Page 6 of Girl, Accused

But this was a different species of waiting altogether. This wasn't the strategic silence of a trained professional working a case. This was being locked in a conference room seven floors up in the building she'd given her life to, treated like some common perp while the institution she'd bled for turned its machinery against her.

Ella peeled her face off the laminate table where she'd succumbed to a few fitful hours of sleep at some point last night, and now she woke to find the betrayal still raw.

The room swam into focus as she blinked away the last cobwebs of unconsciousness. Pain surged through her neck and spine, and she un-contorted herself from the C-position she'd been in, and she made her way over to the window that overlooked D.C.

Seven floors up, the view offered a precise calendar of daylight. Weak December sun filtering through at an angle suggested it was mid-morning, though without her phone or watch, precision was impossible. Time had become another thing Edis had taken from her, along with her badge, her gun, and any illusion of control over what happened next.

Back on the table, the crime scene photos still lay where Edis had arranged them last night. Two bodies. Julianne Cooper, Ella’s old landlord. Jenna Bradbury, Ella’s former roommate. Both strangled if the bruises around their necks were any indication, but it was their mouths that had seized Ella's gaze and wouldn't let go. Sewn shut in black crisscrosses that wasn’t thread at all, but hair.

The killer used hair, Ella. Human hair. Your hair.

Jenna wore that routine expression that came with violent death. Eyes wide open, lips purple behind that fine black pattern that clasped them shut. Ella had lived with Jenna for five years until they’d gonetheir separate ways a few months ago. From what Ella knew, Jenna had moved into her own place, but she had no idea where it was. Ella had tried to reach Jenna recently but with no luck.

Julianne looked more peaceful, if that word could apply to someone murdered in their own home. At seventy-three, she'd lived a full life before someone decided to make her part of whatever this was. Ella had been trying to reach her about that security deposit, and now those messages felt like accusations.Where were you, why didn't you call back, what happened to my thousand dollars?

The answer lay in these photos. Julianne and Jenna had died because they'd had the misfortune of orbiting Planet Ella. She’d assumed both women were just avoiding her, as people often did when they shared complicated histories, but now she knew the real reason for their silence. They'd already been dead, their lips sewn shut with her own hair, while she'd been leaving them messages asking if they could meet for coffee or pay back her deposit.

Jesus. She was going to be sick.

How many more would there be? And why did this killer choose Julianne and Jenna? Why not come directly for her if this was truly meant to be a message? Right now, anyone in Ella's life could be in danger, but goddamn Edis had locked her up in here because he was under some foolish delusion that Ella had anything to do with these murders. How could the director of the biggest law enforcement agency in the world be so dumb? She'd been his public service slave for years, and his first reaction to these deaths was to put her under suspicion. The next time she saw that man, she wasn't sure she'd be able to keep her acid words at bay.

Because the truth was obvious: someone was targeting the people in Ella’s sphere as revenge, but Ella couldn’t find out who the culprit was while she was sealed away like some princess in the tower.

There were unopened sandwiches and bottles of water on the table, so some Good Samaritan had been playing jailer while she slept. Ella hadn’t touched any of it, and not just because they were the crappy two-dollar vending machine sandwiches. They hadn’t even splashed out for the top-tier stuff for their first-class prisoner.

Ella stalked to the door and yanked the handle, though she already knew what she'd find. Locked. Of course. She pressed her face to the glass panel and watched the people go through their morning routines. Faces she saw every time she visited this floor, some she was on first-name bases with. How many of her colleagues had walked by in the long hours she'd been trapped here? How many had glanced at the closed door and wondered why one of the Bureau's most celebrated agents was being kept under lock and key? She wondered how many whispered conversations had started this morning.Did you hear about Dark? Yeah, the profiler. They've got her locked up on seven.She’d bled for this place, and this is how they repaid her loyalty?

The injustice of it all finally crested, and Ella began pounding on the door. A few heads turned at the noise, but they quickly scurried away. HQ was a quiet place by design, so any noise above a certain decibel caused the same reaction as a coral reef spotting a shark: everything stopped moving, held its breath, waited to see what kind of predator had entered the ecosystem.

Ella leaned over the table, glared at the crime scene photo of her best friend, and then swept it off the desk. The absolute nerve of Edis to leave these pictures here in front of her all night. What was he trying to do? Break her down? Force a confession out of her? Ella pressed her knuckles to the table, but then she heard a ripple at the door. She spun and saw Edis's face at the glass partition. He looked a picture of fatigue, with his bloodshot eyes and flakey skin and complete lack of red tie. In all her time here, she’d never seen Edis without it.

Blood roared in her ears as he unlocked the door and edged inside. He kept his distance, as though he expected Ella to lunge at his throat. The thought held a certain appeal.

‘Miss Dark,’

‘Don’tMiss Darkme, Edis. Where the hell have you been?’

The director shut the door and gestured to the table. ‘Please, take a seat, we need to-‘

‘No, I won’ttake a seat,’ Ella snapped. ‘You trapped me in here all night. Are you going to start giving me some answers or what?’

‘Miss Dark, I’m sorry if-‘

‘Sorryisn’t going to cut it, you prick. And stop calling meMiss Dark.You can’t use my real name for once? Like risking my life for you every goddamn week doesn’t put us on first-name basis?’ Her fury was uncontainable. All the comments she’d been playing on loop in her head suddenly fought for release.

‘Please. Ella. I didn’t keep you here because I wanted to.’

‘Oh, what, youhadto?’

‘Yes. You’d rather spend the night in the holding cells at Washington PD? Because that was the alternative.’

Ella scooped up the photo of her dead landlord, scrunched it up and flung it at the director. It hit him on the chin, but he didn’t flinch. ‘Or you could use your brain and figure out that I didn’t murder my friend or my landlord.’

‘I don’t think that.’

‘No? Could have fooled me.’

'This isn't our investigation. It's Washington PD's, and to them, you're a suspect with connections to each victim. And then there's the hair link.'

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