Page 1 of Girl, Empty (Ella Dark #27)

Ella Dark dropped the TV remote. The batteries spilled out, but she couldn’t move to pick them up.

Ben Carter’s face was on the screen, and the scrolling text beneath said: LOCAL SPORTS PERSONALITY SHOT DEAD IN CA. The world began to spin, and if not for Luca’s hand on her shoulder, she thought she might collapse.

‘He’s your… ex?’ Luca asked.

Stupid. How could Ella have been so blind? She had cops positioned outside the doors of everyone close to her in D.C. Thirty-six guards watching thirty-six doors, protecting thirty-six people who'd made the mistake of knowing Ella Dark. All of them in this city. All of them close enough to watch.

But she'd drawn her protective circle too small.

Ben Carter had been the only guy smart enough to get a million miles away from Ella, because he wanted to be safe from the cloud of death that followed her every move.

A year ago, he’d fled to California and – Ella assumed – moved on with his life, but even the other side of the country hadn’t been far enough away.

She’d overlooked his safety because he wasn’t in her orbit anymore. And that had gotten him killed.

Ben's photo had been replaced by shaky cell phone footage of the venue's exterior. Fluttering police tape was illuminated by flashing red and blue lights, and then two paramedics pushed a gurney into the back of an ambulance. A sheet was draped over whatever was left of her ex-lover.

At that sight, Ella clutched her stomach and began to retch. She found herself suddenly leaning on the sofa with one knee as the heaving scraped her throat. Nothing came up. She had nothing left to vomit.

‘Ell,’ Luca said and put a hand on her back.

‘Don’t,’ she snapped. It wasn’t Luca’s fault.

He was trying to be supportive, but any kind of touch felt wrong when her ex was being bagged up three thousand miles away – all because she was too blind to see the obvious.

Because she’d forgotten that her problems travelled at the speed of obsession, and obsessed people didn't respect state lines.

Someone out there was taking revenge on her by killing everyone close to her.

First, Julianne, her landlord. Then Jenna, her old roommate.

Now Ben. Wonderful Ben, the athlete who'd fought side by side with Ella even though he didn't have to.

On screen, some blonde reporter with fake teeth was talking about shocked the local community were.

Shocked. As if people didn't get shot every day in America.

As if Ben Carter was special because he was a good looking, semi-famous athlete.

Except Ben Carter had been special. Just not in any way the reporter would understand.

He was a man who’d stayed with Ella much longer than he should have, and even helped her track down one of America’s most infamous serial killers.

He’d forgiven her when he shouldn’t have, and never complained when Ella had to interrupt their evenings to disappear to some other state.

She hadn’t deserved him, and one day he’d realized that.

‘Do you want some water?’ Luca asked. The poor guy must have felt useless.

‘Turn the TV off, please.’

Luca did. Ella climbed back to a standing position, then collapsed on the sofa proper. She held her head in her hands and fought the urge to scream her lungs raw. Luca fetched her water anyway.

‘Ell, you don’t know if this is related.’

She took the drink. ‘Come on, Hawkins. Of course it’s related.’

‘Julianne and Jenna were both stabbed, weren’t they? This guy was shot.’

‘Ben. His name is Ben.’

‘Sorry. Ben was shot. That’s a drastic change in M.O.’

‘No it isn’t. The killer is going for convenience. Ben is an athlete, nimble. He could have avoided a knifer, but he couldn’t outrun a shooter. The killer knew this.’

‘I’m just saying. This is the only one of the murders that’s happened in public too. And what about the hair? The other victims all had their lips sewn shut.’

Ella thought back to her working theory about her phone. She’d lost her cell a few months ago but couldn’t remember exactly when or where. She was working on the assumption that her murderous stalker had it, and was using it to extract details of people close to her.

And that made sense here, too.

‘The killer has my cell. That’s how he found Julianne and Jenna’s addresses. My phone didn’t have Ben’s address, so the killer would have had to research him. If he couldn’t find Ben’s address that way, he would have had to ambush him in public.’

