Page 24 of Girl, Empty
The feed confirmed to Ella what Terrence had said, and she had no doubt that he was telling the truth in all of this.The man was not a killer.
Ripley tapped Ella on the shoulder.‘Dark, I’m confused as hell.Can you make any sense of this?’
She replayed the events in a linear sequence, and as improbable as it was, she couldn’t deny the evidence in front of her.Michael Rankin’s killer had disabled the security protocols in the building, and blanked out each camera that he passed by one by one.
And after the deed was done, he’d somehow drawn a pentagram on the victim’s computer.
‘No,’ she admitted.‘This doesn’t make sense.’
CHAPTER NINE
Ella stared through the windshield at the Westside Aquatic Center.The place glowed aquamarine from the pool lights inside, and Ella could make small figures behind the windows.Kids in swimsuits and parents with cameras.Michael Rankin's daughter was in there somewhere, most likely unaware that her father lay in the morgue.Now, it fell on Ella to inform the young girl of such details, and this part of the job never got easier no matter how much practice you got.
‘Walk me through it again,’ Ripley said from the driver's seat.She’d reclined her seat and was using the case file as a makeshift table for her gas station coffee.‘The killer gets in when?’
Ella had run through the scene so many times in her head she could recount the times by memory.‘Two minutes past midnight, Terrence went out the back to smoke.That’s when our killer must have slipped in the front.’
‘The front door to the building was unlocked, yes?’
‘Yes.That was the easy part.Then the moment he gets in, the security camera in the lobby blacked out.’
‘How’s our guy get into the elevator?What about the weight restriction?’
‘The weight restriction is the least of his problems.How does he even open the elevator without a keycard?’
‘Maybe the tech team will have better luck than us explaining that.Then what?’
‘Every camera he passes by goes dark one by one.Like he’s one of those Japanese ghosts.’Ella scrubbed her eyelids with her fingertips.The whole sequence defied logic, yet the footage showed it clear as daylight.Physics had rules and technology had limitations, but this killer defied both.
‘So he disables every security measure, somehow.Then what was the deal with the security camera on the top floor?’
‘He blacked it out when he went past it to Rankin’s office the first time.Then he broke it on the way back.’
‘Why?’
‘To lure the security guard up to the top floor.So he’d find Rankin’s body.’
The questions kept piling up.How did the killer map the building so perfectly?How did he know Terrence's smoke break schedule down to the second?The tech angle screamed hacker, but the execution had a different flavor.
And that goddamn pentagram.Was it meant to throw them off?The smartest killers weren’t adverse to the occasional distraction, but there was also a chance that this unsub was trying to genuinely say something with it.Even so, a corporate killing didn’t exactly scream occult or Satanic.
Movement caught Ella's eye.A group of people emerged from the doors, and amongst them, Ella spotted Sarah and Emma Rankin from the social media photos she'd checked out.'There they are,' Ella pointed.
‘Oh sheesh,’ said Ripley.‘Look at what the little girl’s holding.’
Ella saw it.Emma was brandishing a silver medal.Second place.She'd remember that placement forever, but not because she'd earned it.She'd remember it because this was the night everything went to hell.She'd remember the exact spot in the parking lot where her childhood ended.
Ripley's hand found the door handle.‘You coming?’
Ella reached for her own handle, but her hand wouldn't work right.That little girl was having one of the best nights of her life, and Ella couldn't bring herself to be the one to ruin that.
‘I don't think I can, Mia.’
The words just fell out, and a part of her felt pathetic for it.Death notifications were the bread and butter of the job.Maybe it was Ben, or the silver medal, or everything at once.
‘I'll handle it if you want to stay back.’
‘Please.’
