Page 56 of Girl, Fractured

Ripley spotted a coffee shop beside the library, and she hated it immediately.It was one of those aggressively modern places with brushed metal furniture, despite the chalkboard sign outside saying; ‘We Don’t Have Wi-Fi.Pretend It’s 1998.’No thanks.That was a year she’d rather forget.

Her quick sweep of the library exterior hadn’t magically made the phantom that was Michael Brooks appear.There were still two plainclothes officers keeping an eye out, one male and one female, both young enough to still believe in the system.Inside, Ella and Sarah Webb were sitting side by side, thick as thieves.Ripley hated the small, petty tug of jealousy that it created.She was too old for that playground crap.But there it was anyway, gnawing at her like a rat on drywall.

Maybe coffee would help.Or coffee with whiskey, if this hipster place was willing to Irish things up a bit.

Ripley pushed open the glass door and a startlingly-cheerful bell jingled overhead.The place was deserted inside.A sign by the register listed coffee varieties from countries Ripley couldn’t locate on a map without squinting.

Then a sudden thought pinballed through her mind.Maybe Ripley could put her preconceived notions behind her and bring coffees back for both Ella and Webb.A peace offering.The author had given them intel on the White Whalers without hesitation; the kind of intel that would have taken Ella and Ripley all day to dredge up.Webb had volunteered to be bait in a stakeout, and unlike most civilians who inserted themselves into investigations, she hadn’t once mentioned payments or movie rights.

Ripley found herself almost regretting her earlier hostility, but not quite.Okay, the woman wrote about dead people for a living, a job Ripley fundamentally distrusted, but that wasn’t an automatic character indictment.Frank himself had been obsessed with Jennifer Marlowe for nearly fifty years.Obsession recognized obsession.

The counter stood empty.Ripley tapped her knuckles on the wood.‘Hello?Anyone in?’

A door swung open behind the counter, and a man emerged from what looked like a storage area.Early thirties, average height, dark hair that fell across his forehead.Wire-rimmed glasses perched on a nose that was just slightly too large for his face, which threw the bland symmetry slightly off-kilter.The man wiped his hands on a dishtowel.

‘Sorry, but we closed at four.’

Ripley glanced at the door, then back to the barista.‘Then why was the door open?’

‘Yeah, I’m just waiting on a delivery at five.’He tucked the rag into his apron pocket and leaned against the counter.

The explanation sat there.Simple enough.Ripley almost leaned forward and utilized her older woman charm to get three coffees anyway.Maybe she could throw him a tip or – God forbid – flirt with him.Judging by the romance books she’d been reading back in the library, the older-woman-younger-man dynamic was all the rage.

But something stopped her.The way he leaned was too casual, like he was an actor playing the part of relaxed barista.How he kept looking to the door, then the espresso machine, then his apron.Anywhere but directly at her face for more than a second?

Nerves?Social ineptitude?

Hiding something?

Ripley let her gaze linger.She didn’t speak.She just looked.Decades of reading rooms, reading faces, reading the subtle tells of deception screamed louder than the quiet hiss of the coffee machine.

Images of a familiar face flashed in her mind’s eye.One she’d seen for the first time two hours ago.

On a printout given to her by the library manager.

Ripley felt her phone vibrate in her pocket.She kept her eyes locked on the man while fishing it out one-handed, thumb swiping across the screen to reveal a text from Ella:

Brooks just emailed the group.He has to be here.

Two jigsaw pieces suddenly connected.The emails sent to the White Whale email group had been traced back to the library’s IP address.Ripley was no tech expert, but she knew that IP addresses were determined by routers, and ergo Wi-Fi connections.

And this coffee shop didn’t have Wi-Fi.

Ripley’s blood ran cold.

Because the man who had gouged out Frank Sullivan’s eyes stood three feet away from her, separated only by a thin countertop.

‘Everything okay?’Brooks asked with a tremor to his voice.‘Maybe I could… knock up something for you real quick?’

Her mentor.Her friend.Dead because of this – barista?

‘Michael Brooks?’

He suddenly drained of color.Michael Brooks – or whatever his name was – suddenly stood up ramrod straight.Guilt had its own body language, and Brooks had instantly become fluent in it.

‘Excuse me?’

‘You heard me.Are you Michael Brooks?’

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