CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The rats, too, but another store employee had verified Ken’s story about someone else purchasing all four rats together. Ken Myers also had an alibi for last night and this morning, which Ripley was currently confirming.
Ella thought about Austin Creed. She wondered whether to contact Agent Dever and see if he'd had any luck tracking down the courtroom footage, but even if he had, he wouldn't share it with her, and that would just torment her further.
When Dever and his team looked through it, what would they even be looking for?
The killer could be right there on screen, and they wouldn't know it, but for some reason, they were dead set on keeping her miles away from the investigation.
And what about Creed moving prisons? She was convinced it was a terrible idea, and not just because the thought of him being closer to her made her skin itch.
‘Myers is innocent,’ a voice said. Ripley came into existence at the door, and her sudden appearance made Ella jump.
‘Confirmed?’
‘He was at a Packers game until 11 PM last night. Then there’s footage on his doorbell cam of him getting home about 2 AM and not leaving until this afternoon. He’s not our guy.’
‘Dammit to hell.’
‘Yup. So we need to focus on the rat buyer or pray for a miracle.’
‘The second one seems like the most viable option.’ Ella stared at the evidence board on the wall – and all of it led nowhere.
The cabin, Rose Murphy, Jason White, Ken Myers.
‘We could track down all of her classmates. Maybe it’s not Julia’s interest in medieval history they’re focusing on. Maybe it’s their own.’
‘We still don’t know where she was sneaking off to twice a week either.’
‘Yeah.’
Ripley checked her watch. ‘Come on. It’s getting late. You don’t want to fall asleep here because you’ll be a block of ice by morning. Let’s head back.’
'I just need another hour. I need to find something or I won’t sleep.'
'You said that two hours ago, too.' Ripley moved toward the door, paused. 'Look, I get it. You want to catch this guy. So do I. But you're running on fumes, and exhausted detectives make mistakes. We miss things. And this killer, whoever they are, isn’t making mistakes. So we can't either.'
Ella stared at the evidence board. Julia's face looked back at her. Frozen at thirty-eight, smiling in a photo that was probably taken months before she died. Before someone decided her life was worth less than his own perverse satisfaction.
‘One hour.’
‘No hours. Do you want me to drag you out of here myself?’
‘Alright, alright. I’m coming. But tomorrow, we find something. We have to.’
***
Ella wasn’t sure where sleep ended and wakefulness began. Sleep had been a fleeting luxury, snatched in brief, restless intervals. The clock on her bedside table showed it was already past seven AM and that meant the precinct beckoned her.
In the bathroom mirror, her reflection looked about as good as she felt. Dark circles under her eyes. Hair tangled. She ran a brush through it, watched the brown strands fall back into place. One shower later, even more hair came out.
She thought about yesterday. Ken Myers and his airtight alibi.
The rats purchased by someone whose face nobody could remember.
Julia Dawson's laptop with a few messaging apps and an essay about Alexander the Great. They’d spent twelve hours chasing leads that went nowhere, and she’d be damned if today went the same way.
The coffee maker in the corner was one of those single-serve pod machines.
She fumbled with it until it produced something that resembled coffee and drank it black.
It was far from premium quality, but it was hot, and that was enough.
Beside it sat her phone where she'd plugged it last night.
There were no missed calls or messages, even from Luca.
She guessed he was busy with his R-Team or whatever he called them.
She should call him and let him know that she was okay, that the case was moving slower than she’d hoped. Then again, they had a hard barrier between work and personal, so mentioning any case might be a breach of their agreement. She grabbed her phone, found his name.
Before she could fire off a message, someone knocked at her door.
The time on the screen read 7:37 AM, and that was much too early for house calls. She headed to the door and peered through the hole. Mia Ripley stood there, looking all geared up and ready to go.
‘Mia. You’re early.’
‘No, we’re late.’
‘We meet at eight.’
‘I mean, we’re late. The sheriff text me a few minutes ago. We’ve got another one.’
Ella’s heart plummeted. Two bodies, two days. ‘Where?’
‘Coordinates again, and according to Bartram, this one is… different.’
A moment of reflection passed over her. She was no longer investigating an isolated homicide. Now she was dealing with a serial killer.