Page 14 of Girl, Sought

The clock on his wall said it was just after 3 PM. Three hours until his appointment. The man with the roach wouldn't be expecting anything unusual. Just another collector looking to add to his display. The thought almost made him laugh.

If only they knew what kind of collection he was really building.

***

The Chesapeake PD's idea of an office was a converted storage room with just enough space for two desks and a whiteboard. The ancient radiator clanked like someone was trapped inside it with a wrench. Ella's laptop screen burned blue light into her retinas while the precinct coffee burned a hole in her stomach.

Across from her, Luca seemed immune to the general discomfort. Or maybe he was just putting on a good show. He hunched over his laptop with a pile of files teetering beside him, and he had that look on his face, the one that said he was following a scent. The glamorous side of FBI work - sifting through a victim's financials on the off chance their murderer had left a smoking gun between charges for groceries and gas.

For her part, she'd been falling down the digital rabbit hole of Eleanor Calloway's life. Or lack thereof. For a homicide victim whose death put Hannibal Lecter to shame, Calloway's online presence was about as lively as an unplugged toaster. The woman was a ghost in the machine, which was a rarity for anyone under the age of 60. It was nearly impossible to live without leaving a digital footprint, but Eleanor Calloway seemed to have managed it.

The library records Reeves had scrounged up sketched the outline of a life, its shape as empty as it was precise. Calloway's days unfolded with all the variation of a Swiss railway. Work. Home. Rinse and repeat. Twelve years, she'd toiled away in the stacks of Chesapeake Public Library. Not a sick day in the bunch. Never so much as a long weekend off the map.

All of which amounted to exactly zilch in terms of hunting their doll maker. Ella scrubbed her eyes hard enough to see stars.

‘How's it going?’ Luca hadn't looked up from whatever money trail had his attention.

‘Like trying to squeeze a living corpse from the phone book. Either this woman was J.D. Salinger levels of recluse, or she had something to hide. I can't find any contacts outside of work. No family. No friends unless you count the librarians she worked with. Maybe we ought to pay them a visit.’

‘No friends with a murder fetish?’

‘Not unless they're as allergic to the internet as she was. It's all a dead end.’ She eyed the leaning tower of paperwork beside him. ‘Please tell me you're having better luck.’

Luca held up a sheet, shaking his head. ‘She was a machine. Everything by the book. No impulse buys, no drunken 2 AM Uber rides. Her accounts are about as squeaky clean as an operating room.’

‘Damn it to hell.’

‘Well, there is one thing.’ Luca pinched a page between his thumb and forefinger. ‘A $5,000 payment to someone named V. Blackburn last month.’

‘Blackburn?’ The paper crinkled under Ella's fingers as she snatched it with the grace of a one-eyed pickpocket. ‘No idea. There're no Blackburns in Eleanor's records as far as I can tell. We could see if Reeves knows anything.’

Luca's chair squealed as he pushed back from the desk-that-time-forgot. ‘Yeah, but I think you're right about hitting the library. If work's our only link to Eleanor, let's tug at that. It’s only a block away too. You alright to walk?’

The concern in his voice made her bristle. ‘I'm fine. Burns are healing.’

‘Yeah? Because you've been massaging your right leg all day.’

‘Are you watching how I walk now, Hawkins?’

‘Just looking out for my partner.’ He held up his hands. ‘Temporary partner.’

Ella had to admit that it felt weird these first few hours back in the saddle with Luca. Like slipping into her old skin and finding it didn't quite fit the same. She and Luca had an understanding, but seeing him focused on the job served as a reminder of what they had. What they'd agreed to give up, for the sake of their sanity and, maybe, their hearts.

If she was being honest with herself, it felt good. Better than good. Like stretching cramped muscles after too long in a box. Like coming home.

But home was what Luca meant to her, and if keeping it meant building boundaries with police tape, she was learning to live with the contradiction.

‘I can walk fine,’ she said. ‘Let's go.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

The walk to Chesapeake Public Library passed without incident. Ella kept one eye on the street and the other on Luca's profile, watching him dissect Eleanor Calloway’s credit card statements as he walked. Nose buried in paperwork, a crease forming between the eyes. The picture of focus, and God help her, it was attractive as hell.

If Luca noticed her glances, he didn't show it. Just kept flipping pages, chasing the details that would bring Eleanor's killer into focus. They were a team, even when they weren't, and right now, the work came first.

The library loomed like a hulking beast made of old brick. The kind of building that seemed designed to snuff out whimsy, to grind the human spirit down to a paste. Even the jaunty ‘READING IS DREAMING WITH OPEN EYES’ poster tacked to the front door looked faded, a relic of some bygone era when people still believed pretty lies.

‘When was the last time you came to a library?’ she asked.

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