Page 18 of Girl, Haunted

'Archie Grimshaw said Natasha had his only key. Archie's the owner of this place and the guy who found Natasha this morning.'

‘So the door was open?’

Redmond nodded. Ella breathed a silent curse. That meant Natasha had probably just forgotten to lock the door behind her, and that didn’t do much to narrow down the suspect pool.

‘This Grimshaw guy. We checked him out?’ Luca asked.

‘First thing. Clean as a whistle. His doorbell cam caught him getting home yesterday evening and not leaving until this morning.’

Another curse. This one louder than she intended. A toolbox lay overturned near the wall, its contents spilled across the floor. Paintbrushes, wires, and a half-empty bottle of what Ella guessed was fake blood. The props of Natasha's trade, now just markers of her final moments.

‘Any CCTV around here?’

Redmond scratched his bird’s nest of a beard. ‘The good news is that this place does have CCTV. The bad news is that it wasn’t activated.’

Typical. Technology was supposed to make her job easier but more often than not it just let her down. ‘Wasn’t activated? Why?’

‘This place isn’t even open yet. Archie said he had no reason to turn it on.’

‘Forensics been and gone?’

‘Yup. Nothing that stood out.’

Ella swept the room once more, taking in every shard of glass, every scattered prop. This place was a goldmine of potential evidence, but without blood or prints, they were grasping at straws.

‘Sheriff,’ she said, turning to Redmond. ‘You said this place wasn't even open yet. How many people knew about it?’

Redmond shrugged his massive shoulders. ‘Hard to say. Word travels fast in a town like this. Plus, there was some local press about it.’

Luca piped up from where he was examining the control panel. ‘Any disgruntled employees? Maybe someone who got passed over for a job here?’

'Not according to Grimshaw. He was the only guy working the office, and he had a few actors lined up to help him out.'

‘What about competitors? Any other haunted houses in the area that might've seen Shadowland as a threat?’

‘A bunch. No shortage of haunted houses around here, and Halloween time is when they all come alive.’

Ella and Luca exchanged a look. ‘How many haunted houses, exactly?’ she asked.

Redmond regarded himself in one of the room’s twisty mirrors. ‘God, must be eight, maybe ten.’

A swift headache gripped Ella’s skull. ‘That’s not good.’

‘No?’

Ella massaged her temples with one hand and looked back at the pile of broken shards at her feet. She thought about the blitz-attack, the bloodless death, the mirrors inserted into eye-sockets. Redmond was saying something, but Ella’s churning thoughts drowned everything out.

Luca said, ‘Sheriff, two victims in two days is technically a spree killing, but the psychopathology here suggests a serial offender.’

‘What’s the difference?’

‘Spree killers snap and take out all their victims in one fell swoop, but our unsub here is much more methodical. He has a mission in mind. He can control his rage and channel it into…’ Luca gestured at the debris. ‘This.’

‘Couldn’t he just be a pervert?’

‘Far from it. Police report didn’t mention any signs of sexual assault, plus lust killers tend to maintain a consistent victimology. So far, he’s killed a man and a woman, fifteen years apart in age.’

‘And if there are ten haunted houses around here,’ Ella chimed in, ‘then this could be two of ten.’

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