CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
All that remained of the cabin was a charred husk.
The blackened timber framework had been scorched beyond recognition, while ashes and cinders lay scattered around like the remnants of a forgotten ritual.
A few small flames still lingered, quickly losing a fighting battle against the efforts of the firefighters.
But it was the sight of the body, handcuffed to a steel table that truly struck Ella.
There was no denying it.
This was victim number three.
‘It’s our guy,’ Ripley said.
A paramedic rushed into the blackened cabin and began checking the body.
Ella watched with bated breath, her fingers crossed, praying that somehow the poor soul inside had survived the flames, the smoke inhalation, the no doubt paralyzing excess of chemical responses from being surrounding by walls of flames.
A storm of emotions raged, but settled on crippling disappointment when the medic gently placed the body against the ground and made an X with their hands.
In the medical field, that only meant one thing.
‘We’re too late,’ Ella said.
The acrid smell of smoke and charred wood filled her nostrils.
She stood there, amidst the ruin, feeling the heat from the burned cabin, the dampness of the night air, the silence that followed the chaos.
It was as if the fire had not only consumed the shack and its occupant but also Ella’s hopes of catching the killer.
She felt like she’d come close, digging through the notes, trying to find a pattern, a clue, anything that might lead her to the killer.
But it hadn't been enough.
Whoever this victim was, they’d been alive, afraid and alone, forced to confront what Ella assumed was their ultimate terror. The killer had meticulously planned this, had known exactly how to prey on the victim's deepest fears. And she, despite all her efforts, had not been fast enough to stop it.
The medic came over and removed her mask. ‘Are you the officers in charge of the scene?’
‘Yes we are,’ Ripley said.
‘I’m sorry, but the patient is non-responsive. No heartbeat, fixed pupils, rigid. She’s gone.’
Ella's jaw tightened, her eyes never leaving the charred remains of the cabin. The medic’s words drifted past her eardrums and settled as a ball of nausea in her gut.
‘Thank you.’ There was nothing else to say, nothing Ella could do to bring this victim back from the dead. The world wasn’t a place for miracles.
‘I can remove the patient once the scene is secured,’ the paramedic said. ‘I can liaise with the coroner’s office.’
Ella nodded her thanks, then took a few steps closer to the body.
The woman's strawberry blonde hair, singed at the ends, cascaded down to her waist. She was young, maybe in her mid-twenties, her life extinguished too soon.
Despite the surrounding destruction, the body itself was untouched by the flames.
One of her wrists was handcuffed to the leg of a steel table, not dissimilar to the arrangement at Julia Dawson's death site.
Ella pulled a pair of gloves out of her pocket, bent down, and inspected the body.
‘No burn marks,’ she said. ‘The fire never got to her.’
‘Grateful for small mercies,’ Ripley said.
‘So it was either smoke inhalation or crippling fear that killed her.’
Ripley joined her partner. ‘Preferable to being burned alive,’ she said. She carefully lifted the victim’s hand and said, ‘Dark, look.’
‘Bloody knuckles. Flayed skin,’ Ella said. ‘Our woman fought back.’
‘We need forensics on this immediately. This blood could be a direct line to our unsub.’ Ripley excused herself with her cell pressed to her ear. Ella continued her examination, desperately trying to form a clear image of what horrors could have taken place here.
She began at the victim’s jean pockets and carefully patted her down. She moved up to her jacket and found something weighty on the left hand side. She gently unzipped the pocket and reached in.
Two items.
A cell phone and a small purse.
‘What the hell?’
The killer had taken his previous victims’ possessions and presumably discarded them. Why were this woman’s still here?
Ella wedged open the woman’s purse, pulled out a driver’s license. It gleamed under her flashlight’s beam.
‘Rebecca Morgan, twenty-six years old,’ she said. The photo showed a smiling young woman, crystal eyes framed by straight golden hair. Ella’s gut tied into a knot as she turned over the license in her hands, trying to quell the fusion of reactions bubbling up inside.
Ella reconciled the scene with everything she knew about this killer so far.
He knew these victims' crippling phobias and engineered the conditions to bring their fears to life.
