CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Back in her office, Ella could feel Harland”s and Luca”s eyes boring into her back, expectant, waiting for some kinda revelation to come flying out of her mouth like a flock of doves from a hack magician”s sleeve.

She spun on her heel, pinning them both with a hard stare. ‘What? I got something on my face?’

Harland huffed, arms crossed over his barrel chest. ‘Yeah, the look of a woman who”s just bought a steaming pile of garbage. You really buyin” this ”mystery client” routine?’

Ella shrugged, leaning back against the desk. ”Honestly, yeah. Aleister”s story tracks. He”s a small-time grifter, not some criminal mastermind. Guy couldn”t plan his way out of a wet paper bag, let alone orchestrate two clean murders.”

‘Just ”cause this mook can string two sentences together doesn”t mean he”s innocent. Coulda been playing you, feedin” you a line to save his own sorry hide.’

But Luca stepped forward, shaking his head. ‘No, I”m with Ella on this one. Aleister”s reactions were genuine. The shock, the confusion, the fear? You can”t fake that, not unless you”re gunning for an Oscar.’ He ticked off the points on his fingers, building steam. ‘Look at the facts. Aleister”s got no connection to the victims, no motive beyond his Frankenstein fetish. He”s a junkie, not a killer. And Aleister is dripping in potential DNA evidence. That crazy hair, meth chemicals. That guy left me smelling a pharmacy just sitting near him.’

Ella couldn’t hold back her grin. The kid had good instincts, she”d give him that. Couple more years on the job and he”d be running circles around the rest of these flatfoots.

Harland threw up his hands, disgust etched into every craggy line of his mug. ‘Alright, alright. You”ve made your point. So if de Sade ain”t our guy, that means this sicko”s still out there, probably scouting his next victim as we speak.’

A lead weight settled in Ella”s gut. Harland was right. Every minute they wasted jawing was another minute their unsub had to hunt, to plan, to salivate over whatever twisted fantasy was brewing in that diseased head of his.

She pushed off the desk, already reaching for her jacket. ‘Chief, we need boots on the ground. Every dive bar, club, and watering hole in the city. Both our vics were snatched after last call. Can you get your guys to keep an eye on places that have secluded areas nearby? Alleyways, empty lots, that kind of thing?’

Harland grunted. ‘I might have a few guys free. Leave it with me.’

The chief was already barking orders down the crackle of his walkie before the door swung shut behind him, leaving Ella and Luca alone in the sudden quiet. He looked wrung out, like a dishrag that had been put through the wringer one too many times. The adrenaline crash, she reckoned. That post-interrogation slump that hit like a sack of wet cement when the action died down and your body remembered it was running on fumes and a prayer.

‘You alright there, Hawkins?’

Luca huffed out a laugh. ”Yeah, yeah. I”m good. It”s just...intense, I guess. Being in the room, watching a guy unravel like that. I wasn”t expecting it to hit me so hard. What about you?”

Ella softened, just a touch. She remembered her first time in the box. It was like jumping out of a plane with no chute, no net, no guarantee that you”d walk out in one piece.

‘It gets easier,’ she said. ‘Never easy, but easier. You did good in there. Kept your cool, asked the right questions. Couldn”t have done it without you.’

And damn if she didn”t mean it. Luca had held his own, been the good cop to her bad, the honey to her vinegar. They made a good team, loathe as she was to admit it. For some reason, it felt like a betrayal to Ripley.

‘What do you say we call it a night?’ she continued. ‘Come at it fresh in the morning.’

But Luca shook his head, squaring his shoulders like he was psyching himself up for another round. ‘I’ve still got some gas in the tank if you have.’

‘Always,’ Ella said.

‘Then let’s keep going.’ But Ella could see something else in his eyes, something haunted and far away. Like he was seeing ghosts in every corner. Maybe he was just telling her what she wanted to hear. ‘Don’t persevere just because I’m an insomniac. If you want to head to bed, that’s fine by me.’

Ella didn’t catch the double-meaning until she’d spat the words out. However, they seemed to go right over Luca’s head.

‘Thank you. It”s just...’ he started, then trailed off, gaze darting away from hers. ‘It”s nothing. Forget it.’

Like hell, she would. Ella leaned in, ducking her head to catch his eye. ”Spit it out, Hawkins. If something”s wrong, speak up, or you”ll end up like me.”

Luca”s shoulders hunched up around his ears. ‘It”s ancient history. Don”t worry about it.’

‘That’s what war criminals say.’

‘True.’

‘So spit it. We’re partners, your history is my history. And I know that look on your face. I’ve seen it in the mirror often enough.’

Luca flinched like she”d slapped him, eyes darting away, fingers twitching towards the pistol in his holster. Rookie tell. Reaching for the weapon when the cracks started to show, like it could ward off all the evil in the world.

