Page 64 of Girl, Unseen

‘Yeah. Two o’clock. Black coat. That’s our ringleader.’

Ezra Crowley. Their prime suspect. Standing in plain sight at his own crime scene.

Returned to mark his symbols. To complete his ritual.

‘Son of a bitch.’ Ella's hand found her weapon. ‘Ross, you seeing this?’

‘The tall dude with dumb hair? Hard to miss.’

‘That’s Ezra Crowley. We need to split up.’ A wall of spectators stood between them and the suspect. ‘Surround him before he spots us.’

‘One problem.’ Ross adjusted his radio. ‘We spook him, he bolts into that crowd.’

'Then we don't spook him.' Ella sized up the terrain. The slope of Storm King Mountain created a natural funnel. A guardrail marked the edge of a forty-foot drop. Two cruisers blocked the north exit. 'Hawkins, take the west side. Ross, go east. Radio your people to block the perimeter, but tell them to keep their distance.'

‘What about you?’

‘Straight through the middle.’

Luca's hand brushed his weapon. ‘Just another fed admiring the view?’

‘Exactly. Box him in quiet. Don’t go full cowboy. Ready?’

'Ready,' Ross and Luca said in unison and split off. Ella threaded through the crowd like smoke. Her burns throbbed with each step but pain was an old friend by now; it knew when to shut up and let her work.

Crowley stood head and shoulders above the mob. This was her first real look at the man who called himself the leader of the Order of theQuinta Essentia.He stood at the tape line like any other spectator; tall frame outlined against granite and sky. But something in his posture sang wrong notes. Not the satisfaction of a killer admiring his work - something else. Something that picked at the lock of her instincts.

The distance closed. Fifteen feet. Close enough to see more ink crawling up his neck. The crowd shifted and bucked around her; tourists hungry for tragedy, reporters desperate for sound bites, locals who'd come to gawk at death.

Easy breaths. Eyes on the prize.

Ezra hadn’t noticed her yet. He was hypnotized by the wreckage like it held the answers to every question he'd ever asked. Luca drifted in from the right. Fifteen feet from the prize. Ross was coming in from the left.

Then Ezra's head twitched like a wolf catching the first whiff of the snare.

Eight feet.

A news van's generator kicked on somewhere behind them with a mechanical growl.

And Ezra suddenly coiled tight and snapped to Ella. The world flipped to slo-mo as she watched the pieces stack up behind his eyes - the setup, the players, game over in a heartbeat. Something wild broke across his face, the kind of grin that didn't belong outside a cage.

‘FBI! Stop!’ Ella screamed.

The crowd erupted. Bodies collided as people scattered. Phones clattered to the ground. Ella charged after him, but the human tide pushed back, threatening to sweep her off her feet. She glimpsed Ezra's blonde head bobbing through the chaos as he broke for the tree line.

‘Make a hole!’ Luca's voice cut through the pandemonium. The crowd parted just enough.

Ella burst through the gap. Her legs blazed with fresh agony as she hit the rough terrain. Loose shale shifted treacherously under each footfall and the mountain air burned cold in her lungs but she pushed harder, letting gravity and momentum carry her down the slope.

This was it. The final showdown. God, why hadn’t she just grabbed Ezra last night when they had the chance?

She pushed the regret to one side as she caught Ezra veering onto a maintenance track. Smart move – the packed dirt would give better traction than this unstable scree. But the patch switch cost him precious seconds.

Ella's training kicked in. The mountain's geography unfolded in her mind like a tactical map. The maintenance track switchbacked down the slope, but a steeper route cut straight through. High risk, high reward.

She broke right, charging down a near-vertical section. Sharp rocks bit into her palms as she half-ran, half-slid down the incline. One bad step, and she'd tumble straight down Storm King's face. At the bottom, Crowley mounted the guardrail.

‘Freeze!’ Her gun found center mass. ‘Hands up!’

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