CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Ella was an hour deep into dissecting the digital fragments of Rebecca Morgan’s life, yet the normalcy of it all was maddening.
Rebecca’s cell phone sat connected to Ella’s laptop, now an open book of secrets, and its contents were spilling out in a stream of texts, calls, and emails.
Ella’s eyes were weary from the relentless glare of the monitor.
She rubbed her temples to thwart off a screen-induced headache while the minutes ticked down at what felt like triple speed.
Judging by the phone contents, Rebecca Morgan had an active social life.
There were messages filled with the mundane chatter of daily existence, conversations peppered with plans for coffee dates, reminders for grocery shopping, and weekend getaways.
She’d devoured every conversation in Rebecca’s phone going back three months, from her regular text messages to her online apps to her social media messages.
So far, the only red flag had been the complete lack of male associates in Rebecca’s world, because Ella was yet to meet a good looking twenty-something woman that didn’t welcome the occasional slab of romantic attention.
Rebecca, by contrast, seemed to shun that component of youthful custom.
Instead, her messages were filled with empty chatter about TV shows and brunches, as well as an alarming use of emojis that Ella’s system annoyingly transcribed as unreadable characters.
Turning to Rebecca's email account yielded no more success than her texts.
The emails were a blend of typical day-to-day communications: promotional deals, work correspondence, and an occasional chain mail from a well-meaning but out-of-touch aunt.
Nothing that hinted at a secret life or a connection to someone who could be the killer.
With a sigh of frustration, Ella moved on to Rebecca's photo gallery.
Maybe there was something in the images that the words missed.
She scrolled through a timeline of Rebecca's life captured in pixels: selfies with radiant smiles, snapshots of sunsets and landscapes, candid moments with friends, a parade of cat pictures.
Among the innocuous images, Ella stumbled upon a few X-rated snaps.
She paused with a flush of discomfort. These were not meant for her eyes.
Yet, as inappropriate as it felt, every detail could be crucial.
Ella scanned the photos quickly, searching for any background details or faces, but found nothing out of place or informative.
Perhaps Ella had been wrong about the romantic thing.
Frustration knotted in Ella's stomach. She was looking for a needle in a haystack, but the haystack seemed to be made of needles.
She couldn't shake the feeling that the answer was buried somewhere within these digital threads, that there was a secret lurking just beneath the surface of Rebecca's ordinary world.
Time was slipping away, and with it, the chances of preventing another tragedy.
Perhaps the forensics team or Sanchez could land on a piece of evidence that could lead eventually lead them to their unsub, but Ella knew the lengths that a psychopathic mind could stoop to to evade capture.
She had no doubt that at this very moment, her killer was venting his frustration somewhere, planning his next move, whatever that might be.
When a psycho was against the wall, they went one of two ways; either they went nuclear or they disappeared.
Ella didn’t like the sound of either option.
Ella's next step was a deep dive into the lesser-trod areas of Rebecca's digital life. She accessed the file explorer, sifted through folders of data files, and scrutinized each one for anything out of the ordinary.
She was drawn to a folder of deleted items.
There, amongst discarded drafts and forgotten downloads, Ella found a collection of voice recordings. She isolated them, opened up the most recent one in her media player.
Forty seconds long. A woman’s voice, talking about her apparently perverted boss.
Ella discarded it and moved onto the next one. Another female voice, one minute and twenty seconds long, complaining about her husband’s lack of stamina.
Typical, Ella thought, but still no use to her.
She worked her way through each recording, straining her ears for any oddity.
A recording of a cat's meow, a brief memo about a scheduled dentist appointment, a quick conversation about a yoga class – none of it seemed relevant. Ella’s eyes were heavy, her mind clouded with exhaustion, but she pressed on.
As she played the next recording, her attention sharpened.
A woman’s voice; slight New York twang mixed with a modern valley girl inflection.
It’s raining down fire, blocking every exit. I can feel the flames, smoke is blinding me. My mom is in bed and I’m screaming at her, begging her to wake up. But... she doesn’t move.
Ella shot upright in her chair. What the hell was this?
The voice clip ended and Ella rushed to play the next one in line.
She's just lying there, and the house is burning down around us. I can't breathe; the smoke is choking me. I'm screaming for help, but no one comes. The fire is everywhere, and I can't escape it. It's like I'm reliving that night over and over again.
Ella sat motionless as she clicked play again. Then one more time.
This must have been Rebecca Morgan’s voice; a glimpse into her deepest fears, a fear so paralyzing that it had haunted her dreams and now, it seemed, had played a role in her untimely death.
The rush of adrenaline that had initially surged through Ella began to morph into a cold, creeping dread. The question that echoed in her mind was a haunting one:
Who was on the receiving end of these messages?
With a deftness born of urgency, Ella delved further into the data. She wasn’t the most skilled technology-navigator in the FBI, but she managed to isolate the file and dig into the hidden data that usually consisted of letters and characters that meant nothing to her.
Amongst the stream of data, Ella glimpsed the full file name.
Voice_note_032_sent_file_scarecrow.m4a.
Ella’s blood turned to ice. All the feeling drained from her fingertips.
Scarecrow.
What the hell was that?
A heavy knot settled in Ella's stomach as she went back to the phone data, found the search function, and typed in the keyword. Ella's fingers trembled slightly, every sense heightened, every nerve on edge.
Three results.
Two voice notes.
One app.
Scarecrow.
Ella opened it up, and her heart nearly leaped out of her chest.
‘You gotta be kidding me,’ she said.