Page 25 of Girl, Fractured

Who knew her schedule?

Who knew the house layout?

Who hated her enough?

WHO PUT STONES IN HER EYES?

Reading these private thoughts felt like handling Frank’s exposed nerves.It was a methodical detective battling the limitations of evidence, the nascent profiler wrestling with a psychology he couldn’t quite grasp, and underlying it all, the simple human frustration of not knowingwhy.And this raw, handwritten dissection revealed more about Frank Sullivan than any official commendation ever could.

There were pages and pages like this.Theories built up, torn down.Suspect lists compiled, annotated, viciously crossed out.Timelines constructed, deconstructed.Diagrams of the house, the body, the stones.It went on and on in a loop of unresolved questions.Ella started to feel a prickle of unease.Ripley had insisted Frank was sharp to the end.But looking at this sheer volume of obsessive revisiting – could Ripley have been wrong?This didn’t seem like the work of a sharp mind.It felt like the work of one grinding itself down, trapped in an endless, fifty-year feedback loop.

The discomfort of witnessing this detective’s psychological unravelling momentarily blindsided her, and she nearly missed it.Near the end of the stack, she found a note dated just six weeks ago.Frank’s handwriting had become steadier, as if he’d suddenly found clarity.

Met with Cole today (10/28).Tried to discuss Marlowe case again.Claims he ‘can’t recall details’ about initial canvas.LIES.The man remembers what he ate for breakfast thirty years ago.What is Ramsey hiding??He saw what I saw.If he’s lying now, what was he lying about then?

Ella stared at the name.Met with Cole today.What is Ramsey hiding?

Ramsey Cole?Who was that?The name had cropped up earlier, during the police report.Ella flipped back and scanned until she found the name again.

There it was, right in the preliminary notes.Ramsey Cole had been the second officer on the scene of Jennifer Marlowe’s murder.

The door swung open and brought a merciful waft of cooler air.The exposure to the slightly cooler hallway hadn’t done much; Ripley still looked flushed.

‘Find anything in Frank’s file?’she asked.

Ella glanced back at the disorganized piles of Frank’s obsessive documentation.The man had clearly been consumed by this case, possibly to the point of compromised judgment.Ella’s instinct was to tell Ripley everything, but her partner was already struggling with her mentor’s death.Adding ‘possible mental decline’ to the mix right now felt cruel.Maybe later.For now, the lead was the thing.

‘Maybe.Does the name Ramsey Cole mean anything to you?’

‘No.Should it?’

‘According to his notes, he was the responder on the Marlowe scene.’Ella tapped the most recent entry.‘And still in contact with Frank right up until the end.Frank met with him six weeks ago, and he thinks he’s hiding something.’

Ripley took a closer look.The expression that formed suggested her thoughts about Frank’s mental state mirrored her own.

‘Let me run the name,’ Ripley said.She opened up her laptop and hammered away.‘Got him.Ramsey Cole.78.Retired Palm Harbor PD, 1999.Lives in Clearwater.’

‘Anything else on him?’

‘Nothing notable, but… vehicle registration shows a 2015 Lexus, blue.’

‘Then it’s the guy who Frank was meeting with at his house.’

Ripley snapped her laptop shut.‘I don’t know what to think, but I know we need to pay this Cole guy a visit.’

CHAPTER NINE

Ramsey Cole lived in a pale yellow ranch-style house fifteen minutes from the beaches of Clearwater but a world away from the tourist chaos.His street was a slice of middle-class Florida retirement: sprinkler systems fighting the relentless sun, mailboxes shaped like manatees, and homes that all appeared to have been built within the same decade by the same developer with only minor variations to maintain the illusion of individuality.

Ella studied the house as Ripley parked across the street.Nice enough place.Solidly middle-class, retired-cop respectable.Security lights were mounted under the eaves.A small sticker for a home alarm system was affixed to a front window.Nothing screamed paranoia, but there was a certain vigilance about the property’s upkeep.A blue Lexus LS sat gleaming in the driveway, recently washed by the looks of it.Beside it, incongruously, was an older model sedan, maybe a Ford Crown Victoria, also meticulously clean, parked perfectly parallel.

A knot of skepticism formed in Ella’s gut.Ramsey Cole.Seventy-eight years old, according to the database.Frank Sullivan’s partner from the bad old days.Could a man that age really start a new hobby involving breaking and entering, gunshot murder, and post-mortem eye removal?Statistically, it was absurd.Homicide skewed young, but while murderers didn’t always adhere to demographics, the odds felt vanishingly small.It went against the grain of everything Ella knew about violent crime patterns.

And yet something niggled her about this.

Cole knew the Marlowe case intimately.He’d stood in that room with Frank, seen those stones.He was one of perhaps only a few living people who knew that specific detail.

Probability warred with proximity.Logic fought against Frank’s dying suspicion.Could Cole have hired someone?Could he be involved tangentially, providing information perhaps?Maybe Ramsey Cole had been a secret serial killer since the seventies?

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