Page 31 of Girl, Empty (Ella Dark #27)

The narrow street outside Blackglass Creations was now a crime scene circus.

Ella perched herself on the SUV's tailgate with soaking wet clothes, dripping hair, and a towel wrapped around her shoulders.

Her brief tour of Noah Redmond's icy tomb had rendered her cold enough to warrant paramedic attention, but they'd checked her vitals, pronounced her lucky, and moved on to more pressing emergencies.

Not that any amount of paramedic attention would bring the victim back to life.

The EMTs had gone through the motions anyway and wrapped Noah in thermal blankets for the ride to the morgue.

It had taken twenty minutes and a crowbar to fully open the server room; now, the poor forensic technicians needed to somehow navigate that sub-zero environment, including the electric blizzard pumping out of that air conditioning unit.

Amanda Pierce had stopped crying a few minutes ago minutes ago.

She’d accepted a foam cup from one of the uniforms, but hadn’t touched it.

Just used it as a heating system for her hands.

Ripley emerged from the building looking like she’d just been wrestling with machinery, which Ella guessed was accurate.

‘Power's off,’ she announced, stripping off her gloves. ‘Whole building. Had to find the mains. Of course, nobody thought to put up any signs.’

‘Thanks, Mia. That’ll make things easier on CSI. Miss Pierce, are you ready to answer some questions?’

‘Yes. Anything.’

Ella had one burning question above all others, in hopes that an explanation might douse this fire of annoyance in her gut. ‘My first question, and don’t think of this as insensitive, but why didn’t you kill the power to this place?’

‘I don’t know how to.’

The words were so simple. A spike of contempt impaled Ella’s mind, and she had to stop herself saying, You can build pointless apps nobody needs, but you don't know how to flip a mains switch?

You people spend all day building apps that add nothing to anyone's life, but when it comes to things that actually matter, like knowing how to switch power off to save someone's life, you're useless.

‘You… didn’t know how?’

Amanda flinched. Tears threatened to come again. ‘I didn’t think! I was terrified!’

Another mental narration came; That's the problem.

You've outsourced your ability to think to a machine.

You just assume technology will save you, until the moment it decides to kill you instead.

Tonight, it froze a man to death while you stood outside swiping a keycard like that was going to suddenly start working

‘I see.’ The cold had gotten into her bones, and Noah's frozen corpse had gotten into her head, and she was tired of watching people die because convenience had replaced competence.

‘Believe me, I wish I’d been the one trapped in there instead of Noah. He was… a wonderful human.’

‘Your boyfriend?’ Ripley asked.

‘Maybe in another life.’

Ella stepped back from the conversation.

The way Amanda had said wonderful human for some reason felt like a knife to her heart.

A moment of introspection later, Ella realized it wasn’t the hypothermia that had turned her into a, it was Austin Creed’s.

She saw herself in Amanda, and Ben in Noah.

Ben, who'd died because Ella hadn't been fast enough, smart enough, good enough to save him.

‘I’m sorry. That was out of order.’

‘No. You were right. I should have known.’

‘There’s no blame here,’ Ripley said. ‘Can you talk us through what happened?’

Amanda took a moment, composed herself, then said, ‘It was about 8:30. I was in Noah’s office, then I got a notification on my phone saying there was a problem with the server in the basement.

Me and Noah went down there. The air con was down at like 20-something, when it should be at 64.

I didn’t even know it was possible to go that low. ’

‘Apparently it is,’ Ripley said. ‘Is the air con part of a network? Could someone access it remotely?’

‘Yes, it needs to be. It syncs with our servers.’

‘How did Noah get in there on his own?’

‘I went in first while Noah stayed back, because I thought I could kill the air con from the unit itself. When I got out, Noah said he’d try. He told me to stay back and check the thermostat. Then the door sealed and I couldn’t open it. It just wouldn’t…’

‘Hold on. You got the notification?’

‘Yeah. Why?’

‘Does Noah regularly work late?’

Amanda shrugged. ‘Sometimes. Definitely not every night.’

‘Not enough for someone to notice a pattern?’

‘No.’

Ella and Ripley shared a look. They had something interesting here. They had the killer’s target – still alive. ‘Miss Pierce, the person who did this was trying to get to you , and that makes you our new best friend.’

‘Me? Why would anyone want to kill me?’

‘That’s what we need to figure out. Do you have any connections to Morrison & Associates or First National Bank?’

Amanda looked blank. Her eyes had swollen to red craters. ‘No. Neither.’

‘Michael Rankin, Thomas Grayson. Do those names mean anything to you?’

‘The first one, yes, because I read about him in the news. I don’t know him though.’

‘Then we need to talk about enemies, professional or personal. Former employees, ex-boyfriends, rival companies. And it needs to be someone who knows their way around a computer, because from what you’re telling me, this killer wasn’t even here in person, right?’

‘No. I didn’t see another soul.’

‘So, who do you know that has this kind of skill?’

Amanda bit her lip then looked up and left.

She was recalling visual memories, which meant she wasn’t about to spin a lie.

'I can't think of any enemies, honestly.

Blackglass isn't that kind of company. We make boring software for boring appliances.

We're not exactly making waves in the tech world. '

'What about disgruntled employees? Someone you had to fire?'

Amanda shook her head. 'We've only ever had five employees total. Four now. They’re all coders, and coders aren’t exactly master hackers.

What this person did tonight is a completely different school of engineering.

No one here could do that, I guarantee it.

If they could, they wouldn’t be working for me. ’

Ella took this in. ‘Personal enemies?’

‘None. I have an ex-husband who lives in Seattle, and it was his idea to leave me.’

‘What about freelancers, contractors, consultants?’

‘None of the above.’

‘Who does your security? Is it Sentinel Tech?’

‘No,’ Amanda said. ‘CyberVault do our security.’

Ella made a mental note of the name. Her mind sifted through the fragments they'd collected and felt a headache on the horizon.

Three victims, three different industries, no obvious connections except for the killer's supernatural ability to bend electronics to his will.

Amanda Pierce was supposed to be victim number three, but Noah had taken her place in that frozen tomb, and if the killer knew this, it meant he might do something drastic to get back on track.

A pair of headlights briefly illuminated the scene before disappearing behind the row of squad cars. Ella looked up and saw a white van. The driver got out and waved his hands around like he was trying to warn off a swarm of invisible insects.

‘Oh, crap, cleaning crew.’ Amanda walked over and waved them off, and the driver got back in the car and reversed back up the street. The headlights painted the alleyway yellow again, and in that moment, Ella caught sight of the side of the van.

ALPINE CLEANING SERVICES.

The image of the logo followed the name. Three sharp mountain peaks.

Something cold and electric shot down her spine.

Alpine Cleaning Services. Where had she heard that name?

It only took a moment of recollection, and then she thought that perhaps her perfect memory hadn’t been tarnished after all.

What if she’d got this all wrong? Security chiefs, coders, tech experts, system administers. What if their killer wasn’t one of them at all?

Just like magic, there’s always some simple explanation, and it’s usually so obvious that most people look right past it.

Who got access to every building in the city?

Who could wander through offices after hours without anyone questioning their presence?

Who knew which security guard took a smoke break at two minutes past midnight?

Who knew the layout of security systems because they had to work around them?

Who understood HVAC systems because they had to clean the vents?

‘Sorry about that,’ Amanda said. ‘I’ll tell them to stay away until you guys have finished, however long that takes.’

‘No,’ Ella said.

‘No?’

‘Miss Pierce, this might sound weird, but could you get me a list of every cleaner who's ever worked here?’