Page 46 of Girl, Undone
But it was the sight of the body, handcuffed to a steel table that truly struck Ella.
There was no denying it.
This was victim number three.
‘It’s our guy,’ Ripley said.
A paramedic rushed into the blackened cabin and began checking the body.Ella watched with bated breath, her fingers crossed, praying that somehow the poor soul inside had survived the flames, the smoke inhalation, the no doubt paralyzing excess of chemical responses from being surrounding by walls of flames.
A storm of emotions raged, but settled on crippling disappointment when the medic gently placed the body against the ground and made an X with their hands.
In the medical field, that only meant one thing.
‘We’re too late,’ Ella said.
The acrid smell of smoke and charred wood filled her nostrils.She stood there, amidst the ruin, feeling the heat from the burned cabin, the dampness of the night air, the silence that followed the chaos.It was as if the fire had not only consumed the shack and its occupant but also Ella’s hopes of catching the killer.She felt like she’d come close, digging through the notes, trying to find a pattern, a clue, anything that might lead her to the killer.
But it hadn't been enough.
Whoever this victim was, they’d been alive, afraid and alone, forced to confront what Ella assumed was their ultimate terror.The killer had meticulously planned this, had known exactly how to prey on the victim's deepest fears.And she, despite all her efforts, had not been fast enough to stop it.
The medic came over and removed her mask.‘Are you the officers in charge of the scene?’
‘Yes we are,’ Ripley said.
‘I’m sorry, but the patient is non-responsive.No heartbeat, fixed pupils, rigid.She’s gone.’
Ella's jaw tightened, her eyes never leaving the charred remains of the cabin.The medic’s words drifted past her eardrums and settled as a ball of nausea in her gut.
‘Thank you.’There was nothing else to say, nothing Ella could do to bring this victim back from the dead.The world wasn’t a place for miracles.
‘I can remove the patient once the scene is secured,’ the paramedic said.‘I can liaise with the coroner’s office.’
Ella nodded her thanks, then took a few steps closer to the body.The woman's strawberry blonde hair, singed at the ends, cascaded down to her waist.She was young, maybe in her mid-twenties, her life extinguished too soon.Despite the surrounding destruction, the body itself was untouched by the flames.One of her wrists was handcuffed to the leg of a steel table, not dissimilar to the arrangement at Julia Dawson's death site.
Ella pulled a pair of gloves out of her pocket, bent down, and inspected the body.
‘No burn marks,’ she said.‘The fire never got to her.’
‘Grateful for small mercies,’ Ripley said.
‘So it was either smoke inhalation or crippling fear that killed her.’
Ripley joined her partner.‘Preferable to being burned alive,’ she said.She carefully lifted the victim’s hand and said, ‘Dark, look.’
‘Bloody knuckles.Flayed skin,’ Ella said.‘Our woman fought back.’
‘We need forensics on this immediately.This blood could be a direct line to our unsub.’Ripley excused herself with her cell pressed to her ear.Ella continued her examination, desperately trying to form a clear image of what horrors could have taken place here.
She began at the victim’s jean pockets and carefully patted her down.She moved up to her jacket and found something weighty on the left hand side.She gently unzipped the pocket and reached in.
Two items.
A cell phone and a small purse.
‘What the hell?’
The killer had taken his previous victims’ possessions and presumably discarded them.Why were this woman’s still here?
