Page 81 of Girl, Fractured

‘Got it.Business was registered in 2018.Owner is a Robert Lawrence.’

That had to be right.Webb had said:It’s just Robert and a couple of staff members now.Like I said, he’s struggling.We both are.

‘Could you run the name on the database?’

‘One sec.’

She paced a circle around her car, because she needed to offset this adrenaline spike somehow.She tried not to think of Ripley, out in God knows where, chasing down Webb without a gun at her disposal.It wasn’t like she couldn’t kick Webb’s ass with her eyes closed, but if Sarah had a weapon, it distorted the odds significantly.

‘Got a Robert Lawrence out in Spring Orchard, about five miles from where you are.’

‘Address me up.’

‘Hold on.’Bauer muttered.‘This isn’t right.’

‘What is it?’

More typing.‘Uhh… There’s something majorly weird here.’

Ella jumped into the driver’s seat.‘Don’t make me beg, Sheriff.’

‘It’s just… this Robert Lawrence fella.He was only born a few years ago.’

‘Come again?If he’s three years old, you’ve got the wrong Robert Lawrence.’

‘No, he’s 37, but his filings only begin in 2018.Like he was grown in a lab at age 30.’

‘How’s that possible?What about tax records, birth certificates, school records.’

‘All empty prior to 2018.’

Ella’s brain fired like a faulty sparkplug.‘People don’t just materialize out of thin air.’

‘Tell that to Robert Lawrence.’

‘I can, if you tell me where he lives.’

‘1488 Spring Orchard.Apartment 7.’

Ella plugged the address in the GPS.Ten minutes away, if she ignored lights and speed limits.The digital dashboard read 9:00 PM.Green numbers, unnaturally bright.Marking time in neat little boxes while somewhere in the Florida night, Ripley – who should’ve been putting her grandkid to bed instead of chasing killers – might be running out of it.

‘Monitor the Ripley situation, sheriff.I’m going to pay Sarah’s boyfriend a visit.’

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

Forty years ago, when Ripley first slid behind the wheel of a car, her father had warned her: ‘Speed is the devil’s handshake.’Tonight, she was squeezing that hand for all it was worth.

Ahead, about two hundred yards down Route 60, Sarah Webb’s silver Nissan bobbed and weaved through sparse late-night traffic.At this hour, the roads had emptied of tourists and commuters, which meant Sarah could push that Japanese tin can to its limits.But Ripley had eight cylinders of American muscle under her foot.Physics was on her side, even if justice seemed to be taking a rain check.

The Nissan fishtailed as Sarah took a hard right.Ripley followed suit.For a split second, the cruiser’s back end threatened to swing wide, but Ripley countered with a sharp adjustment.The vehicle straightened while her heartbeat jackhammered against her ribs.

This is stupid, Mia.You’re too old for this cowboy crap.The thought, unbidden, slithered into her mind.She saw Max’s chubby-cheeked smile, her son’s worried frown, the comfortable armchair in her living room that she might never see again.For a split second, the image was so vivid and achingly real, that her foot eased off the accelerator.

Screw that,she thought.This bitch wasn’t getting away.Mia had spent her life getting rid of the bad guys to make the world a better place for her family, and this case had confirmed something she knew deep down – the only way she’d stop doing this job was if frailty or death intervened.

Yes, another bad guy might take the place of the one she put in the ground, but Ripley wasn’t just punching a clock here.Every scumbag she took down was a message.It was her way of shouting into the void:You do your worst, and someone, somewhere, will hunt you down and fuck you up for it.It was her small, violent contribution to the eternal, bloody cycle of good versus evil, and she’d be damned if she let Sarah Webb write the final chapter.

The gap between the vehicles had narrowed now.Eighty yards.Seventy.Close enough for Ripley to make out the shape of Sarah’s head, still facing forward, still pretending she was just a writer who’d punched a serial killer and helped catch a bad guy.What a performance she’d put on.Ripley’s mind flashed an image of Frank Sullivan nailed to his recliner, stones where his eyes should have been.Diana Jewell, headless in her koi pond.Thomas Webb, crucified to a chair in his own office.

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