Page 82 of Girl, Accused

‘You didn't miss a beat.’

‘That's what scares me.’

Ella turned to face her former partner. Or current partner. She wasn’t sure. ‘So why did you come back for this case? I still don’t understand.’

A flight announcement crackled over the intercom, smothering a dozen conversations in electronic static. Their flight to D.C. was finally boarding.

Ripley stood, gathering her minimal belongings – a small carry-on that contained everything she'd needed to solve a quadruple homicide. Efficiency had always been her particular talent.

‘Me neither,’ she said.

Ella guessed that the devil you knew was sometimes better than the one you were trying to forget. It wasn't yes. But it wasn't no either. And with Mia Ripley, the absence of absolute refusal was as close to enthusiasm as anyone was likely to get.

A peculiar hollowness opened beneath Ella's ribs as she watched Ripley gather her things. It was some grotesque hybrid emotion that sprouted in the no-man's-land between selfish desire and genuine love. Ella wanted her partner back, yet the image of Max's chubby fingers clutching toy dinosaurs haunted her with unexpected ferocity.

Maybe Max needed Riprip more than the world needed another profiler.

Ella smiled to herself and followed her partner toward the gate.

Some victories were permanent, some temporary. Ella had learned to count both as wins in a profession where true success remained forever just beyond reach.

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

Magnetic north kept shifting, and no one had bothered to tell Luca. Massachusetts was supposed to be a place where time stopped and memories froze solid. That was the promise of childhood homes – you left, they waited. Instead, Luca found himself in a house full of ghosts that refused to keep still.

He slouched in his mother's armchair. It was the one she'd refused to part with after his father died. He stared at the wall of family photos like they were suspects in a lineup and his own face stared back at him from a dozen different ages – gap-toothed at six, awkward at thirteen, that brief period at twenty-two when he thought sideburns were a good idea.

The kitchen was too clean. The living room too orderly. The photographs on the mantel had multiplied since his last visit. His niece's graduation. His cousin's wedding. These important moments had been caught in amber and Luca had missed them because he was busy trying to reach the Special Agent rung of the Bureau ladder.

He downed the remainder of his drink and tried to think straight. Ella always said his coffee-to-blood ratio was concerning, and right now, he'd need an industrial transfusion to counteract the caffeine buzzing through his system.

The coffee wasn't working anyway. What he needed was clarity, not stimulants.

It had been 24 hours since he’d broken into his childhood home, and he’d planned to use this period of respite to do some groundwork for Ella. The problem was that while the intention was there, Luca’s leads were pathetically thin. Once he’d fired up the database and racked his brain for anything resembling a thread to pull, Luca had found that he had absolutely nothing to go on. No evidence, no suspects, not even a working theory.

All he knew was that two of Ella's allies had been found dead, and their mouths had been sewn shut with strands of her own hair. The victims were her landlord, Julianne, and her old roommate, Jenna. Luca had never met them and knew very little of them other than theirnames. No information about the crimes had reached any FBI databases, and Luca thought it a bad idea to contact Washington PD directly. If Edis was trying to get this case in-house, then the last thing he needed was Luca muddying the waters, especially given Luca's current status.

So here he was, the FBI's rising star, benched and brooding in his dead dad's discount Barcalounger. Some vacation this was shaping up to be.

He tapped his phone screen again. No new messages. No missed calls. The signal here was as temperamental as Massachusetts weather. One bar if you stood in the right corner of the living room, nothing if you moved three inches in any direction.

The old hinges on the front door screamed a warning before he heard his mother's key in the lock. Her suitcase wheel caught on the doorjamb, judging by the muttered ‘son of a bitch.’ Patricia Hawkins didn't curse often, but when she did, it came wrapped in a Boston accent thick enough to cut with a knife.

Luca rushed into the hallway to meet her. ‘Surprise Ma!’

A rustling of coats, the thud of bags being dropped. ‘Luca? What on earth…?’

Patricia Hawkins was sixty-one, with silver hair pulled back in a neat bob and the compact frame of someone who'd spent a lifetime refusing to yield ground. Jamaica had turned her pale New England complexion two shades darker and sprinkled fresh freckles across her nose. She looked like what she was: a retired nurse who'd earned every line on her face through decades of night shifts.

‘That’s the greeting I get?’

‘Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,’ she breathed. ‘You about gave me a heart attack. What are you doing here? Is everything okay?’

‘You didn’t get my texts?’

Patricia pulled out her cell and tapped her knuckles on the screen. ‘Damn thing died on me. I’ve been in Jamaica. Why didn’t you call?’

Luca raised an eyebrow. ‘How can I call you if your phone is broken?’

---