Page 76 of Girl, Accused

But her relief was momentary, because Sister Mary spilled straight out of the wreckage.

She tumbled once, twice, then scrambled upright despite physics' best arguments against it. Her body was no doubt operating on adrenaline and survival instinct now, which was a dangerous cocktail that defied human limitations. In the distance, Ella saw blood streaming down the woman’s face.

Ella's hand recalibrated the Glock, but only two bullets remained in the magazine. Two chances at a moving target in fading light. Statistics weren't on her side.

She needed a clearer shot.

Sister Mary was already a black shape dissolved into the dusk. She was heading for the only escape route available: the power station. She had maybe fifty feet on Ella, running full tilt toward six million dollars worth of municipal corruption.

Ella's boots hit gravel, then grass, then back to gravel. Sister Mary threaded through the construction site like she'd memorized the layout. Front-end loaders and cement mixers were frozen mid-task, waiting for morning to reanimate them. Fences of scaffolding that threw latticed shadows in the security lights. The worker bees had disappeared, leaving just two women and the violence between them.

Ella's lungs burned clean oxygen into carbon dioxide. She gained ground with each second, but Mary still had too much of a lead. Up ahead, Mary reached a squat concrete building. Some kind of control center or monitoring station. She yanked the door open and disappeared inside.

Ella slowed her approach. Doorways meant ambush. They were fatal funnels that had ended plenty of law enforcement careers. She flattened herself against the wall, drew her last breath of evening air, and pivoted inside with her Glock leading.

The building surprised her. It wasn't a control center at all but a base station for what she guessed would be the power plant's main cooling tower. A concrete spire rose up from its center, and inside, a spiral staircase wound around the tower's hollow core.

And Mary was already halfway up it.

‘Nowhere to go, Mary!’

Ella’s forehead burned with sweat. When killers like Sister Mary went up, they tended to come down at terminal velocity. She suddenly thought of Luca, who was on leave because he’d found himself in this very situation a few days ago.

Mary kept climbing. Her shoes clanged against metal treads.

Ella followed. The staircase went up and up like a dizzying corkscrew into gloom. No windows broke the monotony, just occasional safety lights. Her thighs burned. Her bruised ribs screamed complaint. This was what madness must feel like, Ella thought – circling ever upward without reaching resolution.

But ahead, Mary's labored breathing gave Ella hope. The killer was tiring.

Then, without warning, the stairs ended. A rectangular opening cut into the wall revealed an evening sky. Ella emerged onto a construction platform that encircled the tower's upper edge.

And the world opened up.

Granville sprawled beneath her like a circuit board. The church where they'd started this chase was a distant toy. Streetlights traced the town's arteries in amber. Beyond that, darkness swallowed the countryside.

Sister Mary stood twenty feet away on a steel I-beam that bridged the gap between this platform and an identical one on the tower's opposite side. The drop below was sixty feet at minimum. Not certain death, but death was an option next to paralysis. No handrails. No safety nets. Just eight inches of metal separating solid footing from empty air.

Ella leveled her Glock. The distance was optimal now. Close enough for accuracy, far enough to react if Sister Mary charged. The wind at this height tugged at her clothes.

‘Stop,’ Ella commanded. ‘Mary, there's nowhere to go.’

Mary turned. Blood had washed off her mask of foundation to reveal a real W branded in her skin.

‘I can go to God,’ she said.

‘Not like this. Step off the beam or I’ll shoot.’

Sister Mary took another step further out onto the beam, testing either Ella's nerve or God's patience. ‘No you won’t. You need me.’

‘What?’

‘I’m valuable. I destroyed all of the evidence. You’re not recording me. Without my confession, you have no case. And if you shoot, I’ll fall to my death. Then what?’

Sister Mary’s delusion was right there on display. Her murder weapon and branding iron were both back in her home, both likely teeming with DNA evidence.

But even so, Mary woman was right. Even after four murders, the rulebook said to take Mary alive. Justice through courts, not gunfire. At this height, a bullet in the leg was a death sentence.

‘Come back from the beam, Mary. Let's talk this through.’

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