CHAPTER FORTY FIVE
Ella's desk at the Chesapeake precinct looked like a crime scene in miniature. Case files scattered like evidence markers, paperwork stained with coffee rings that could've been blood spatter under different circumstances. Her laptop disappeared into its bag with a satisfying zip - one more case packed away into whatever box her brain reserved for the solved-but-never-forgotten.
Chesapeake had chewed her up and spit her out, but that was the job. You went where the monsters were and let them leave their marks on your body and soul until you forgot what it was like to sleep without seeing blood on the inside of your eyelids.
Her head still throbbed where Winters had introduced it to that jar of preservative fluid. The medics said the concussion would fade, but right now her skull felt like someone had used it for batting practice. Her photographic memory might take a few days to come back online, but at least she'd been coherent enough to give her statement before the painkillers kicked in.
According to Reeves, Lawrence Winters was a self-employed tax accountant. He was a contractor for the Curated Value Group, processing payments between the appraisal firm and their clients, which gave him access to collection details, security arrangements, and owners' schedules. He’d also been employed by the National Trust to deal with payments relating to St. Andrews Museum, which was presumably how he’d discovered the place had sat empty for years.
A chirp from her pocket yanked her back to the world outside this stuffy closet the local yokels called an office.
Director Edis’s name flashed on her screen.
Need to see you in my office when you get back. Urgent.
Ella squinted at the screen, waiting for letters to rearrange themselves into something that made a lick of sense. It was 9 PM so even with good traffic, they wouldn't hit DC until midnight. Edis had always kept vampire hours, but midnight meetings at the office were usually reserved for the high-rollers. On more than one occasion, Ella had seen the Vice President and District Attorney stumbling around on the top floor after dark.
Something about this felt off, like walking into a room and finding all the furniture shifted two inches left. She'd solved the case, caught the killer, prevented a fourth victim. By any metric that mattered, this was a win. So why did her gut feel like it was trying to digest barbed wire?
But still, you didn't say no to the guy who signed your checks. Not in this line of work.
The door creaked a warning a split second before Luca filled the space with his bag slung over one shoulder. His knuckles were bruised to hell, but he’d never been one to wear his pain on his sleeve.
‘Ready to put this place in your rearview, partner?’
‘Yeah, just about.’ She gestured at the controlled destruction of her workspace. ‘Where've you been?’
‘Getting you something.’ A grin split his face – the particular flavor of smirk that meant he was unreasonably pleased with himself.
‘A gift? You shouldn't have.’ And he really shouldn't have. But that was Luca - a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a walking HR complaint.
The bag crinkled as he reached inside, rooted around. ‘Stopped by to check on Vanessa. Got to chatting, and, well...’
He pulled his hand free. Ella's cop brain registered the details in snapshot flashes. Mangy fur. Marble eyes. Leathery wings. A crown of rusty nails hammered into a tiny skull.
The squirrel. Creed's taxidermy masterpiece. The thing made her concussion do backflips.
‘Jesus Christ on a unicycle. Why do you have that?’
‘Why does anyone have this?’
‘I mean, it’s…’
‘Yours, apparently. I swung by to check on Vanessa. She told me to drop by her office and pick this thing up for you. She’s having second thoughts about this whole serial killer collecting thing after, well…’
‘And she thought of me? I'm touched.’
Luca seemed to read her mind. Or maybe just her face, which she'd never been able to school worth a damn around him. ‘Seemed appropriate. Though now I'm having second thoughts about giving it to you.’
‘I’m no material girl, but you couldn’t have picked me up that five-million dollar crucifix instead?’
And then he pivoted two quick strides to the trash can in the corner. The squirrel hit the metal with a hollow thunk. It sprawled there, jejune as a discarded coffee cup, just another broken thing in a world full of them.
‘How’s that?’ he asked.
‘Wise choice. You ready to get out of here?’
‘Just try and stop me.’
She shouldered her bag, took one last look around the office that had been her home away from home for the past seventy-two hours. ‘Though we need to make a pit stop at headquarters first.’
‘What? At this hour?’
She flashed her phone. ‘Direct from the big man himself. Says it's urgent.’
‘Both of us?’
‘No. Just me.’
‘I'm sure he just wants to congratulate us on making the Bureau proud. Maybe give us some shiny new medals for our trouble.’
‘Right. And then we'll braid each other's hair and sing songs around the campfire.’
‘Now you’re talking.’
‘Then let’s go’
They walked through the precinct, past empty desks where detectives usually juggled paperwork. At this hour, only the graveyard shift maintained their lonely vigil. A few nodded as she passed – the particular chin-lift of cops acknowledging one of their own.
Three days ago, she'd walked these same halls hunting a killer who turned collectors into pieces of their own collections. Now she was leaving with a concussion, some new scars, and the nagging suspicion that Lawrence Winters wasn't the only one transformed by this case.