Page 41 of Girl, Fractured

Ella counted the houses.Three on each side with long driveways that disappeared into the darkness.Diana Jewell’s residence stood dead center on the left.It was a sprawling single-story ranch with a screened lanai visible from the road.The perfect middle house.

A cold spike of dread shot through her.Burglars and opportunists hit the end houses.Easier access, quicker escape routes, fewer potential witnesses looking outside windows.You didn’t pick a house buried deep in the middle of a street unless that specific house, that specific resident, was your intended destination.

Ella’s door was open before the car even screeched to a stop.She was out, up the porch and banging on Diana Jewell’s front door within a few heartbeats.

‘Diana, FBI!’

Ripley caught up, stood back and surveyed the house.‘No lights on anywhere.Any damage around the lock?’

Ella inspected it.‘No.Not here.’She banged on the door again and received no response.

‘Do it, Dark.’

Ella stepped back and took measured breaths.The door was solid wood, but the frame looked like standard contractor-grade pine.The weakest point would be near the lock, where the bolt met the strike plate.One good kick there and the frame would splinter.

‘Stand clear.’She positioned herself at arm’s length from the door, angled her body sideways.Plant foot back, strong foot forward.Channel the force through the heel, not the toe.The academy taught you to aim just beside the lock, where wood met metal.Physics did the rest.

The first impact jarred her knee but the frame held.The second kick connected with a sound like thunder, and something inside the wall cracked.Then wood splintered, and the door flew inward with enough force to bang against the interior wall.

‘Diana!’Ella rushed in and swept her weapon across the darkness.‘Where are you?’

Ripley emerged from behind and brought out her flashlight.It illuminated a small hallway.‘Clear the rooms.I’ll take-’

The comment died instantly, because both Ella and Ripley’s attention was drawn to the pool of blood at their feet.Way too much of it.The kind of volume that didn’t leave its owner alive.The trail of crimson led away from them toward a door that stood ajar at the end of the hallway.Beyond it, a rectangle of darkness yawned.

‘Basement,’ Ella breathed.The nausea bubbled up and threatened to overflow.She peered down into the blackness and steeled herself for what might be waiting for her.The anticipation was sometimes worse than the discovery.‘Stand back.’

‘Wait, Dark.Light switch.’Ripley dug around the wall, flicked the switch and bathed the room below in dark orange.

Ella saw the whole basement in a single frame.There were boxes, exercise equipment, a stone oven, a bulkhead door that was slightly ajar – and a blood trail that stopped in the middle of the room.

But no body.

She crept down the stairs, moved to the last few drops of blood.

There was something there.Gold at the end of the rainbow.

‘Mia.What’s that?’

Her partner caught up.‘A cufflink.Where the hell is Diana?’

A hundred thoughts fought for dominance, but one won out above the others.

Sarah Webb had said that Diana Jewell had a white whale case of her own.The case of the Ferryman; an uncaught serial killer from 2001.

Sometimes the worst part of being a profiler wasn’t predicting what a killer would do next.It was knowing exactly what they’d already done, and being too late to stop it.

‘I know exactly where Diana is.’

She left the cufflink undisturbed and made for the bulkhead door.Rain spat through the narrow gap where warped wood failed to meet the frame.Ella stepped over a steel chair and pushed her way out into the backyard with Ripley three steps behind.

The backyard was large, sloping gently away from the house.Landscaped beds dissolved into soggy mulch, and ornamental grasses bent low under the assault of wind and water.

But even through the downpour, Ella saw it.Toward the back of the property, nestled amongst cypress trees whose branches thrashed in the wind, was a rectangular pond.

Ella’s legs carried her forward while her mind screamed at her to stop.The surface churned with rain, but something else disturbed its depths.

Something pale.Something that shouldn’t be there.

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