Page 70 of Girl, Accused

The allure of symmetry was too much. The Confessor stepped out of the car, leaving Illinois and anonymity behind. The plan had changed, but that, too, was part of God's design. God's son hadn't planned to die on the cross. Sometimes salvation required adaptation.

Saint Augustine once wrote that envy was the diabolical sin. The one that turned brother against brother, that drove Cain to spill Abel's blood. The sin that believed another's gifts diminished one's own. These defenders of earthly law were all Cains at heart.

The detective moved around the corner. She disappeared.

Wasn't this how it was meant to be? The hand of fate guiding the Confessor's own? The detective's arrival couldn't be a coincidence. Itwas providence. But if the Confessor did this, would it secure Adam Canton's innocence?

A voice whispered from the most secret chambers of the Confessor's heart:Is it worth the risk? Why gamble everything now, when escape is within reach?

But the Confessor had not come this far to leave the job unfinished. Fate had presented this final opportunity. To ignore it was to spit in the face of divine will.

And there was always the chance the police would think this murder happenedpriorto Adam Canton’s capture.

The decision was made.

Time for the ultimate sin.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

Ripley double-checked the address scrawled on the post-it note stuck to her dashboard. 1587 Macbeth Drive. She scoffed. Naming streets after Shakespeare's plays was just asking for trouble, in her experience. Literature had a way of seeping into reality like that, especially when it came to the bloody stuff.

Her knees weren't what they used to be. That was the first coherent thought that passed through her mind as she climbed out of the borrowed sedan. The flight from D.C., the sleepless night last night, the hours spent standing over James Harper's corpse. They all conspired to remind her that retirement hadn't been an arbitrary decision. It had been her body's way of filing a formal complaint against decades of abuse.

The house at 1587 Macbeth Drive didn't look like a killer's lair. It sat behind a modest fence, and it was painted a shade of blue that erred on the side of forgettable. The winter-killed grass had been trimmed recently. Nothing about the place screamed 'serial murderer,' which meant it was perfect camouflage.

Or it meant Ella was wrong.

Ripley hadn't missed this part of the job. The approach to a suspect's door carried too many memories. Too many front steps that had turned into firefights. Too many ‘routine’ knocks that ended with her filing reports in hospital waiting rooms. What would this one bring? Fate had a way of getting her into altercations, even if the person on the business end of her fist turned out to be innocent.

She walked up the path to the front door. Westfall had offered to come along, but Ripley had told him she could handle this alone. Westfall had a station to run and officers to coordinate, especially with four bodies already on their hands. She’d borrowed a gun of him for the trouble, but it was to be used for intimidation purposes only.

She rang the doorbell first. Standard protocol. A beat passed. Two. No sound of movement inside, no flicker of shadow behind curtains. Next came the formal knock. Three sharp raps.

Standing here on Thomas Walsh’s doorstep, Ripley wondered if she’d made the right decision coming here. Not to this house, but to this state.

Retirement was supposed to feel like freedom. That's what everyone said - like shrugging off a lead vest, like finally exhaling after holding your breath for thirty years. But here, Ripley realized retirement was more like muscle atrophy. The longer you went without using certain skills, the more they withered. Until one day you needed them again, and your body remembered exactly what it had lost.

She shook the thought off. Back to the task at hand. She stepped back, scrutinized the house. There was a car in the driveway, but no other signs of life that Ripley could see. She walked around the side of the house and saw a fence.

‘Thomas Walsh? FBI. We need to speak with you.’

A part of her considered leaping the fence and taking a real look, but she was only here to appease Ella’s outlandish theories. It wasn’t worth it.

‘Looking for Tom?’

The voice startled her. Retirement had dulled her reflexes. A woman stood at the property line, wrapped in a quilted jacket that hung to her knees. She looked about seventy, with cropped silver hair and the pinched expression of someone who'd appointed herself neighborhood watch.

‘Yes,’ Ripley replied, instantly recalibrating. ‘We need to speak with him urgently.’

‘Well, you're about twelve hours too early.’ The woman stopped at the edge of Walsh's property line like an invisible barrier separated them. ‘He's not back until tomorrow.’

Ripley felt something cold that had nothing to do with December in Ohio. ‘Back from where?’

‘Italy. Florence, specifically.’ She pronounced it ‘Floor-ence’ with an extra syllable. ‘Spiritual retreat or something like that. Been gone a week.’

‘Huh. Are you sure?’

‘Sure as a heart attack.’

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