Page 12 of Girl, Fractured

‘Nonsense.I need to find out who killed Frank.’

‘This case-’

‘Has my name written all over it,’ Ripley cut in.From the baby monitor came the soft rustling sounds of a child turning over in sleep.Ripley turned to it, froze, and when no cry followed, she continued.‘Why would someone kill Frank?’

Ella had a few ideas, some more plausible than others.‘Because he was a career cop, and career cops make lots of enemies.’

‘Or,’ Ripley tapped her folder, ‘someone is picking off the old guard.The guys from the eighties and nineties.How many are still alive?’

‘Five.Including you,’ Edis said.

Ella considered this sudden theory with careful skepticism.One body didn’t make a pattern, just a data point, yet Ripley’s fear had a certain logic to it.It was a professional paranoia.If it happened to someone like me, it could happen to me.She saw the determination in Ripley’s body language too.For her, it was probably like looking into a mirror and seeing your mortality laid bare.Frank Sullivan’s death was proof that even legendary profilers died someday.

‘Ripley should come with me,’ Ella said.‘Will, I know you like to keep us away from personal cases, but…’

‘It’s never that easy,’ Ripley finished.She gave Ella a look that contained equal parts gratitude and suspicion, as if she couldn’t quite believe Ella was taking her side so easily.‘I’m getting on that plane either as a consultant or civilian.’

Ella watched the calculations play across Edis’s face.He had that look bureaucrats got when they were about to cave but wanted to make it seem like their idea.Like they were granting a favor instead of surrendering to the inevitable.

‘Sending both of you creates vulnerabilities,’ he said.

‘And keeping us apart creates blind spots,’ Ripley countered.She’d regained her composure now, slipping back into the veteran agent who could argue Bureau policy like she’d written it herself.‘Frank taught me better than to shy away.’

Edis sighed through his nose.He glanced around the room like he was looking for a hidden exit.

‘Fine,’ he surrendered.‘Same deal as last time.No badge, no gun.Just your brain, yes?’

‘Perfect.’Ripley checked her watch.‘My son gets home in an hour or two.I can be ready for then.’

‘Very well.I don’t need to tell you that we need to keep this under wraps.I don’t want anyone else knowing about Frank’s murder, at least until we have a handle on it, clear?’

‘Crystal,’ Ripley said.Her gaze drifted to the baby monitor.The thought remained unspoken but clear as daylight: another goodbye to Max, another promise she might not be able to keep.Profilers made terrible grandparents, because they knew too precisely the statistics on safe returns.

‘Also crystal,’ said Ella.

‘Good.Keep me in the loop.’

Ella watched Edis’s posture subtly shift as he settled into his decision.The director might present his reservations, but Ella knew he secretly craved this.Just a week ago, he was begging the dream team to reunite, now he was pretending hedidn’twant them to investigate a high-profile killing.Ella never understood his need to put up a front.

The director gathered his belongings.Ella got hers too.She only had a few hours before she needed to be at the airport, and she still had a stop to make.

‘Mia, I’ll meet you at Reagan in a couple of hours.I just need to go see someone.’

CHAPTER FIVE

Here in the basement lived the tangled roots of the FBI itself.The Intelligence Department.The Bureau’s brain stem.Funny how that worked, because this place was Ella’s roots too.She’d spent five years here, and while some people got nostalgic about returning to their roots, Ella just got itchy skin.Not out of any hatred for her old job, but because the first thing that came to mind were the endless nights with dry eyes and stuffy air for company.

But today she needed what this place had always been good at – cold, hard facts.

Her fingers brushed the metal railings as she descended the stairs.Walking into this office always felt like visiting an ex after they’d forgotten to return your favorite sweater.This was a place that knew her secrets but no longer kept them.Some agents treated Intelligence like the Bureau’s stepchild; that weird kid who lived in the basement and knew a little too much about things they shouldn’t know about.

But that was the thing about roots: they weren’t pretty, but they kept everything else from falling over.Just like Intelligence kept the Bureau’s arteries flowing with data while the glory hounds upstairs took all the credit, and she included herself in that group.

Her old desk was her first port of call.She passed by a few familiar faces en route and gave them the nod.She found her old monitor staring back at her with its black, vacant eye, and the layer of dust on her keyboard suggested that nobody had claimed her territory after she’d moved upstairs.Either out of respect or, more likely, because the Bureau’s legendary bureaucracy hadn’t processed the paperwork to reassign it.

She popped open the desk drawer, found it unsurprisingly empty save for a paper clip and what might have been the desiccated corpse of an old pencil.She took a moment to admire the emptiness, but then the sound of tortured furniture snapped her back to the present day.The chair next to her desk released an ungodly screech as a mountain of a Hawaiian-shirted man descended into it.Physics protested, then surrendered.

Roadrunner had arrived.

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