Page 32 of Girl, Accused

‘Nothing. As clean as an operating room.’ Ella rejoined her partner in the main space. ‘What can we do? We can’t just wait for him to come back. We could have another body by then.’

‘We’ll get someone to watch this place while we search for him. Come on.’

The apartment's perfection made Ella’s skin crawl. Not because cleanliness signaled psychopathy, but because this particular brand of order suggested the ability to compartmentalize. The kind that let a man slice throats by night and fold towels into perfect thirds by day.

Ella turned in a circle and committed every detail of this place to memory. She needed to retain psychological fingerprints people couldn't help but leave behind. The pristine surfaces. The absence of personal photographs. The bookshelf where religious texts stood shoulder to shoulder.

Then she saw it.

Mounted beside the window, a framed print dominated the wall. It wasn’t the usual saccharine crucifix scene that decorated evangelical homes, but something more artistically ambitious.

It was a radiant city on a hill, rendered in gilt and azure. Jerusalem? Babylon? Jericho? Ella had no idea, but it wasn’t the imagery that drew her attention.

It was the proverbs below it.

All of the usual suspects were there; turn the other cheek, judge not lest ye be judged. But one proverb in particular jumped out at her.

Isaiah 47:10: For you have trusted and felt confident in your wickedness; you have said, 'No one sees me.'

Ella's breath stalled in her lungs. Those words. The same ones scrawled in blood in Dr. Summers book.

‘Mia, look.’ Ella rushed over to the poster and tapped the text. ‘No one sees me.’

Her partner materialized at her shoulder. Ella felt Ripley's body tense as she registered the connection.

‘'No one sees me,'‘ Ripley read aloud. ‘Same phrasing from the Summers scene.’

Ella stepped back and found herself disappearing into that pure analytical space where connections formed faster than she could articulate them. She quickly broke free of it, then found herself thinking of five minutes previous, when she was just outside of this apartment.

Her synapses fired, and a connection snapped into place. Something she hadn't clocked on her way here, but now made sense.

‘We need to hit the streets,’ said Ripley.

‘No. Follow me. I know where we need to go.’

Ella barreled out of the apartment with Ripley in tow. They closed the door behind them, as though they’d not been here at all. Ella sprinted down the stairs and came to an abrupt stop in the foyer.

There it was.

On the community board.

‘The hell are you waiting for?’ Ripley asked.

'This,'Ella said. She plucked a flyer off the community board. It was a glossy rectangle featuring a blue background, the roof of a tent, and a barrage of text.

GRANVILLE REVIVAL TENT.

BE CLEANSED IN THE LIGHT OF THE LORD.

SPEAKERS INCLUDE:

Pastor James Mitchell

Reverend Sarah Whitman

Brother Jeremy Caldwell

Sister Mary Catherine