‘It was a long time ago,’ he said. ‘I was just a kid. Seventeen, dumb as a box of hair.’

Ella waited, letting the silence stretch. She knew this dance, this stumbling two-step of confession and absolution. You couldn”t rush it, couldn”t yank the story out by the roots. Had to let it unfurl in its own sweet time.

‘Me and my girlfriend, we went camping.’ Luca”s eyes unfocused, seeing something far away and long ago. ‘Up in the Berkshires, this sweet little spot by a lake. Thought it”d be romantic, y”know? Just the two of us, a tent, a whole lotta starry sky.’

Ella hummed, encouraging. She could picture it. Young love, sticky sweet and summer bright. Probably thought they”d live forever, the way kids do.

‘Everything was great. Stupid me even thought about proposing,’ Luca laughed. ‘But I woke up in the middle of the night and Kate was gone.’

‘Gone?’

‘Yeah. It was about four AM. I figured she’d just gone to take a leak or something. But she never came back, so I got out of the tent and went looking for her. And…’

And here it was. The ghost, the specter, looming up out of the dark. Ella braced herself.

‘You found her,’ she said.

‘I found her. By the lakeshore.’ Luca’s voice cracked and splintered. ‘Laying there in the sand, hair was soaking wet, staring up at the sky with big old empty eyes.’

Ella’s heart twisted in her chest. Christ. Seventeen years old and finding your sweetheart dead by the lake. The kind of thing that broke you and shattered your heart into an irreparable mess.

‘What happened to her?’

‘That’s where it gets weird, because I looked up and there was… someone watching me. Across the lake. Just standing there in the trees. Wearing a mask. White, plain, big black holes for eyes.’

The bottom dropped out of Ella”s stomach. Her mouth suddenly went as dry as a bone. The pieces arranged themselves like a magical jigsaw, and the picture they formed made her heart sink like an anchor.

‘That’s why you went pale as a ghost when Aleister mentioned a mask,’ she said.

Luca’s laugh was dry. ‘Guess I’m not as slick as I thought.’

‘Who was it?’

‘I”ve got no clue who it was. Just some phantom in the trees, still as a statue. To this day, it was never solved.’

The kid”s voice was steady as a surgeon”s hand but Ella could see the cracks in his pretty-boy veneer. She looked at Luca, really looked, past the cover model mug and the lady-killer smile, and for the first time she saw the person. The scared seventeen-year-old boy who”d had his heart ripped out and shoved down his gullet on some godforsaken camping trip a lifetime ago.

Ella cleared her throat. ‘What happened to Kate? How”d she...?’ She trailed off, not sure how to finish that sentence without twisting the knife.

‘Autopsy said she drowned. Tox report was clean, so they slapped a suicide label on it and called it a day. Case closed.”

‘Drowned?’

‘She had bruises,’ Luca cut in. ‘On her skull, the back of her head. Like someone had blitzed her one good before dumping her in the lake.’

‘And let me guess. You kicked up a fuss, tried to get someone to take a closer look.’

Luca barked out a laugh. ‘Yeah, but I was seventeen. Nobody took me seriously. More hormones than sense.’

An all-too-familiar ache twisted in Ella”s chest. The impotent rage of a victim shoved to the sidelines, forced to watch as the system chewed up their loved one and spat out the bones. She”d seen it too many times, heard the same story sung in a thousand different keys.

‘They swept it under the rug,’ she said softly. It wasn”t a question.

‘Swept it, vacuumed it, steamrolled it flat as a pancake.’ Luca swiped a hand over his mouth. ‘Left me with nothing but a”what if” and a gaping hole where my heart used to be.’

Ella swallowed past the sudden tightness in her throat. Reached out ”til her fingers brushed Luca”s, tentative as a sparrow”s wing. Watched him flinch at the contact then melt into it, shoulders sagging like someone had snipped his strings.

‘I”m sorry,’ she said and meant it. ‘For picking at old scabs.’

‘Don”t be. I”m glad I told you. Feels good to finally let it out. Like I’ve lanced a boil and leaked it all over your head.’

Ella laughed. ‘There are worse fluids.’

‘I bet.’

And just like that, the spell was broken. They were back to their regularly scheduled programming, but something had shifted between them, something small and subtle but no less seismic.

‘It gets easier,’ she said, injecting every ounce of conviction she had into the words.

‘That was thirteen years ago,’ Luca said. ‘But forget that. We’ve got work to do.’

Ella looked at him again, and for the first time she didn’t see a rookie or a colleague or a roadblock. She saw an ally. A friend, maybe, if they both lived long enough to claim the title.

‘Yes, we do.”