Page 10 of Girl, Fractured

‘Agent Hawkins is also cleared to return to duty.I’ve ordered Marshall to give him the news.’

Ella’s chest tightened.She didn’t want Luca back.Not yet.He was safer in Massachusetts, where a killer couldn’t find him so easily.

‘Cleared so soon?’

‘Yes.It was a formality.You know how these things work.Is that a problem?’

‘No, it’s just…’ Ella began, then stopped.How to explain that she wanted him back and away simultaneously?That missing him had carved a hollow space inside her that nothing else could fill, but that hollow space was preferable to finding him with his lips stitched together?‘Is that why you came?To tell me about Luca?You could have emailed.’

Edis opened his mouth to speak but footsteps announced Ripley’s return.She had a baby monitor in one hand.‘Max is down for about an hour.Will, what are you doing here?’

‘Take a seat, Mia.I’ve got some bad news.’

Ripley sat in a recliner chair and then cracked her neck.‘I’m too old for bad news, Will.’

‘Not quite.’Edis handed out his folders to Ella and Ripley.Ella took hers but didn’t open it.Judging by Edis’s body language, this seemed to be more about Ripley than her.It was only fair Ripley could have the honors of being the first to see what was in the file.

Ripley turned to the first page.Her breath seemed to hitch.‘Frank Sullivan?TheFrank Sullivan?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ Edis said.‘Responders discovered him dead at his home last night.’

Ella felt like an intruder on some private grief.The name Frank Sullivan meant nothing to her, but Ripley’s reaction registered like seismic activity on her partner’s typically unreadable face.Subtle shifts – pupils dilating, jaw muscles tightening, the slight forward lean of her shoulders.Whatever this was, it had punctured Ripley’s heart.Ella flipped open her own folder and found a standard police report, the kind she’d seen thousands of times, with its clinical language attempting to quantify the unquantifiable.

Victim: Frank Sullivan, 73

Location: Palm Harbor, Florida.

Cause of death: single GSW to the abdomen.

Time of death: between 10PM and 1AM.

Defensive wounds: none.

Ella looked up, aware of her own ignorance.‘I’m sorry, but who’s Frank Sullivan?’

Ripley’s expression bordered on disappointment.Like her star pupil had finally gotten a question wrong.

‘Frank was part of the original profiling crew back in the eighties.He pioneered behavioral science back when everyone else thought it was voodoo.He was one of the first agents to catch a suspect through profiling alone.’

‘Was he?’

‘Chicago Strangler, 1982.Frank profiled the unsub as a teacher.He noticed that all the victims had the same type of callus on their right thumb.It turned out they all played string instruments at the local university.Found the killer giving cello lessons two weeks later.Frank could read a suspect like a newspaper.’

‘Ah, yeah.I know that case.’Ella clicked her fingers, then turned back to the report in her lap.‘That’s our victim?’

‘Yes.Frank retired from the Bureau twenty years ago.Before my time, but he used to give seminars back when he was in good health.Mia, you knew him well, correct?’

The muscles in Ripley’s face performed a complicated dance.Not grief exactly, but something deeper and harder to categorize.It was a blend of emotions that had no name in any language Ella knew.

‘I was one of Frank’s last students before he retired.Then one day he was just gone.No big farewell or anything.Classic Frank.’

Now Ella understood where Ripley had gotten her own retirement protocol from.She too had vanished with merely the briefest of goodbyes.

‘Frank moved to Florida right after leaving the Bureau.He’s been there ever since.’

‘And now he’s dead.’Ripley spat the words, like she was putting herself out of her misery.

Edis watched Ripley with the careful attention of someone gauging how much weight a bridge could bear before breaking, then said, ‘But that’s not all.Please turn to the crime scene photos.These came in from Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office an hour ago.’

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