Page 26 of Girl, Unseen

‘Jesus,’ Luca whispered. ‘Identical?’

‘Haven’t got that far yet.’

Ella was about to pull out her phone and load up the photographs she'd taken at the quarry, but there was no need. She'd burned those images into her retinas, and looking at these new symbols, she had no doubt they were identical.

‘They’re the same,’ she said. ‘Down to the last curve.’

Ross said, ‘Her name’s Sarah Chen. Her purse was still on her body, driver’s license was inside.’

‘What do we know about her?’

‘Still pulling records.’ Ross checked his phone. ‘But prelim shows she was a marine biologist. Worked at the New York Aquarium in Brooklyn.’

That detail hit Ella like a punch. A marine biologist found drowned. The coincidence felt about as natural as those symbols painted on that wall behind the overgrowth.

A tech called Ross over, leaving Ella and Luca to examine the scene. The inlet curved like a horseshoe to create a natural cove sheltered by trees and rock. The perfect spot to commit murder – isolated, hard to access by car, with deep water close to shore.

‘Look at her clothes,’ Luca said. ‘Designer labels. She wasn't out here hiking.’

Ella nodded. Sarah wore what looked like workplace attire - the kind of outfit you'd wear to meetings, not wandering around reservoirs. ‘Someone brought her here.’

‘But how? There's no vehicle access to this spot.’

‘They could have parked up top and walked her down.’ Ella studied the muddy path they'd taken. ‘Though we won't find tracks after the rain.’

They worked their way around the body while the techs documented everything. Ella was no pathologist, but the discoloration of the body suggested this poor woman had been here longer than 24 hours, which meant their unsub was already one step ahead of them. The revelation sent a new wave of dread through her stomach.

‘Jesus, Hawkins, our killer had already racked up two bodies before we’d even found one.’

‘I’m getting Long Island Serial Killer vibes here. How many more are there that we haven’t found?’

Luca had a point. They had to consider that maybe the victims predated Marcus Thornton.

‘Still think it isn’t a cult?’ he continued.

Ella ignored the absurd question. Cults didn’t exist, least of all ones with multiple corpses to their name. Three men could only keep a secret if two were dead.

‘No signs of sexual assault,’ Ella noted. ‘Clothes are intact, just water-damaged.’

‘What about drugs? Could she have been sedated?’

‘ME will check, but water tends to wash away evidence of injection sites.’ She crouched by the body, ignoring the protest from her legs. ‘Though that would explain the lack of defensive wounds.’

The symbols drew her attention again. Five marks that seemed to writhe in her peripheral vision, like they were trying to tell her something just beyond her grasp.

But before she could dwell too deeply on them, Ross returned with a grim expression. ‘We found drag marks up by the road. Looks like the body was brought down from the parking area.’

‘Any tire tracks?’

‘No. Rain washed them away.’

Ella looked back at Sarah Chen's body and tried to see this whole thing with an analytical eye. Two bodies. Inconsistent victimology. Disparate pre and post-death modus operandis. Marcus Thornton was lured to his death, but Sarah Chen probably wasn't because Ella didn't know anyone who'd walk into a reservoir of their own free will. Two different dumpsites. On paper, this could have been the work of two separate offenders.

Luca must have been thinking along the same lines, because he said, ‘It’s lucky our killer left those symbols behind, or we’d never know these were connected.’

‘Yeah,’ Ross said.

‘That’s the only consistent element. His ritual.’

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