Page 8 of Girl, Accused

‘Someone has something that could help.’

Ella shrugged. ‘Uh, some details might be useful, Edis.’

‘I… don’t know what it is exactly. And after that, I promise you’re free to leave.’

Ella studied the man who’d originally thrust her into this job. His face bore the weathered lines of someone carrying too many secrets, but right now she didn't give a damn about his burdens. All she saw was the person who'd locked her in a room overnight, who'd sent cops to violate her home, who'd looked at her decorated career and seen only the potential for darkness.

The urge to wipe that bureaucratic concern off his face surged through her veins and terminated at her knuckles. One solid right hook, enough to make him feel a fraction of the pain and humiliation he'd put her through.

But violence wouldn't solve this. Violence was what they expected from her now. The supposed killer is finally showing her true colors.

‘Ten minutes,’ she bit out. ‘Then I’m walking, and you better pray no one tries to stop me.’

CHAPTER FOUR

Ella watched the ancient clock tower across from the Hoover Building tick toward nine AM. Edis had taken her watch and phone last night, along with her dignity. Her only concept of time came from that dead church's clock, which, for all she knew, might have been as reliable as using the sun's position in a town that never saw sunlight.

Eight minutes gone. Thank God for small mercies - like the private bathroom attached to this conference room. At least she'd been spared the final indignity of having to beg her jailers for bathroom breaks. Without the bathroom, she might have added another charge to her rap sheet: pissing on federal property. Although maybe that's what this place deserved after everything they'd put her through.

D.C. sprawled below her, indifferent to her predicament. From seven floors up, the city looked like a model train set - tiny cars following preset paths, ant-sized people scurrying between buildings. All of them free. None of them locked in glass boxes while their lives were dissected by former friends.

Nine minutes. One minute until she walked. Her muscles tensed in preparation for the confrontation to come, because she doubted she’d make it seven floors down without someone trying to stop her or give their unsolicited opinion about something she didn’t have space to care about anymore. She'd walk out of here with her head high, dignity intact.

Then the door creaked open again. Ella didn’t even turn around. ‘Arrived with one minute to spare,’ she said.

‘One minute early.’ A voice that didn’t belong to Edis sliced through the air. ‘Right on time.’

The words bypassed Ella's ears and hit her spine. Static shot through her system, because Ella filed that voice alongside gunfights and panic attacks and countless moments when she’d teetered on the edge of death. And even so, five months of silence hadn't dulled its ability to flip switches in her brain that she'd thought were permanently off.

Ella turned. The motion felt underwater-slow, like her body was fighting against the laws of physics. Edis stood in the doorway – but he wasn’t alone.

Time hiccupped. Ella's hand found the window ledge before gravity could introduce her face to the carpet.

Because standing there like a ghost made flesh was Mia Ripley.

Laptop under one arm, bag slung over the other. Hooded she might be, but Ella could recognize that outline, that voice, that presence from the grave.

What the hell was going on?

Ella’s mind split into parallel tracks. One wanted to run over to Ripley, tell her how much she’d missed her, make sure that her old partner standing here wasn’t a hallucination. The other track wanted to tell Ripley to leave this place and never look back – again.

‘Mia? You’re…’ Too many words fought for proclamation. ‘Alive.’

Ripley surged forward, pulled a laptop from under her arm and laid it on the desk. She pulled her hood down. ‘If I’m dead, you’ve been dead for years.’

Five goddamn months of nothing, and now here Ripley stood. Unannounced and uninvited, sauntering in like no time had passed at all. Ripley's cream hoodie and faded jeans screamed civilian, and her usually captive ponytail had become a waterfall of flowing red locks. It was a look that saidI garden nowinstead ofI hunt killers. Dimly, Ella registered Edis hovering behind Ripley, but he might as well have been a cardboard cutout for all the attention she paid him.

‘This isn’t… you can’t be here.’

‘And yet I am. I expected a warmer reception, honestly.’

‘Sorry, I mean… what are you doing here? You’re retired. You shouldn’t be here.’

Ripley’s razor-sharp eyes hadn’t lost their edge, and Ella guessed they weren’t here to offer comfort. They were here to dissect and analyze and profile. Edis had brought back the one person who knew all her secrets and all the little cracks in her perfect profiler façade. This was his masterstroke.

‘I’m here to help you, Dark.’ She turned to the director. ‘Shut the door, Will.’

He complied. Mia wasted no time opening her laptop and jabbing the power button. Five months away hadn’t dulled her technologicalimpatience, but it had given her a healthy glow she didn’t have before. Ella was still struggling to process everything.

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