Page 63 of Girl, Reborn

11.27.

‘This is it,’ Ella barked. ‘HeraldStreet.’

Beside her, Luca gripped the door handleas Ella floored the gas – the smart boy knew better than to backseat navigate.

No picket fences here. No American dreamwrapped in a neat little bow. Just darkness stretching out like the hand of Godhimself, ready to smack down any poor schmuck dumb enough to wander in.

Then Ella saw it. Squatting at the end ofthe road like a gargoyle with indigestion - Baxter's den. One house on adead-end street. Fitting for a killer with a one-way ticket to hell.

The Baxter place. Ella recognized it fromRiley's muddled directions. Quaint, almost charming – if you squinted past thedarkness bleeding from its windows. The kind of house the Cleavers would callhome before Wally went off the deep end and started drowning the neighbors.

Ella slammed the brakes on, grabbed herGlock and checked her ammo levels. The home was shrouded in darkness. Thedriveway gaped like an open wound. No signs of life. no car skulking under thecarport.

Just a crumbling porch and a door firmlyshut.

‘Let’s go. Time is running out.’

She and Luca jumped out and made their wayup the brick steps. Old things, rounded by rain and wind. This mausoleum of aplace had stood longer than its owner's sanity, that was for damn sure.

Caution to the wind, she pounded a fist onthe door. Paint flaked under her knuckles.

Come on, she said toherself. Please don’t say we’re too late.

Nothing.

But Ella expected as much.

Luca checked his watch. ‘Thirty minutesleft, Ell.’

‘Don’t remind me.’

She stepped back, craned her neck.Moonlight glinted off glass; black mirrors staring back. And there – a wink ofsilver. A window cracked open, casually vulnerable as an unsnipped thread.

‘What're you thinking?’ Luca. Reading hermind like tea leaves in the bottom of a cup.

‘I'm thinking we quit pussyfooting andbarge right in.’

‘Probable cause. Heard of it?’

It was times like this you had to playfast and loose with the rules. Anything could be probable cause if you believedit enough.

‘We've got a trail of bodies and a tickingclock.’ Ella was already moving, skirting the side of the house. ‘Probablecause is staring us in the face.’

Luca hurried to catch up. So professional,so by-the-book you could smell the ink. ‘If this is a dead end…’

‘Then you can stand in line to kick myass. But right now?’ Ella crouched, braced her hands on the sill. ‘Right now,we're flying blind. And that window is singing our song.’

Luca huffed – frustration or amusement,she couldn't tell. But he leaned down, laced his fingers into a step. Ella tookthe boost. She heaved herself up and hauled ass through the uncanny grace of acontortionist.

The sash squeaked, glass rattled. For asliver of a second, Ella was a girl again – climbing the trellis under herdad’s window. To scare him, to tell him she loved him. One or the other.

Reality crashed back, cold as the linoleumunder her feet. She'd tumbled into a kitchen laced with lemon Formica andnicotine stains. A relic from the days of duck-and-cover, the world poised onthe knife-edge of oblivion.

Not much had changed.

Luca followed like her shadow. They rolledto their feet, hands flying to holsters. Ella's piece sat cold and heavy at herback. Her best friend, her constant companion. She’d introduced its businessend to faces of countless psychopaths, and tonight it might just meet another.

Luca jerked his chin, eyes gleaming likenew dimes. Ella returned the nod; a soldier reading smoke signals on the wind.They spread out, scoping the lay of the land. The Baxter homestead wasn't huge– a few rooms, some closets. Easy to clear, if they kept their heads on aswivel.

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