CHAPTER THIRTY
In the pre-dawn light, Ella sat in her car on the outskirts of Richfield, a place she knew by name but no more. She'd driven through the night, stopping only once at a gas station for coffee and twenty minutes of sleep in the parking lot. Her eyes burned. Her head throbbed. But she was here.
Scarecrow House sat a hundred yards ahead.
It was a single-story cottage tucked into the woods.
Stone and timber construction, a weathered roof, and small windows.
It looked like someone's grandmother lived there, not a tech developer.
But that was the point, surely. Close enough to Cedarburg to access his victims but far enough away to stay hidden.
Despite still being fatigued with exhaustion, Ella was laser-focused on her destination.
She stepped out of the car as the first hints of dawn etched the sky, preparing herself for what was sure to be a volatile confrontation.
If Dylan Hartley was her unsub, someone of his profile wouldn’t go quietly.
Ella remained discreet as she edged up the driveway.
The red SUV parked in the driveway caught her eye, and her mind flashed back to the crime scene of Julia Dawson.
The tire tracks she remembered seemed to match.
At the door, she eyed her surroundings for possible escape routes.
The windows – still draped – seemed too small for a quick exit, but if the unsub managed to get out here into the open, he could dissolve into the sea of woodland without issue.
In case of a fleeing suspect, she had to ensure he didn’t bypass her.
Ella gripped her pistol in one hand and tapped her knuckles on the front door with the other. She waited, counted the seconds. More than anything, she wanted to barge in and tear the house apart in search of evidence, but protocol and the law bound her hands.
A minute passed.
No answer.
Ella reasoned that it was early and most normal people were sleeping at this hour. She knocked again, a bit louder this time. She scanned the windows for any indication that Hartley was inside and aware of her presence.
A sound. Faint shuffling from inside.
Ella's hand moved to her gun.
The door cracked open, and a pair of eyes stared at her.
The door opened wider, revealing the stranger in his entirety. A satin robe, checkered sweatpants, and bright white trainers – a trainwreck of an ensemble, Ella thought. He leaned against the door frame and sized Ella up with an evident lack of respect. 'Hello?'
‘Good morning, are you Dylan Hartley?’
‘Uh, why? Who are you? Why are you at my house this time of morning?’
‘Agent Dark with the FBI. I need to talk with you.’
Dylan scoffed. ‘For God’s sake. Police again? I already told you people to leave me alone.’
Ella studied him. Average height, average build.
He was not physically imposing; his frame was neither particularly muscular nor frail.
He wasn't intimidating in the slightest, but Ella could sense that he had a confidence to him, or arrogance.
He was the kind of person who thought he was smarter than everyone else.
‘This is serious. Is there somewhere we can talk?’ Ella asked.
Dylan held her stare. He swayed on his heels, distributing his weight from leg to leg. Ella caught his movements, and all of her instincts told her that Dylan Hartley was searching for an escape.
‘Yes, but I just need to do something first.’
‘It doesn’t work like that, Mr. Hartley. Can I come in?’
Dylan clutched onto the door and then took one step back as if inviting Ella inside.
Ella took the hint and stepped over the threshold, but then Dylan’s casual disposition took a solid one-eighty turn.
His demeanor changed in the blink of an eye, and he suddenly jumped into motion.
Dylan slammed his front door, but Ella intercepted it with her boot.
It sent a jolt of pain up her leg, but she didn't flinch.
Adrenaline surged, and she propelled herself into Dylan's sanctuary.
The suspect vanished in a blur, down the hallway, beyond another door.
Ella reminded herself once again that innocent people didn’t run.
And she was after him.
Her instincts screamed caution, but desperation pushed her forward. She sprinted down Dylan's hallway and idly took in the clutter and antique furnishings in her peripheral vision. Down the corridor, a kitchen with an ajar door loomed. Ella reached it and pushed through with her gun raised.
Morning light came through the windows above the sink. The back door stood at the end of the room – the first port of call for a fleeing suspect. Ella hurried across the tiled floor, grabbed the back door handle.
Locked. Deadbolt still in place.
Beyond the glass partition, Ella saw no moving blurs in the garden. If Dylan had escaped outside, she’d have heard a door slam.
Suddenly, a noise. A soft scuttling, like the whisper of cloth against floorboards. Ella spun around.
‘Dylan, you’re not getting out of here,’ Ella shouted as she took the room slowly, step by step, pulling open cupboards one by one. Each cupboard revealed nothing but shadows and mundane kitchenware, but she could feel the unmistakable presence of another body in the room.
She reached the last cupboard in line – a large door that could have led to a pantry or separate room. Ella’s hand trembled as she gripped the handle, because there was every chance she was opening herself up for an ambush.
And then, with a suddenness that stole her breath, Dylan burst from within, shoulder-barging Ella and sending her stumbling against the rickety white island in the center of the room.
The impact against her spine snatched the air from her lungs, but Ella had no time for pain.
Her finger hovered over the trigger of her pistol, the temptation to shoot a fierce battle of wills.
But she resisted; shooting was a last resort, not the first response.
Dylan didn't pause. He took advantage of Ella's momentary imbalance and darted past her.
