CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Ella covered the distance to her office in four seconds. Ripley and Fields came through the door behind her. Mabel followed with her phone pressed to her chest like a compress on a wound. Ripley grabbed Ella’s laptop and began frantically searching.
‘Which extension?’ Ella breathed.
‘He’s holding on line two. I didn’t know what to do so I just told him to wait.’
‘You did fine.’ Ella looked at Fields. ‘Can you get a trace running from your end?’
Fields pulled out his cell phone but stayed in the room. ‘I’ll get dispatch on it. Extension?’
‘Two-one-three,’ Mabel said.
‘Ripley, got the software open?’
‘It’s open. Ready when you are.’
‘Our trace is go too,’ Fields said.
Two traces. Ella barely had time to register the fact that in a few seconds, she could have a direct line to her unsub. Part of her prayed this was some prankster, another part of her craved it to be the real deal.
Ella took a deep breath and held it. She looked between Fields and Ripley. ‘Listen to everything he says. Remember every word.’
‘Yeah. Go.’
‘Mabel, hit it.’
The receptionist jabbed a few buttons on her receiver, then all eyes in the room turned to the blinking red light on Ella’s phone. Mabel disappeared out of the room and down the corridor in a flurry of footsteps.
Then Ella hovered one finger over the answer button, exhaled and pressed. Showtime.
‘Agent Dark speaking. Talk to me.’
First silence, then static.
But then: ‘Don’t bother trying to trace me. I won’t be on long enough.’
The bottom dropped out of Ella’s stomach.
She took in everything she could about the voice.
Thirties or forties. His pitch sat in the lower register but there was a tightness to it.
He was trying to sound calm and mostly succeeding, but Ella caught the faintest tremor on the word trace, like a pianist hitting a key a fraction too hard.
This wasn’t a man who’d done this before.
He’d rehearsed this call. She asked, ‘Okay, and who might this be?’
‘Don’t play games. You know who this is.’
If she acted like he wasn’t the mastermind he thought he was, there was a chance she could rile him up. Anger meant mistakes. ‘You’ll have to remind me. I get a lot of calls.’
‘I’m the one who’s been leaving you presents,’ he said. ‘The little wooden ones. You’ve been carrying them around, haven’t you? Trying to figure out what they mean.’
Ella caught Fields and Ripley’s stares. She had about two minutes and twenty seconds left before they got an accurate trace. ‘I’m not sure what you mean. What’s your name?’
‘I told you, but you didn’t listen.’
‘Must have forgotten. What are you calling for? Because I’m very busy.’
‘Stop with the act, detective. I’m calling because there’s another body.’
Ella clenched her teeth. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could maintain the illusion of calm.
‘There’s a body? That’s very passive.’
‘Fine,’ the voice laughed. ‘I killed another one. Number four. Just one more to go.’
Ella breathed deeply, killed a few more seconds. Her heart was a few beats per minute away from breaking through her ribs.
One more to go.
‘Where?’
‘That’s why I’m calling. You wouldn’t find it otherwise.’
‘So go on. Enthrall us,’ Ella said.
‘Typical Ella, always trying to play it cool in spite of that screaming voice in your head. How many people are listening to this call? Five, six?’
Typical Ella. Not Agent Dark, or detective. Ella. Like they were old friends catching up over coffee.
‘None. Just me,’ Ella lied. ‘This body. Where is it?’
‘Come on, Ella. I bet Mia Ripley is there right now. The woman who desperately wants to retire but doesn’t have much else going on in her life. And what about Luca Hawkins? I heard he had a close call recently.’
Ripley and Ella exchanged a concerned look. Confusion, panic, offense. Who was this person – and how did he know such details about Behavioral’s inner circle?
‘You seem to know a lot about us.’
‘I do, but I know most about you, Ella. Someone’s told me all about you. Are you still working yourself to the bone because someone killed your dad thirty years ago?’
Ella bit her lip so hard she nearly drew blood. Words formed on her tongue but none would escape her mouth. She wanted nothing more than to reach through the phone and drag this guy inside-out through his own rear end.
‘Did I hit a nerve there, Ella? Maybe if you’re lucky, you won’t ever have to think about retirement because a bullet will decide for you. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Someone to put you out of your misery?’
That was it. She couldn’t hold back.
‘You think you know me? Been watching me? Or did you just read the news like all of the other creeps who think they know me?’
‘Neither.’
‘Well listen here, you sick f…’
‘The gates,’ the caller snapped. ‘South of the parish line. The canal with the lock that nobody uses anymore. You know what a lock keeper does, Ella? He opens things up so other people can pass through. That’s what I did for him. I opened the door. Just like someone else did for me.’
Her veins turned to ice. ‘What? What do you mean?’
One minute forty. Ella glanced at Ripley, who held up two fingers. Two minutes for the trace. They needed more time.
‘I think we’ve been on long enough. Just one more person to save, then this little game comes to an end.’
Click.
The line went dead.
Ella stared at the unblinking light on the phone and willed it to turn red. Ripley smashed her fist onto the table.
‘Goddammit. Not even two minutes. We don’t have a trace, Dark.’
Fields said, ‘We got a ping in the Ninth Ward, but the Ninth Ward is massive.’
‘That narrows it down to about seven thousand people.’
Fields begun pacing the room. As he strode from wall to wall, he asked ‘Who is this guy? How’s he know about you two?’
But Fields’s words were a million miles away, because she was replaying every word the killer had said.
The canal with the lock that nobody uses anymore.
The bayou gates. The canal lock nobody uses. The lock keeper.
The wooden man holding the oversized key.
She’d been staring at the answer since last night and it had taken a phone call from the killer to make her see it.