CHAPTER EIGHT

An hour later, Ella arrived at the Yamhill precinct armed with six USB drives, all taken from hidden cameras masquerading animatronics throughout the Screamatorium. One drive for each room, and if fortune was in her favor, one of them might have caught a glimpse of their unsub.

The Yamhill precinct was a testament to small-town charm gone horribly awry. The place had all the ambiance of a prison corridor, complete with fluorescent lights that were too bright and a pervasive smell of unwashed carpet. But it was the view that really sold the backwater chic aesthetic.

Just beyond the window, a billboard proudly proclaimed ‘JESUS SAVES' in letters so big, Ella was pretty sure they could be seen from space. To its right, an equally massive ad for the ‘Kitty Kat Klub' promised a very different kind of salvation. The cognitive dissonance was enough to give Ella a migraine.

But she didn't have time for existential crises. Not when she had a killer to catch and a lead that was hotter than the sun. She fired up her laptop and gave it a few slaps to speed the damn thing up.

‘You sure we don't need a tech expert for this?' Luca asked.

‘Good luck with that,' Redmond said. The man was already pacing the room. ‘No such thing around here. Unless you count Billy at the Radio Shack, and trust me, you don't want him anywhere near evidence.'

‘It's a USB drive, guys. Not exactly firewalls for the Pentagon.'

‘Just saying.'

Her laptop came to life. Ella plugged in the USB stick she'd torn from the monkey's innards and a ‘New Device Found' message popped up. Ella clicked it and a new folder appeared, complete with a single file entitled LiveFeed6. According to the data, the thing was ninety gigabytes in size.

'Got you,' she said. Ella held her breath as she double-clicked the icon. The laptop whirred and clicked like it was considering whether or not to cooperate. Then, with a final belch of static, the screen blinked to life.

The screen flickered to life, and suddenly Ella was staring at an empty room in glorious low definition. The final chamber of the Screamatorium, devoid of life and looking about as scary as a kindergarten classroom.

Ella checked the timestamp on the camera feed. It was dated four days ago at 8AM.

‘This footage is ninety-six hours long,' Luca said as he tapped the screen. ‘That's Thursday morning. Van Allen died Saturday night.'

‘On it,' Ella said. She began skipping through in choppy intervals. A few minutes here, an hour there, and it was all just a whole lot of nothing. Finally, at four PM on the same day, a group of people in costumes barged into the room and slammed the door behind them.

‘Finally, some action,' Luca said.

Not much happened. A few minutes later, the group exited the room, then the nothingness returned. Ella skipped forward a few hours, then found a carbon copy of the same with a different group.

‘Why are they in costume?' Luca asked.

‘Redmond said, ‘Some punters dress up, according to the guy who worked there. Makes it more immersive or something. Can't you just skip to Saturday night?'

‘Can't risk missing anything. Our guy might've cased the joint earlier.' Hours ticked by in fast-forward. Ella's eyes burned, but she didn't dare look away. This was their best shot at catching the bastard, and she'd be damned if she'd miss it because she needed to blink.

Then, like a beacon in the night, Van Allen walked into the shot. He did a quick sweep of the room, tidying up the scattered props and straightening the crates. Ella checked the timestamp – just after midnight.

‘There. That's his nightly routine I mentioned,' said Redmond.

She skipped ahead to the next day, and it was a carbon copy of the day before. Long stretches of emptiness punctuated by brief bursts of guests – some costumed, some not – stumbling through. Then, another sweep by Van Allen, and finally, they hit Saturday night.

Ella leaned in closer, her nose almost touching the screen. This was it. The home stretch.

At first, it seemed like another carbon copy of the days before. Ella was starting to think their killer had somehow slipped through the cracks when the final group of the day crashed into the last room at around 9PM.

But as Ella watched, her heart suddenly slammed against her ribs.

'Hold up,' she grabbed Luca's arm. 'Did you see that? One of them just hid behind those crates.'

'What? Where?' Luca squinted at the screen.

Ella rewound the footage a few seconds and played it in slow motion.

There it was, clear as day. A man in a black balaclava with a white face painted on it, slipping behind the crates as the rest of the group made their exit.

‘Holy sh…' Luca said. ‘You're right. He just went right behind those crates.'

She replayed it a few more times. The figure was tall, at least two inches taller than the rest of the group. As well as the strange balaclava-mask hybrid concealing his face, he was dressed in a black trench coat that reached his knees.

Redmond said, ‘That's gotta be our man. Keep going.'

Ella slowly skipped through the next few hours, and what she saw made her skin crawl. The killer's mask was just visible in the darkness, twitching occasionally like some nightmarish Jack-in-the-box waiting to spring. She watched him twitch and shift in the shadows, fully aware of the inevitable just on the horizon. Ella felt like she was intruding on something intimate, something not meant for human eyes.

And then, at 12:18 AM, the door creaked open once more.

Van Allen, right on schedule.

Ella's knuckles went white as she gripped the edge of the desk. She wanted to scream, to warn the stranger on the other side of the screen, but she could only watch, helpless, as Van Allen went about his routine, oblivious to the danger that lurked just feet away.