He fled through a side door that led into unexplored territory, at least for her.
She thought of Julia, Thomas, and Rebecca – three souls who'd never have the chance to flee or fight, as she could now.
She surged forward in pursuit of the man who might have been their killer, and found herself in a living room.
Heavy drapes swallowed any light that was trying to enter through the windows, but Ella could see the suspect in plain view.
He was scrambling near the fireplace, and suddenly the man emerged with a black fire poker in his hand.
He gripped it like and began circling towards the windows, then raised it with his teeth clenched. It was the stance of a man with nothing left to lose.
Ella halted and trained her pistol on him. She could see the chaos there, the fear, the madness that drove him. A part of her wanted to shoot and incapacitate, but shooting always came with a risk. She could miss or he could bleed out, and dead suspects couldn’t confess.
‘Dylan, don't do this. It doesn't have to end like this.’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Dylan shouted.
Ella quickly scanned his body language as she tried to edge close enough to intercept.
He was panicked, nervous, twitchy. It was in the heat of battle that people always showed their true colors, and Ella easily determined that the man in front of her was a coward.
‘It’s already over,’ Ella said. ‘Easy way or hard way. You choose.’
But Dylan was beyond reason, no doubt fueled by survival instinct. He swung the poker in a desperate attempt to fend off his attacker, and to create space between him and the inevitable.
Ella dodged. Her finger itched on the trigger of her Glock, but she didn’t want to shoot.
She needed Dylan Hartley alive because death wasn’t punishment enough.
In a sudden burst of movement, Dylan lunged forward and aimed the poker at Ella's heart.
Time seemed to slow, and so Ella easily sidestepped as Dylan stumbled forward, off-balance from his failed strike.
Ella saw her opening.
She identified three pressure points; one which could leave Dylan with brain damage, another which could destroy his ability to reproduce.
Ella played it safe and went for the third option.
She clutched her pistol, lifted the butt, and thrust it hard into Dylan's nose.
She felt the familiar but undeniably satisfying squelch of fleshy tissue being pulverized, followed by the sickening crunch of bone.
Dylan's scream was sharp and shrill as he collapsed towards the ground, then he dropped the poker as he clutched his bloodied face.
Ella kicked the weapon out of reach and put one foot on Dylan's spine.
‘It’s done,’ Ella said.
She trained her pistol on his leg – a clear shot.
There was no escape. He was no longer the predator, no longer the man who had haunted her thoughts and driven her pursuit. He was just a man, and now his reign of terror was at an end.
Ella stepped off Dylan’s spine. He rolled onto his back. Dylan removed his cupped hands from his face and revealed a crimson mask underneath. His eyes were unfocused, the madness that had driven him now replaced by a dawning awareness. He was a wounded animal that now realized the hunt was over.
‘I didn’t do anything,’ Dylan spat.
‘That’s for the courts to decide. Your little game is over.’ She grabbed her handcuffs from her back pocket.
‘It was months ago,’ Dylan cried, clutching his nose again. ‘It was just a few texts, for God’s sake.’
Ella regarded him with pity. It still amazed her how suspects would lie in the face of evidence.
‘Texts, huh? Seems like a lot more than that to me.’ She bent down, grabbed one wrist. ‘I know all about your little app.’
‘My app? Scarecrow? What about it?’
‘Don’t play dumb.’
‘I thought this was about my ex,’ Dylan spat.
Ella paused, her movements halting mid-action as she processed Dylan's words. His reaction, the genuine confusion clouding his bloodied face, wasn't the demeanor of a man caught in a lie. It was the expression of someone blindsided by an accusation.
‘What? The app, Dylan. It’s linked to every victim.’
‘Victims? What victims?’
‘Every victim, Dylan. The ones who used your app before they disappeared, before they were found...’ Ella's voice trailed off. ‘And then there’s you – a guy who runs when police show up on his doorstep. Don’t pretend you’re not hiding something.’
Dylan scrambled up to a sitting position. Ella still held him by the wrist. He wasn’t going anywhere.
‘I’m telling you, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I thought this was about my ex… again.’
Ella's grip on the handcuffs loosened slightly.
In her career, she had seen the masks of guilt, the veils of deception.
Dylan's panic, however, seemed rooted not in guilt, but in genuine ignorance of the horrors linked to his creation. She knew never to take a criminal’s word at face value, but no one – not even a murderous psychopath – was this good of an actor.
‘The past three nights. Where have you been?’
‘Here. I've been here, in this house, working on updates for Scarecrow. I haven't left.’
Ella's eyebrows arched. ‘You expect me to believe that? No outings, no late-night strolls?’
‘No, nothing,’ the bloodied man said. ‘And I can prove that I haven’t stepped out that front door in days.’
Ella’s stomach fell into an abyss as if gravity had released its hold.
If Dylan's claim held truth, then everything she believed was about to crumble beneath her feet. The certainty with which she’d pursued him now seemed like a distant echo in a hall of mirrors.
It felt as though the finish line had come into view, only to be pushed back another mile, like she was spending this whole investigation on a treadmill.
Did she have this all wrong?