Page 48 of Girl, Bound

The killer scrolledthrough the endless litany of human suffering, his eyes hungrily scanning eachtale of woe and degradation. He was searching for the perfect candidate, a lostsoul whose pain and anguish could be channelled into something better. He neededsomeone local, a sheep ripe for the slaughter whose physical proximity wouldallow him to enact his grim sacraments.

Time seemed to stretchand warp as he delved ever deeper into the abyss of human misery, each click ofthe mouse a descent into a new circle of hell. There had to be someone.

It was a long andarduous process, just as the others had been. A bitter alchemy of patience andobsession. But he knew that it would all be worth it in the end, if even onesoul could be saved from the pit of despair. If even one person could be rebornin the image of their own suffering, purged of the weaknesses and frailtiesthat held them back.

And so he pressed on,searching, reading, discarding.

One user, hidingbehind the pseudonym 'BrokenDoll,' poured out her heart in a rambling,disjointed post. She spoke of a childhood shattered by abuse, of a father'shands that roamed where they shouldn't, and a mother's eyes that turned a blindeye to her daughter's pain. She described the way the trauma had twisted her,warping her desires until pain and pleasure became inextricably intertwined.Now, as an adult, she sought out degradation and humiliation, craving the verythings that had once destroyed her.

Another, using thehandle ‘ShadowWalker87,’ spun a tale of addiction and despair. He had once beena man of means, a successful businessman with a loving family and a brightfuture. But a chance encounter with a pretty powder had sent him spiraling downa rabbit hole of self-destruction. He had lost everything - his job, his home,his wife and children. Now, he haunted the streets like a wraith, selling hisbody and his soul for just one more hit of the oblivion he craved.

A third,‘RottenApple,’ confessed to a life of petty cruelty and casual sadism. She tookpleasure in the suffering of others, delighting in the way she could twist theknife of their insecurities and watch them squirm. She spoke of sabotaging acoworker's career, of spreading vicious rumors that ruined reputations andshattered lives. She even hinted at darker deeds, whispers of animals torturedand killed for her amusement.

On and on, they wentin an endless parade. A man who had embezzled from his own mother, leaving herdestitute and alone. A woman who had seduced her best friend's husband,destroying a marriage for the thrill of forbidden lust.

He read their wordswith a hunger that bordered on obsession, drinking in their pain and anguishlike a vampire thirsting for blood. He could feel their suffering resonatingwithin him, supercharging his determination to find the perfect test subject.

For in the end, therecould be no true salvation without first enduring the crucible of pain anddespair. Only by passing through the gates of hell could one hope to emerge onthe other side, reborn in the image of their own suffering.

He would keepsearching all night if he had to. He’d keep going until he finally witnessed asuccessful transformation.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Ella had stumbled intothe office at the ass-crack of dawn, strong coffee at the ready. Shesquinted against the glare of her laptop with bloodshot eyes. Sleep had been adistant memory, and she’d spent most of the night staring at the ceiling. Shecouldn’t afford the luxury of sleep, not with a killer on the loose and theimage of Christian Maddox's lifeless body etched into her retinas like a badtattoo.

The bullpen was aghost town this morning. Either the officers hadn’t begun their shifts yet orthey were all avoiding her like the plague. Given the events of last night, sheguessed it was the latter.

But Ella didn't mindthe solitude. It gave her space to think, to dig deep into the tangled web ofclues and dead ends that made up this godforsaken case.

She flipped open thefile on her desk, the one marked ‘Christian Maddox’ in bold, black letters. Thekid's face stared up at her from a grainy DMV photo, all sharp angles andhungry eyes. He looked like trouble, the kind of guy who'd just as soon pick yourpocket as shake your hand.

But there was more toChristian than met the eye. Ella had spent the better part of the night digginginto his background, piecing together the shattered fragments of his life likea jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing.

Turned out the kid hada real rags-to-riches story, the kind of tale that would make for a greatlow-budget movie if it didn't end with him zipped up in a body bag. Accordingto his biography on his website, Christian had been homeless at sixteen, livingrough on the mean streets of Millhaven. But somewhere along the way, he'ddiscovered a talent for magic. Sleight of hand, card tricks, close-upillusions.

It had started as away to hustle a few bucks, to keep the wolves from the door, but before long,he was playing real gigs, working the club circuit and pulling in decentscratch.

Ella flipped throughthe file, her fingers tracing the trajectory of Christian's rise. Pressclippings, flyers for sold-out shows, even a couple of local TV spots. The kidhad been going places, riding high on a wave of success that should havecarried him far away from the gutter he'd crawled out of.

But it wasn’t allsunshine and rainbows. Ella's eyes snagged on a police report, a minor bust forpossession. Christian had been caught with a pocketful of pills, the kind ofdesigner stuff that turned your brain to mush and your bank account to dust.

He'd gotten off with aslap on the wrist, but it was a warning sign that not everything was as shinyand bright as it seemed in Christian Maddox's world.

And then there was thematter of the debit card, the one that definitely didn't belong to him. Ellaturned it over in her hands, studying the name embossed on the plastic.‘Jeremiah Wilkins.’

Was the guy a thief aswell as a magician? Had he been using his talents to line his pockets, to fuelthe monkey on his back? It wouldn't be the first time Ella had seen a promisinglife derailed by the siren song of easy money and cheaper thrills.

She leaned back in herchair, her mind whirring like a slot machine stuck on jackpot. There had to bea connection, a thread that tied Christian to the other victims. The sexworker, the pharma exec, and now the magician with sticky fingers.

But what was the link?What had drawn the sick fuck to these particular targets? Was it theirprofessions, the fact that they lived on the margins of polite society? Ellahad seen the way people looked down their noses at working girls and hustlers,the way they sneered at the idea of so-called legitimate businessmen gettingtheir hands dirty.

Or was it somethingdeeper?

According toChristian’s records, he’d had been involved with a homeless shelter in thearea; one he'd poured his time and money into like it was some kind of penance.

Had Christian beentrying to atone for his sins, to make up for the wrongs he'd done? Or had hejust been another bleeding heart, a sucker for a sob story and a hard-luckcase?

Ella reached for hercoffee, the mug long since gone cold. She downed it anyway, the bitter brewsearing her throat like battery acid. It was going to be a long day, a longernight. But that was the job, the price she paid for wearing the badge.

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