Prior to exposing them to their personal hells, he subdued them, restrained them, and removed all their belongings as a forensic countermeasure.
Yet Rebecca Morgan here had a cell phone, purse, and even a vehicle.
Ella glanced at the bloody knuckles again, then up Rebecca’s pale white face, mouth still open in an eternal scream. She shone her flashlight over her cracked lips and into her mouth, and there Ella saw a throat as red as the fires that had consumed this place.
The inner tissue was inflamed, swollen, as if her body had desperately gasped for air amid the smoke and toxins, but if Rebecca Morgan was deathly afraid of fire, she would likely have passed out from an adrenaline rush as the others had.
Piecing everything together, the answer became clear.
‘Dark, you got something?’ Ripley asked as she finished her call.
‘Our killer made a mistake,’ Ella said. ‘All of this, it’s wrong.’
Ripley pocketed her phone. ‘This doesn’t look like a mistake to me.’
‘He left her possessions behind,’ Ella said as she displayed the purse and phone. ‘Unlike the others, Rebecca made her own way here. He didn’t get the chance to drug her, which is why she was able to fight back. And look at her throat. It’s red raw.’
Ripley stepped closer and followed Ella’s flashlight. ‘Jesus. You’re right.’
‘You know what that means.’
Ripley nodded. ‘This poor woman screamed her lungs out.’
The killer had intended to silence Rebecca Morgan, to keep her subdued as he had his previous victims. But this time, the plan had unraveled. Rebecca had not succumbed to a drug-induced stupor. Instead, she had fought for her life, and her screams had filled the woods until her last breath.
'Our unsub lost his nerve. Until now, he's had full control over every scene, but Rebecca changed the script, and he couldn't handle it. He started this fire in a panic.'
‘So how did he drug her?’
'He didn't get a chance to drug her, and since this is his third murder, he'd be feeling really confident right about now. Like, he doesn't need to drug her anymore. He's the invincibility phase.'
‘Ugh.’
‘Yeah,’ Ella said. ‘I’m just wondering how the fire didn’t reach her before the fire crew got here.’
‘Patrol guy got lucky. He was only a stone’s throw away. Plus this weather isn’t conducive to starting fires.’
‘Fair. Our guy had to improvise here, then, which means he might have left more evidence than he intended. How long before forensics get here?’
‘One hour.’
‘Good. We need this place scoured from pillar to post. Or what remains of them anyway.’ Ella passed Ripley the victim’s purse. ‘Bag this up, please.’
Ripley obliged. ‘I’ll walk the grid until forensics arrive.’
‘Alright. Get them to look at the tire tracks leading out of here. I’ll see what guys we have available to patrol the roads. Our killer’s methodical, compulsive, so he’ll be livid that his plan was interrupted. He might be out there now, taking his anger out on the road.’
Ella scrutinized the body one last time. The air, thick with the pungent odor of charred wood and smoldering ashes, seemed to suffocate any semblance of hope of catching this killer, but Ella remained alert. If the killer was interrupted, he could still be close by.
‘Go home, Dark. Rest up and we’ll dive into this in the morning.’
Ella jumped to her feet and waved Rebecca’s phone at Ripley. ‘There’s no time for rest.’
‘What, you’re going to break into her cell?’ Ripley asked, ever the voice of protocol.
‘You want another body tomorrow night?’
‘No.’
‘Then this is the best way to do it. Our unsub took his victims’ phones for a reason, and he’s smart enough to know that we’ll devour everything on his new victim’s cell. The longer we leave it, the more chance he has of escaping.’
The fire and charred cabin were now reduced to a mere memory. Ella had a short window of opportunity to intercept this unsub, because there was nothing stopping him packing his bags and moving to another state, country, continent. She had to act now.
‘You’re playing with fire,’ Ripley said.
Ella looked back at the smoldering wreck, then at her partner. She hadn’t registered the pun. ‘Give the pathologist a call.’
‘Yeah. I’ll get the body fast-tracked.’
‘Keep me updated,’ Ella said.
The killer had made a crucial error, and it was up to Ella to unravel the tangled web of deceit and madness he’d woven. The night might have ended, but the battle against the darkness had just begun.