Page 73 of Girl, Unseen

The same intricate patterns she’d become best friends with over the past few days.

But there was one small difference. The final symbol to the right – the triangle inside the circle – was partially incomplete. Luca must have noticed it too.

‘Our guy missed a stroke.’

‘Maybe he screwed up. Or someone interrupted him.’

‘Yeah.’ Luca scanned the workshop. ‘There’s no body?’

Ross wiped his forehead. His tie had come loose, and his collar was already soaked through. He pointed toward the furnace. 'Yes, there is.'

Ella’s stomach tied itself in knots. ‘God, no.’

The industrial kiln loomed like the gate to hell itself. Ella approached slowly, and she could feel the heat radiating off it at a ten feet. ‘How the hell do we open it without burning our hands off?’

‘Luckily I came prepared,’ Ross said. He pulled on a pair of heavy-duty gloves and grabbed a blackened fork from the victim’s tool collection. Ross hooked the fork around the handle of the kiln and yanked. The door swung open and brought hellfire with it.

Ella stepped back. In her years hunting monsters, she'd seen her share of horror shows. She'd memorized crime scene photos that she’d give anything to unsee. But what appeared in front of her was a level of horrific she was yet to witness. This wasn't rage or lust or any of the usual drivers that turned people into killers. This was science. Clinical precision. Their unsub had rendered a human being down to ash with the same cold efficiency they'd used to bury Marcus in the earth dry, own Sarah in her element, or send Tessa spiraling from the sky.

‘Guy’s name is Victor Ashford,’ Ross said.

What remained of this poor gentleman had twisted in on itself like a charcoal sketch. The body curled into a fetal position, caught forever in that last moment when fire had claimed victory over flesh. Bone showed through in places where meat had burned away and teeth gleamed in a skull that would never smile again. Luca covered his face with his forearm and took a few steps back.

‘How'd you find him?’ She needed details. Something solid to focus on besides the charnel house smell that filled her lungs.

Ross consulted his notepad. The client showed up for a pickup around ten. Door unlocked, no sign of Ashford. Guy waited an hour then called it in. One of my guys recognized the symbols, contacted me right away.'

‘Where's the client now?’

‘One of my guys got him clear before you arrived.’

‘Probably for the best. Timeline?’

Ross shrugged. ‘How the hell do we timeline this? Body is burned to a crisp. He could have been in there for three days or three hours.’

‘What about security cameras? When did anyone last speak to the vic?’

'Still working on both, but I doubt there are many cameras around here. Our guy was living in the Stone Age. No alarm system either. Nearest neighbor's five miles up the road. Right near that Blackwood farm.'

Perfect isolation. Perfect killing ground. Their unsub had chosen their targets with surgical precision - each one connected to their element, each one vulnerable in their own way. How did the killer keep pulling this off?

‘Got something that might help with that timeline you’re talking about,’ Luca said. Ella and Ross moved to his position. Luca nodded at a pool of yellow vomit in the corner.

‘Our vic threw up,’ Ross said. ‘How does that help?’

‘Ross, I can feel my eyeballs drying up and I’ve only been in here a few minutes. How long do you think a small pool of liquid is gonna last?’

‘So, this vic was killed what – within the past few hours?’

Ella listened to the exchange, lost in thought. Luca was right in that any liquid in here would dry out quickly, but the pool of vomit raised another question: why would the victim vomit at all? Between being killed and stuffed into a furnace, where would the victim have found the time to throw up?

The idea didn’t lend itself to an ambush. It lent itself to the killer being alone. To being killed without anyone else present.

And that suggested a different type of killer than the one she thought she’d been chasing so far.

Ross said, ‘Ezra could still have been responsible for this. We’ve had him locked up for two hours. He could have visited here this morning.’

‘Not that there’ll be any evidence behind. Nothing left to examine, is there?’

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