Luca went quiet for a minute. It was just after 6 AM according to the clock on the wall, and the world outside was still pitch black.

‘I’m sorry. It’s just…’

Ella shot him a look. ‘Just what?’

‘You’ve never mentioned this guy.’

She had to resist the urge to cover Luca in cold water. ‘Hawkins, now’s not the time for jealousy, okay?’

‘I don’t mean like that. I just mean… I knew Julianne and Jenna because you talked about them. I don’t think you’ve mentioned Ben’s name once.’

As much as Ella wanted to say, ‘There’s a reason for that,’ she tampered down the impulse. She didn’t believe in comparing exes. ‘Well, his details were in my cell. Text messages, call logs, everything.’

Her phone erupted in her pocket. The vibration felt like an insect crawling across her skin.

She dug it out. HQ flashed on the screen. 6:03 AM. They never called this early unless someone was dead.

And yes, someone was dead.

Ella watched the phone pulse in her hand.

Four rings. Five. They'd tell her about Ben like it was news.

Like she hadn't just watched the footage.

Probably some night-shift analyst monitoring news feeds had flagged the story about a murdered ex-cop with ties to FBI personnel.

Or maybe LAPD had already reached out to ask if they should be worried about a pattern.

The phone kept buzzing. Luca watched her stare at it.

‘You going to get that?’

‘No.’

The buzzing stopped. Then immediately started again. Whoever was calling had decided persistence was key.

‘They're not going to stop,’ Luca said.

‘I know.’

But she couldn't bring herself to pick up. Answering meant making Ben's death official. Ben Carter deserved better than that. He deserved to stay human for as long as Ella could let him.

‘Give it here.’ Ella reluctantly passed the phone to Luca. He moved to the other side of the room. ‘Ella’s phone.’

She couldn’t watch the scene unfold. When Luca hung up, that would be it.

Ben Carter would be officially gone from this world, and that fact alone would kill her.

She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t thought of Ben since he’d gone.

Not with any heartfelt longing or regret, but just to remind herself that he was out there doing his thing, sharing the same memories of their time together as her.

‘Yeah, I’ll tell her. What was the date again? Right. Got it. Thanks for calling.’ Half of Luca’s conversation drifted across the room. He hung up, then threw her phone back to Ella. ‘That was a man calling himself Roadrunner.’

‘Roady?’

‘Yeah. Oh. The guy in the basement, right? What’s he doing awake so early?’

‘He doesn’t sleep. And yes, the basement guy. I asked him to do me a favor. What did he say?’

‘He said the date is October 16, whatever that means.’

Ella's head spun. She'd asked Roadrunner if he could pinpoint exactly when she'd lost her cell, because she'd visited Roadrunner's office that same day. He had his methods of finding such information, and apparently, the day was October 16.

October 16. That date meant something.

It took a moment to search her memory bank, because the images of Ben’s dead body being wheeled away still took center stage. Then it became undeniably clear, and the day of October 16 played out like a movie reel in her head.

On the morning of October 16, she'd packed her bag and taken a flight to New Orleans International Airport.

Then she'd taken a cab to the Orleans Parish District Court, watched through six hours of criminal hearings, and then finally taken the stand herself.

She'd described how, two years ago, she'd apprehended a serial killer in a battered women's shelter.

Then she'd laid out his psychological framework in order to secure that man's indefinite incarceration in a prison cell.

Everything had gone a little too smoothly, because she’d helped secure that man a death sentence.

And when she returned home the next day, she was miraculously missing both her cell phone and her hairbrush.

‘Jesus Christ,’ she breathed. She doubled over again, but this time it wasn't nausea. This time it was pure frustration, because the pattern was so obvious she wanted to scream at herself for missing it.

All of this – the deaths of Julianne, Jenna, and now Ben – all had something to do with a man named Austin Creed.