Page 90 of Girl, Sought

EPILOGUE

The J. Edgar Hoover Building devoured light. Even on clear nights, the concrete behemoth seemed to bend shadows around its edges like a black hole consuming stars. But tonight, with December clouds choking the sky, the place radiated a specific kind of darkness.

Ella's brain felt like it was wrapped in barbed wire, courtesy of Lawrence Winters and his impromptu jar-to-skull introduction. The painkillers had worn off somewhere between Chesapeake and D.C., leaving behind a new breed of headache.

‘Still time to bail,’ Luca said as they crossed the underground parking garage. ‘Whatever Edis wants can wait till morning.’

‘If only. He’s never summoned me at midnight before.’

‘Maybe he's finally promoting you to his job.’

‘We can dream.’

They made their way through the front doors, through the foyer and toward the elevator. They stepped inside Ella pushed the button for the top floor. She watched the floor numbers tick by, each one cranking up the dread in her stomach another notch. By the time they hit the executive level, her spine felt like it had been replaced with a steel rod.

The elevator shuddered to a stop. Ella squared her shoulders as the doors rattled open.

And found herself staring down a twin set of grim-faced police officers.

Two cops with stony jaws and crossed arms – and from behind them emerged an exhausted-looking Director Edis. He had a thick folder lodged under one arm.

Ella's step faltered. This was new. In all her years, she'd never seen the Director warrant a police escort, especially not on his home turf.

‘Miss Dark.’ He jerked his head toward the open office door. ‘Please come with me.’

Luca made to follow, but the cops closed ranks. A blue wall of silent threat.

‘Just Agent Dark,’ Edis said. ‘Wait out here, Hawkins.’

‘The hell?’ Luca's hand twitched toward where his weapon would be if he hadn't checked it at security.

‘That wasn't a request.’ Edis's tone dropped another ten degrees. ‘Officers, ensure Agent Hawkins remains in the corridor.’

The uniforms shifted their weight, hands drifting closer to their weapons. The message was clear as a neon sign: this wasn't a friendly chat.

Ella shot Luca a look she hoped conveyed both apology and reassurance. His jaw worked like he was chewing glass, but then stepped back and raised his hands in that universal gesture of ‘fine, you win.’

‘This way, Agent Dark.’

Edis led her not to his office but to an adjacent conference room. The kind of place where they delivered news that redefined people's lives. He gestured for her to sit, then locked the door with a click that echoed like a bullet in her skull.

Something was very wrong here.

The wrongness lived in the way Edis wouldn't quite meet her eyes. In how his fingers drummed a steady rhythm against that folder under his arm.

‘Sir?’ The word came out steady despite the fact that her heart was trying to punch through her ribcage. ‘What's going on?’

Edis didn't answer. Instead, he opened the folder and began laying out photographs on the polished mahogany. Crime scene photos, based on the glimpses of blood and body bags. Ella had seen enough death to wallpaper the Pentagon, but something about these made her stomach try to crawl up her throat.

‘Do you recognize these people, Agent Dark?’

There were two photographs.

Ella leaned forward and clocked the first one. The air left her lungs in a violent whoosh.

Julianne Cooper - her former landlord. The woman she'd been trying to reach about her security deposit. Except now Julianne's eyes stared at nothing while her mouth had been – sewn shut? Neat black stitches in a perfect criss-cross pattern decorated her lips. The thread pulled the flesh into grotesque puckers, transforming her face into something that belonged in a nightmare rather than reality.

What the hell was this?

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