‘Jesus,' Redmond said. ‘I can't watch this.'

Then the killer began to move.

Ella's stomach dropped like a stone in a bottomless well. A sickening vertigo gripped her as the masked figure emerged from his hiding place. It wasn't the sudden burst of violence she'd been bracing for. No, he moved with painfully slow footsteps, like a spider about to consume a fly in its web. Then Ella noticed the gleaming blade in the figure's hand.

He was three-quarters of the way across the room now. Ella could see the tension in his body, like a cat ready to pounce. She found herself wondering what was going through his mind. Was he savoring the moment, drawing out the anticipation? Or was his heart racing as he prepared to take a life?

Judging by his body language, the man didn't have an ounce of anxiety in him. This was cold detachment. Not the actions of a frantic or broken mind amidst a frenzy.

Van Allen, still unaware, moved to adjust another prop. The motion brought him a half-step closer to the approaching killer. Ella's breath caught in her throat. For a moment, she thought Van Allen might bump into his would-be murderer, might have a chance to react, to fight back, to maybe rip that mask off and show his true face to the world.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Ella watched Van Allen's face come into view, his expression shifting from concentration to confusion as he registered something amiss in his peripheral vision.

Then, in a heartbeat, confusion gave way to primal fear.

Ella saw the exact moment the realization hit him, the way his eyes widened and his mouth fell open in what would be his final scream. The figure plunged the knife into Van Allen's stomach with brutal efficiency. Ella flinched involuntarily, her own body tensing as if she could feel the cold steel sliding between her ribs. Van Allen's body jerked, his hands instinctively moving to the wound as he crumpled to the floor.

‘Christ almighty,' Redmond said. Ella had forgotten there were two other people beside her.

Then the killer stood over Van Allen, watching impassively as his victim writhed on the ground. Ella could imagine the rush of adrenaline, the thrill of the kill. It was a feeling she'd never understood, never wanted to understand.

Next, he knelt beside Van Allen, his mask hovering inches from the dying man's face. For a moment, Ella thought he might say something, might offer some explanation or taunt. But he remained silent, watching with that blank white face as Van Allen reduced to a lifeless slump of flesh and bone.

Then, with a gentleness that seemed obscene given the circumstances, he plucked out a teddy bear from the inside of his jacket. He tucked the stuffed toy into Van Allen's arms.

‘There's the bear,' Luca breathed.

The killer stood, admired his handiwork, then reached into his jacket. Ella tensed, expecting a weapon. But instead, the killer pulled out a bulky, old-fashioned camera.

‘The hell is he doing?' said Redmond.

Five or six flashes followed. Three from afar, three close-up. A sharp, metallic taste flooded Ella's mouth. She realized she'd bit the skin off her lips and drew blood.

‘Documenting his work,' Luca said.

Then, with the same deliberate grace he'd shown throughout, the killer turned and walked out of frame.

For a long moment, no one in the precinct spoke. The only sound was the soft whir of Ella's laptop and the ragged breathing of three people who had just witnessed something they could never unsee.

Ella sat back, her body suddenly feeling like it weighed a ton. She ran a trembling hand through her hair.

‘Son of a bitch

‘We got him,' Luca said. ‘We got the whole thing on tape.'

Ella nodded, not trusting herself to speak just yet. They had their killer on camera. It should have felt like a victory. Instead, she just felt hollow.

‘That's no use when we can't see his face,' said Redmond.

Luca pointed to the five other USB drives on the table. ‘If he took that mask off at any point, it'll be on one of these drives.'

Ella was still staring at the corpse of Gregory Van Allen on her screen. The timestamp in the corner said 00:20. The whole thing had played out in two minutes, despite it feeling like an eternity.

‘We've got a lot here,' she said. ‘Our unsub is about six-two, skinny build but not weak, not given what he did to Natasha Langston. There's a slight favor to his right leg, maybe from an old injury or could just be his natural gait.'

Luca plugged in his laptop and then reached for the first USB drive. ‘This isn't some rage-filled amateur. He's got incredible impulse control. He stayed hidden in that room for what, two hours?'

‘That takes patience, control. This is a guy who can keep his cool under pressure.'

‘The knife, the mask, the teddy bear. He brought all the tools with him and kept them concealed throughout a haunted house. This unsub has mental strength on his side. He doesn't break easily.'

Redmond's eyebrows knitted together. ‘So we're dealing with a pro?'

‘Not a pro, but not a disorganized offender. Not removed from reality. He's enacting out a fantasy, one he's thought through in detail.'

Ella turned to the sheriff, whose face had assumed a shade of white reserved for bathroom tiles. The poor guy was probably used to bagging drunks and cleaning graffiti, not witnessing homicide on grainy CCTV.

‘So what's our next move?'

‘First, check every one of these cameras for a glimpse of his face. Second, get everyone's name from that group of punters. The Screamatorium must have a list of attendees.'

'Yes, ma'am.' Redmond reached the door, stopped and turned around. 'It's nine PM. What time do you guys work 'til?'

‘'Til the job is done,' Ella said.

It was going to be a long night of digital detective work, but this was what she lived for.