box and threw them down one by one. ‘Eleanor. Alfred. Joseph. The only collectors I’ve found so far that haven’t donated any of their collectibles, ever.’
‘Holy…’
'Yup. Alfred's and Joseph's collections were both appraised years ago, so they both had plenty of time to donate. Eleanor is tough to say because she only had her collection appraised recently before the tax year was out.'
She scanned the names and felt her blood pressure redline. ‘Our collectors wouldn’t let go of their items for any price.’
‘Nope.’ Luca picked up one of the stacks of paper. ‘And seriously, you should see how much Joseph Carpenter’s collection is worth. Ten million in total. He even owned a crucifix worth five million alone.’
‘That’s probably what our killer stole.’
‘Doubt we’ll find it on eBay any time soon.’
‘So our killer isn't just targeting collectors at random. He's targeting the true believers. The ones who collect for passion, not profit.’
‘The pure ones,’ Luca said. ‘The real deals. Which means-’
Ella took the paper off Luca and scanned it. Here it was. Everything about Joseph Carpenter’s collection, from its location to the security system codes keeping it safe. ‘Anyone who hasn’t donated any of their collectibles is a potential target.’
‘You’re looking at the security information, aren’t you?’
Ella nodded. ‘That’s how our killer got past Joseph’s basement door. The God damn passcode is written right here.’
‘Which means our killer has seen that paper, or a copy of it.’
Something electric crackled through Ella's veins, burning away the last threads of her Austin Creed nightmare. This was what she lived for - that moment when chaos crystallized into pattern.
‘Did you check the employees of CVG?’
‘Yeah, but there are only three. Vanessa Blackburn, Gabriel Thorne, Sarah Walker. We know our killer’s a man, so Gabriel is the only contender in that list.’
‘What about the receptionist?’
‘Temp worker. Not an employee.’
‘Did you go through every single client?’
‘No,’ Luca said. ‘Still got about forty names to go.’
‘Pass me twenty and let’s get this party started.’
‘Maybe you ought to caffeinate yourself before we get going.’
‘I'm fine.’ The lie came as naturally as breathing after all these years. ‘What I'm not is patient. Let’s find this guy.’
Luca slid a box across the table. ‘If you say so.’
They needed to talk about last night - about her jealousy, her control issues, all the ugly things she'd spat at him in that basement. But right now, there were collectors out there who didn't know they had targets painted on their backs.
The dead could wait. The living couldn't.