Page 67 of Girl, Fractured

The phone slipped from Ella’s fingers.Her feet carried her across Thomas Webb’s pristine lawn as her hands found her weapon.A killer’s algorithm flashed through her mind: 4.2 seconds for the average person to die from catastrophic blood loss.2.9 seconds for a trained agent to cross thirty feet of lawn.The numbers didn’t lie, and they said that whatever Sarah Webb had found in her dad’s house was too late to be saved.

Ella reached the door, and the screaming continued from inside.It held none of the theatrical peaks and valleys of movie screams.This was what happened when the human mind encountered something it was never meant to process.

She burst inside with her heart unforgivingly bashing her ribcage.She found Sarah Webb pinned to the wall in terror, staring at a trail of red on the carpet.The blood pattern told a simple story; someone was stabbed here, and then dragged down the hallway.

‘Stay back,’ she ordered Sarah.‘Don’t touch anything.’

Sarah remained frozen, hypnotized by the crimson arterial spray.‘But… My dad… Please don’t...’

Ella followed the trail Glock-first.The presence of blood permeated air, along with what a distant part of Ella’s brain recognized as cooked meat.Chicken?Spices?The strange concoction suggested that whatever had happened here had happened very recently.At the end of the hallway, outside a locked door, the blood pool thickened.The doorknob boasted another red mark, this one as fresh as they came.

The adrenaline burned so much that Ella didn’t sense a hysterical Sarah creeping up behind her.Not until it was too late.The woman was shaking, barely able to keep herself upright.She lunged for the doorknob with a frenzied cry.

‘Sarah, don’t!’

Too late.Sarah pushed her way in.

It opened into what appeared to be a home office.The reek of concentrated blood hit her first, much heavier than out in the hallway.Then the shadows resolved into shapes.Then the shapes became comprehensible.Then comprehension became horror.

Chair.Man.Blood.

No, not just a man in a chair.Thomas Webb, Ella presumed, had been nailed into his seat.

Hands on the armrests with nails piercing both flesh and wood.Two more driven through the arches of his bare feet into the hardwood floor.

‘Dad!’The word tore from Sarah’s throat, reduced to its most elemental form.A child’s plea for the impossible.

Ella caught Sarah as her knees buckled and she collapsed.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Ella stared at Thomas Webb, who in turn stared at nothing.His mouth was slightly open as if he’d been interrupted mid-sentence.The railway spikes – four inches of industrial-grade steel, according to the forensic tech – had been driven through his palms and feet and secured him eternally to his wooden office chair.

By the time Ripley arrived at the scene, Thomas Webb had been dead for at least an hour.Now, they stood on either side of the corpse while techs swept the hallway outside.Upon closer scrutiny, they’d found that Thomas Webb was also missing his pinky finger on his left hand.

‘It’s another copycat murder,’ Ella said.

‘Is it?’

‘Yeah.I recognize it.’

‘Which one?’

Ella began to circle the body.This unsub certainly had an iron stomach, she’d give him that.The nails that severed Thomas Webb’s hands didn’t look like they’d gone in easily.‘1986, Miami.Victim was an old man, found exactly like this.Nails through hands and feet, pinky finger cut off.That makes a pair of eyeballs, an entire head, and now a pinky finger.’

‘Maybe he’s trying to Frankenstein a whole human being.’

‘Doubt it.These elements were all present in the original crime scenes too.He’s just following a blueprint, but why?’

‘Well, that’s the least of our worries,’ Ripley said.‘You been in the kitchen?’

‘Yup.’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think…’ Ella bent down and inspected the foot-nails.The heads were flush with Thomas Webb’s skin.She prayed that Thomas wasn’t alive to endure the pain of this amateur crucifixion.‘I don’t know what I think.I just know that no serial killer in history has even decided to cook a chicken dinner in a victim’s oven.’

‘Right, and the timer on the oven has elapsed 1 hour, 26 minutes, and that chicken hasn’t burned to a crisp.’

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