Page 32 of Girl, Reborn

It was all Ella could do not to roll hereyes clean out of her skull. She spun on her heel and stalked away. Luca keptup with her, wisely keeping his mouth shut until they were back at the car.

‘So. That was…’

‘A load of crap,’ Ella supplied as sheyanked open the car door. ‘Creed’s practically creaming himself that Toledo’sdead.’

‘I hate to say it,’ Luca said, ‘butCreed's not our guy. I mean, don't get me wrong, he's a weasel and a half. Buta killer? If he’d offed Toledo, he wouldn’t be celebrating like that. He’d belaying low.’

Ella climbed into the car and thumped herskull against the headrest.

‘Agreed. Killing Toledo would take actualbackbone, something resembling principles. Ol' Creed’s a bottom feeder, caresabout nothing but his own scaly hide.’

She jammed the key into the ignition a bitharder than warranted. She was just about to jam the car into gear and peel outin a totally unprofessional spray of gravel when something caught her eye.

A flicker of shadow, there and gone in herperipheral vision.

She whipped around. But the street wasdeserted, just a bucolic stretch of Stepford-esque suburbia. Manicured lawns,picket fences, not a soul in sight.

Except – there. The barest flutter ofdarkness, an afterimage seared on her retinas.

Someone had been watching. Shefelt it in her bones. A prickling certainty that had the hairs on her napestanding to attention. Beside her, Luca stiffened, clocking her sudden spike intension.

‘Ella? What-‘

‘Didn't you see that?’ She scanned thetree line, the empty sidewalk, senses straining. ‘There was someone there, Iswear it.’

'Of course, there was someone there. Thisis a residential area.'

‘No. I mean, someone was watching us.’

‘Yeah. Probably one of those snakes insuits from Creed’s circle jerk.’

Ella conceded. She opted for rationalethis time. Exhaustion played tricks. Stressed minds spun phantoms out ofshadows. She knew this.

There was no figure lurking in therhododendrons, no faceless specter dogging her heels. Just the sick, spiralingconfluence of grief and fear and worry. The toxic sludge of her own demons,clotting her reason like mud in a fuel line.

She had to get a grip. Had to grit herteeth and power through, claw back the ground she'd lost. Leads didn't chasethemselves, killers didn't spontaneously develop consciences. The sooner shegot this case out of the way, the sooner she could get to what really mattered.

Finding Mia.

‘Lunch?’ asked Luca. ‘I could eat ahorse.’

Ella couldn’t remember eating anything indays, but she couldn’t deny her partner sustenance. ‘Alright.’

So she stomped the gas and pointed themtowards the dusty, emaciated limbo of Liberty Grove. Back to the withered cropsand desiccated lives and the hollow-eyed desperation of a town circling thedrain.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Ella thought that the town centerof Liberty Grove was one tumbleweed short of a spaghetti western. The place wasa postcard from the apocalypse, and she guessed that was what happened whenMother Nature didn’t make with the aqua. Folks packed up and chased the rain.

She parked on the cracked sidewalkof what passed for a main square. She and Luca got out and began their searchfor food that wasn’t biscuits that had been festering on a kitchen counter.Ella doubted she could stomach much. She survived mostly on a diet of stressand worry these days. It was good for the waistline but not for the heart.

‘It’s like the world ended outhere,’ Luca said. ‘Clint Eastwood could jump out at any second.’

‘Or Leatherface.’

‘Was it always like this? Or hasthe drought done a number on this place?’

‘It was never this bad, from what Iremember. I guess the drought was the straw that broke the camel’s back.’

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