Page 11 of Girl, Fractured

Ella turned the page and felt the air vacate her lungs.

Frank Sullivan sat dead in his recliner, looking for all the world like he’d fallen asleep watching late-night TV - except for the blood blooming across his stomach and his alien-like, dead-eyed stare.

Whatever those eyes were, they didn’t belong in a human face.

Then Ella realized exactly what she was staring at.

Two perfectly round white stones stared at the camera like gleaming marbles, nestled in the sockets where Sullivan’s eyes had been.

‘What the f….’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Ripley breathed.The words came out mangled, like they’d caught in her throat on the way up.Ella glanced over and saw something she’d never seen before - pure revulsion carved into her partner’s features.Ripley, who could crack jokes over dismembered bodies.Ripley, who ate lunch over autopsy photos.This had cracked her professional veneer like a hammer through glass.

‘I’m sorry,’ Edis said.‘It’s awful.’

‘They took his eyes.’

The effect was worse than empty sockets would have been.Those fake eyes gave Sullivan the appearance of perpetual, uncomprehending shock.The killer had taken Frank’s real eyes - the ones that had caught serial killers based on observations, the ones that had taught a generation of agents how to truly see people - and replaced them with these sterile imposters.

Ella quickly scanned the police report and found the info she needed.Offender evacuated victim’s eye sockets and inserted white alabaster stones (diameter of approx.1 inch) in place.

‘White stones,’ Ella said.Something snagged in the back of her mind, like a fishhook hitting the base of a muddy river.

She’d seen this signature before.

Maybe she’d encountered it during one of her research deep dives, perhaps during her Academy days.A footnote in a textbook, a passing reference in a lecture.The seventies?A murder with a stones-in-eyes finale.

Ripley rifled through the crime scene photos then asked, ‘Will, is this an isolated case?’

‘Yes.Frank is the only victim, but given his connection to the Bureau, I feel it’s best if we take over.The Sheriff’s Office have already invited us in.’

‘Who else knows about this?’

‘No one.And I want to keep it that way.Hence the home visit.’

Ella had lost herself in the photographs.Judging by the close-ups, Frank Sullivan had been killed with a bullet to the stomach.The trail of blood from the middle of the living room to his chair suggested the killer had dragged him into position and staged him.There was minimal blood around the eye sockets, just the inevitable crusty skin that came with enucleation, which meant that all ocular mutilation had taken place post-mortem.A small mercy.

And it was all oddly familiar.

‘This isn’t new,’ Ella said.

Ripley looked up sharply.‘What?’

‘The white stones.There was a case.A long time ago.’Ella’s voice trailed off as she sifted through mental archives.For once, her perfect memory was no help.She hadn’t committed the specifics to long-term storage, just caught a glimpse of them in passing.Unfortunately, her memory didn’t work like a surveillance camera.It was a biological algorithm that prioritized based on attention, emotion, and conscious focus.Cases she worked directly burned themselves into her neural pathways, but cases she’d merely studied existed more in a hierarchy of retention.

‘There are 50 homicides a day in this country.Chances are it might sound similar to something.’

‘No.It’s…’ Ella quickly realized that now wasn’t the time for hypothesizing.She ditched that train of thought.‘Any sign of forced entry at Sullivan’s place?’

Edis said, ‘I don’t know the finer details.That’s why I want you in Florida by this afternoon.There’s a flight at one.’

‘Me?’Ella asked.‘I never even met Sullivan.’

‘Exactly.You can stay detached from all this.’

Ripley snapped her folder shut.‘I’m going too.’

‘Mia, I came to inform you, not to drag you back again.You shouldn’t be anywhere near this.’

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