Page 10 of Girl, Accused

Despite the circumstances, Ella couldn’t help but smile. Ripley’s eviscerate-first, ask-questions-later approach had been a core component of their relationship, and for the past five months, Ella had felt naked without it.

But then, still scrutinizing the hair, she noticed something.

‘Mia, you said this was a color match.’

‘Looks like it to me.’

‘No, look closer.’ Ella held the bag up to the light. ‘Look at the roots of these strands. They’re light brown. My natural color. But I dyed my hair last month.’

Ripley inspected Ella’s scalp, like the world’s most reluctant hairdresser. ‘So you did. You just colored the roots?’

‘Yeah. Which means…’

‘Whoever is doing this has access to old strands of your hair.’ Ripley plucked a lone hair from Ella’s head. She flinched at the pain. It was funny how the little things hurt more than major wounds these days.

‘Thanks for the warning,’ Ella said.

Ripley held one of Ella’s strands next to the batch inside the bag. ‘Interesting. That explains something I was wondering about. Are you seeing what I’m seeing?’

‘I’m struggling to see anything right now, Mia.’

‘Then I don’t want to make sweeping statements since I’ve only been on the case for five minutes, but let me enlighten you. Your hair is naturally straight. The hair in this little batch isn’t. Why might thatbe?’

Frustration rose in Ella’s gut. ‘Mia, now’s not the time for one of your teaching moments. Just tell me what you’re thinking.’

‘Well, hair’s a funny thing. It changes when it's separated from its natural oils. Gets brittle. Starts curling in ways it never would naturally. Especially when it's been sitting in one place for months, gathering dust and grease and God knows what else. See how it's matted here? This hair’s been sitting somewhere, collecting dust, getting tangled. The cuticles start to raise when that happens. Like tiny scales lifting up along each strand. That's why it looks frizzy and unnatural.’

Ella leaned closer, studying the brittle, lifeless strands. ‘You sure?’

‘Thirty years in this game, you learn a lot about hair samples, but that’s not the interesting part. ‘Look at how these strands are clustered together. See how they're all roughly the same length, how they're tangled at one end but relatively clean at the other?’

‘Yeah. You mean…?’ Ella trailed off as understanding began to dawn. ‘This killer didn’t pluck these hairs off my head.’

‘No. This killer has your hairbrush, Dark. And they've had it long enough for the hair to degrade like this.’

Hairbrushes. How many did she own? The paddle brush she kept by her bathroom sink. The purple round brush that lived in her travel bag. The emergency mini-brush perpetually lost somewhere in the depths of her purse. The wooden detangler Luca had bought her that she'd left - where? Her desk at HQ? Her locker? Her perfect memory was suddenly fuzzy around this mundane detail. When was the last time she'd noticed one missing? Had she ever?

It was the curse of her professional life. Able to recall every detail of every crime scene she'd ever walked through, yet utterly blind to the migration patterns of her own everyday possessions.

The implications hit her like a slap. Someone had been in her space, rifling through her belongings, harvesting pieces of her for tools in a game of death. How long had this person been planning this, to get close enough to steal her hair without her noticing? And why go to such lengths to frame her, only to leave evidence pointing away from her guilt?

Before she could voice any of the questions cartwheeling through her brain, Edis cleared his throat. Ella startled; she'd almost forgotten he was there.

‘Mia. A word in my office?’

‘Now?’ Ripley arched an eyebrow.

‘Now.’ His tone left no room for argument. ‘Agent Dark, stay put. We won't be long.’

Ella watched them leave, and she was left with her thoughts and a bag of her own dead hair for company. She could only wonder how many more revelations would emerge from this day that had already lasted several lifetimes.

CHAPTER FIVE

Well, shit.

That was Mia Ripley's first thought as she followed Edis into his office. Her second thought was that someone had finally replaced that godawful painting of hunting dogs that used to hang behind his desk. Her third thought circled back to her first.

Five months of peace. Five months of gardening and actually seeing a member of her direct bloodline grow up rather than delegating responsibility to the dad. Five months of actually being at peace, and now here she was, dragged back into the belly of the beast like a dog return to its own vomit – all because Ella Dark couldn't stay out of trouble for five minutes.

---