Page 14 of Girl, Fractured

‘Every word.Once the USB hits max capacity at 120 hours, I transfer all of the recordings to my hard drive.’

‘So you’ve got, what, a terabyte of office gossip on your computer?’

‘It’s compressed, so about a hundred gig.It’s all saved by date too.What’s the point of having a big-dick hard drive if you’re not going to use it?’

‘Makes sense.And you said it goes back to at least spring?’

‘Yup.’

Ella handed the duck back to its rightful owner.His paranoid data-hoarding might be exactly what she needed.Trust Roady’s twisted genius to accidentally create the perfect solution.

‘Would you be able to find the date I came in here?In October?’

Roadrunner snapped his mammoth fingers.‘I can do exactly that.Might not be today because I’m up to my ass in paperwork.Might take me a few hours to zip through all of the recordings too, but you can leave it with me.’

‘Road, you’re a lifesaver.Your compulsions might actually save my ass.’

‘Just doing my civic duty.And you know what the best part is?No one’s ever asked why I’ve got a wooden duck on my desk.’

‘No one?’

He shrugged.‘Nope.They just assume I’m having a midlife crisis, which I am.’

For all his eccentricities, Roadrunner’s brain operated with a precision most agents could only dream of.The Bureau bred conformity, but occasionally it let a true original slip through the psychological screening.Thank God for bureaucratic oversights.

‘You’re a hero.Let me know what Herbert coughs up.’

‘Should be with you by Wednesday, unless the world ends.’

Two days.Ella could work with that.She pivoted to make her exit, but Roadrunner’s voice made her spin.‘Ells, you ever miss this place?For real?’

The question caught her off-guard.She’d never really thought about it.Never had time to.She always thought that just putting one step in front of the other was preferable than planning out your potential career path step by step.

‘Like I said, the basement never graduates you.If I end up back here one day, I’d be fine with that.’

‘Good to hear it.’

Her phone buzzed.Ripley was en route to the airport.

Florida awaited, with a dead profiler with stones for eyes.

CHAPTER SIX

Prior to boarding the plane bound for Florida, a thorough search of the FBI database had given the name Ella craved: Jennifer Marlowe.

Marlowe was a young woman who’d been killed in her home in Palm Harbor, Florida – the same town Frank Sullivan retired to – in 1976.A bullet wound to the stomach had sealed her fate, and some deep part of Ella’s brain was sure that Jennifer Marlowe’s eyes had been replaced with white stones.

But up here in the sky, altitude must have numbed her brain.Thirty thousand feet made everything below seem toy-sized and unreal.That’s what Ella told herself as any further scrutiny into the case came up empty.The plane’s WiFi crawled like a wounded insect, and each query timeout felt like another tiny betrayal by technology.

The information in front of her disputed her memories, because she could find no mention of such mutilation being inflicted upon Jennifer Marlowe’s eyes.All she could find was the victim’s name and the basic details of her death.

‘Why can’t I find anything about this stones-in-eyes case from 1976?’

Ripley’s eyes cracked open.She was leaning against the window opposite her.‘You’re still on that?’

‘It’s there.I know it’s there.The victim’s name was on the tip of my tongue – Jennifer Marlowe – but these old articles just say she was shot in the stomach.Even our database doesn’t mention anything else.’

‘Was it an FBI case?’

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