Page 23 of Girl, Accused

‘Westfall, gloves me,’ Ripley said.

'Here.' He passed the agents a pair of latex gloves each. Ella snapped hers on, then bent down to inspect the remains of Evelyn Summers. Ripley did the same.

‘Look at the flesh around this branding,’ said Ripley.

‘It’s black at the edges. So our killer held it in place for what, five seconds?’

‘Yeah. And it’s perfectly embedded in there. The branding iron didn’t slip.’

‘Meaning he branded her postmortem. An alive victim would have squirmed.’

‘We can rule out sadism. He wasn’t getting off to her pain. Death was the goal here.’ Ripley looked up and caught Ella’s eye.

‘So he’s on a mission. Eliminate them, leave his calling card behind.’

Westfall stepped closer. ‘What calling card?’

‘The branding is his calling card.’ Ella scanned her memory bank for Ohio serial killers for comparison. ‘Like how Herb Baumeister kept his victims’ clothing, or how the Mad Butcher decapitated his kills postmortem. It's not just about killing, it’s about addressing a specific fantasy.’

‘Is that what you guys call a signature?’

'No. Ritual.' Ella stood and faced the detective. 'A signature is what a killer does to get emotional satisfaction, but the ritual is the component that isn't necessary for the murder itself. The killer doesn't need to brand these victims. A cutthroat does the job just fine. The branding tells uswhythey're doing this.’

‘And why’s that?’

‘I don’t know yet, and first we needto figure out thehow.’ Ella glanced at the room and landed on the fireplace in the corner. She walked over to it. It was stone hearth, wrought iron grating. More decoration than utility in a therapist's office, but fully functional judging by the blackened-albeit- ornamental coals inside.

Ripley looked over. ‘Gas fireplace in a log cabin?’

‘Yeah, there are gas canisters outside,’ said Westfall. ‘I guess psyche degrees don’t always equal common sense.’

Ella pushed the knob, twisted it, and heard the gas seep through. A lighter sat beside the fireplace. 'Works just fine. This is how our unsub heated his branding iron. Which again means he knew there was a fireplace here.'

‘We need to check all of Miss Summers’ clients. Her cleaner. Anyone who might have stepped foot in this place before.’

Ella paced the room and let her mind slip into that liminal space between observation and intuition. On one end of the spectrum, a college professor. On the other, a psychologist. Both professionals, both educators in their own way. Both are marked with letters that might mean everything or nothing.

Her feet carried her in widening circles around Summers' body until she ended up behind the psychologist’s desk. Degrees and certificates crawled up the wall behind it, and the careful arrangement of everything suggested a mind who believed in the power of order, who thought the right word in the right moment could tame any demon.

Ella processed the connection. Words. Language. A literature professor and a psychologist. Two people who thought they could manipulate reality through language, and now this killer was distilling them down to single letters.

But then something caught Ella’s eye - a hardcover book on the corner of the desk.

Not the corner that would be closest to the client. The corner closest to where Summers must have sat.

Breaking the Cycle: New Approaches to Treating Narcissistic Personality Disorderby Dr. Evelyn Summers, PhD.

Ella picked it up, noting the pristine jacket, the professional headshot on the back that showed Summers as she'd been in life; helmet-hair perfect, smile calculated to the millimeter. The book jacket promisedgroundbreaking insights into the epidemic of narcissistic personality disorder in an age of social media and self-promotion.

‘Mia, Summers was an author. She wrote a book.’

Ripley momentarily glanced up from the body. ‘And kept it right there on her desk? Talk about vanity.’

‘Yeah. I’m just wondering why she didn’t place it front and center, or frame the dust jacket.’

‘Maybe she never got round to it.’

Ella flipped through the pages, scanning chapter titles:The Narcissistic Ecosystem, Breaking Through the Mirror, When Self-Love Becomes Self-Harm.She stopped at a short passage in Chapter Three and read aloud.

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