Page 66 of Girl, Reformed

Ella wheeled around, zeroed in on theplastic baggie laying there like an accusation. Inside was a length of wire,black and sleek and coiled like a snake ready to strike. She snatched it up,squinting through the plastic.

Some kind of cable. Nylon coatingstretched tight over copper guts, the end a spiky mess of frayed fibers. Likeit'd been ripped from its other half, an electronic umbilical snipped too soon.

A spasm shot through Ella's guts as thepenny dropped. The vic's neck wounds. The doc babbling about PVC and pressure.This was it. This was the garrote, the murder weapon. This unassuming littlelength of wire had choked the life out of two – no, three – people. Bitten intotheir flesh like a starving dog on a bone.

‘Son of a bitch,’ she breathed.

Luca sidled up beside her. ‘What? What isit?’

Ella's gaze never left the cable. Shetilted it, watching the light play off the ravaged end. ‘Our murder weapon. Hasto be. The freak used this to garrote them. Archie, Georgia, Harry. All ofthem.’

Her partner snapped his fingers. ‘Thecoroner said there were nylon tracings around the victims’ necks. This must bewhat our killer used to strangle them. An electrical cord.’

She held it up to the light, squinting atthe smudged letters printed along its length. ‘What the hell is a Midas Pro?’

‘A Midas Pro?’ Luca asked. ‘That’s amicrophone cable. The high-end stuff.’

Ella shot him a look, something stirringin her mind, something hazy but visible. ‘A microphone cable?’

‘Yeah. Singer in my old band swore bythem.’

The world tilted, lurched. Ella felt likeshe'd just stepped off a cliff, plunging headlong into the abyss of epiphany.The clues whirled through her brain in a maelstrom of disparate data points.The mask. The pillory stocks. The strangulation. The microphone cable.

It all slotted together like the tumblersin Satan's lock.

She lunged for the evidence table,scrabbling for the bag with the shattered mask. Ripped it open with tremblinghands, latex snapping as she jammed on a pair of gloves.

‘Ella? The hell are you doing?’ Lucasounded miles away, tinny and distant.

She ignored him, already spreading theshards out on the tabletop. Sorting them, arranging them, trying to make orderfrom chaos. It was a jigsaw from hell, all jagged edges and mocking frowns. Acurve here, a jutting shard there. The ghost of a frown, a slit for a mockingmouth.

She felt possessed, consumed. A madwomanon a mission, the need to know burning through her like a fever. Themask fought her, pieces slipping and sliding under her frantic fingers. Butslowly, surely, it took shape. A face swam into focus, cracked and crazed as afunhouse mirror.

There. It wasn't perfect, wasn't complete.But it was enough. Enough to see the shape of it, the specter rising from thefragments like Lazarus shambling free of his tomb.

Ella straightened up. Took a step back, astrange calm settling over her. The calm of absolute, undeniable certainty.

‘Guys,’ she said, quiet as the grave andtwice as deadly. ‘I think our unsub is a comedian.’

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

Ella's marker squeaked across thewhiteboard like nails on a chalkboard as she laid it all out for Luca andHarland.

This was it. The home stretch.

The whiteboard was a ballad of lines,underscored words and half-cocked theories. She stepped back, surveying herhandiwork with a critical eye. To an outsider, it might look like chaos, likethe ravings of a madwoman. But to Ella, it was a roadmap to the twisted mind oftheir unsub.

Harland leaned back in his chair with hisarms crossed. He looked a picture of defeat, but Ella could see the glimmer ofinterest in his eyes. Luca, on the other hand, was perched on the edge of hisseat like an eager student.

‘Explain,’ Harland said.

‘First things first - our vic's COD.’ Shetapped the board, the words 'MICROPHONE CORD' underlined thrice in bold redstrokes. ‘Strangled, garroted, however you wanna slice it. But the weapon ofchoice? That's key.’

Harland grunted. ‘Could be anything.Singer, theater geek, American Idol washout.

Ella shook her head, impatient. She jabbeda finger at the crime scene photos tacked up in a gruesome row.

‘There’s more to this than a fancy noose.Look at how he posed them. Archie on those pallets, Georgia on the bandstand,Harry on that fountain. You see a pattern there?’

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