Page 80 of Girl, Accused

‘We'll be right behind you,’ Ella said. ‘We’ve got a flight in two hours.’

‘Alright. For what it's worth, you're welcome back anytime. Preferably when no one's being branded.’

‘We appreciate it. Good luck with everything.’

Westfall disappeared down the staircase and left them in silence. Ella looked out at Granville. ‘It’s been a funny old case, hasn’t it?’

‘You can say that again. Ready to get going? I can get us business class on the way back.’

‘Can you?’

‘Yeah. Edis is paying.’

‘Sounds good.’

They descended the spiral staircase in silence. Each step carried them further from the moment suspended between sky and earth, back to solid ground where cases ended and paperwork began. Back to a world where serial killers quoted scripture, corrupt politicians milked their towns dry and the good guys didn't always win.

But sometimes they caught the monster before the body count hit double digits.

Ella counted that as victory enough.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

Airports at night existed in a peculiar suspended animation. The janitor had mopped the floor around gate C12 twice in the past hour, but the smell of chemicals only intensified rather than faded. Ella wondered if the airport used the same brand they sprayed at crime scenes to mask death's sweet decay. A different packaging, perhaps, but the same active ingredients.

The departures board flickered and their flight to D.C. slipped another twenty minutes into the future. Weather in Virginia, the gate agent explained.

Ella shifted on the molded plastic seat. Her body had cataloged the past seventy-two hours in bruises and stiffness. A violet mark bloomed on her skull where Sister Mary had slammed the trapdoor on her head. There were four parallel scratches traced her left cheek where the nun's nails had raked her skin. Her shoulders burned from the desperate scramble up the cooling tower.

‘First rule of airports,’ Ripley said, not looking up from her magazine. ‘Whatever time they tell you, add an hour.’

‘We should get home by about midnight.’

‘Great. I can catch up on the Apprentice.’

Ripley organizing her life around television. Ella never thought this day would come. ‘So. First case back from retirement. How'd it feel?’

Ripley flipped a page in her magazine with such deliberate nonchalance that it betrayed her. ‘Like riding a bicycle with square wheels.’

‘That bad?’

‘Not bad. I was just… off my game.’

‘Come again? How so?’

‘Don’t pretend like you don’t know.’

‘Could have fooled me. You took down Sister Mary on a six-inch beam sixty feet up.’

‘That's muscle memory. I'm talking about here.’ Ripley tapped her temple. ‘The detection part. The seeing through bullshit part. I believed Canton's confession too easily. We wasted too much time on him.’

‘We all did.’

‘You didn't. You had doubts from the beginning. I should have too.’

‘I had my doubts too. I’m just more stubborn than you.’

‘Never thought I’d hear that.’

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