Page 62 of Girl, Sought

The worst-case scenario rushed into Ella's head, but she pushed it to one side. Get the facts first, then fill in the blanks later.

‘We’ve got cause to get inside then. Let’s go.’

Ella rushed forward and planted her boot against the lock. Pain jolted up her leg from her burns, but the door remained stubbornly attached to its holdings. She winced as lightning engulfed her nerve endings. A heavy slab of steel like this should have torn the lock off the frame without issue.

‘My turn,’ Luca said.

Ella had barely moved out of the way before Luca’s boot found the same spot. Another one followed, then the sound of splintering wood. On the other side, metal clanged to the floor. Luca shouldered the door open.

‘Go,’ he said.

Ella rushed in first with her Glock drawn. Adrenaline hit her bloodstream like nitro burning fuel. Her heart hammered double-time against her ribs as she swept the foyer.

‘Joseph?’ she shouted. ‘FBI.’

Nothing. Just the particular silence that meant someone wasn't home - or couldn't answer anymore. Behind her, boots scraped wood as the cavalry filed in.

‘Ell, basement door's open,’ Luca called from somewhere behind her. ‘That’s where Thorne said this guy’s collection was.’

The rational part of her brain - the part that wrote reports and testified in court - cataloged the facts: Priest missing. Door forced. Basement accessible. But the other part, the part that still woke up sweating from dreams about past cases, was already painting pictures in her head.

Their killer had staged Eleanor like a doll, had pinned Alfred like an insect.

So what was waiting for her here?

On the wall next to the basement door, she clocked a security panel.

‘Living room clear,’ one of the uniforms called.

‘Kitchen clear,’ said another.

Eleanor and Alfred had both been left beside their collections, and Ella had no doubt the same was true here.

Time to see what was waiting for them. She gave Luca the nod, and he nudged the basement door open. Stairs descended into a burst of orange light at the base.

She went first. The wooden stairs creaked beneath her boots. Old buildings always protested when the living came to collect their dead. Her finger traced the trigger guard of her Glock as muscle memory warred with the sick certainty of what might lie ahead.

Thirteen steps down. Ella counted them without meaning to, her mind latching onto any detail that might keep the inevitable at bay. At the bottom, the collection room opened up before her like some twisted cathedral.

Religious artifacts packed the basement wall to wall. Floor-to-ceiling glass boxes filled with pieces of faith. Gold crosses caught the light and threw it back distorted. Ancient books lay open to illuminated pages, and reliquaries studded with precious stones watched her from behind their display cases.

Then her heart plunged into her gut as her eyes found the centerpiece of this underground shrine.

Because in the center of this private chapel to excess and obsession knelt what used to be Joseph Carpenter.

The body faced away from her, naked and posed in eternal prayer. Elbows rested on a wooden chair while hands clasped in permanent supplication. But it was his back that turned Ella's stomach inside out.

Strips of skin had been carefully peeled back from shoulder blade to hip and pinned into position, creating what looked to Ella like angel wings. Blood had dried to the color of rust, and each layer had been arranged to mimic feathers.

Their collector of collectors had outdone himself.

Behind her, boots scraped concrete as the cavalry caught up.

Then silence as the scene registered.

‘Jesus Christ.’ Reeves sounded like his soul was trying to escape his body. ‘I think I'm gonna be sick.’

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

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