Page 2 of Girl, Fractured

‘D.C.and Mass are in the same time zone.’

‘No they’re not.We’re twenty years behind here.That’s why I have to stand on the roof to get a signal.’

‘You’re on the roof?’

‘Never mind where I am.Listen, I thought of something.’

Ella padded toward the bedroom, instinctively seeking a more private space even though she was alone.‘Thought of something?What do you mean?’

‘Think back.A few months ago.About two weeks before Halloween.’

‘That’s both vague and specific.’

‘Well, use that perfect memory of yours.’

‘It doesn’t work like that.What do you remember?’Why was she whispering?She couldn’t have explained the behavior if cross-examined, but impulse ran deeper than logic.Maybe it was the hour; that liminal space between night and morning when speaking at full volume felt like shouting in church.

‘It was right before we headed out on a case.You and I were hunting around HQ.’

‘Hunting for what?’

‘Your hairbrush.’

Ella’s entire nervous system went offline then rebooted.The memory suddenly ambushed her.Luca was right.One morning, they’d hunted around the office because she’d lost her hairbrush.The incident had seemed mundane then.Now it felt like watching the first few drops of rain and realizing they were the start of a hurricane.

‘Holy… I’d forgotten about that.’

‘Me too.But that’s not all.You’d lost something else.’

Tendrils of recollection spread outward in her mind and connected dots she hadn’t even realized were part of the same picture.She’d been irritable that morning, more than the missing hairbrush had warranted.There had been something else.

‘I lost my cell phone too.My personal one.’

‘Exactly.You were wondering how this killer found out about Jenna and Julianne?You had calls and texts to them.Probably had their addresses somewhere in your phone.’

Ella froze.She’d been using her work cell for so long that her personal cell had faded from memory, relegated to that mental folder of insignificant losses like misplaced sunglasses or that favorite pen that disappears into the couch cushions.

But this wasn’t insignificant.

‘You think the killer’s got my phone too.’

‘It makes sense.You lost them at the same time.We called it right after you lost it and it was turned off.That tells me someone found it – and turned it off themselves.’

That phone contained everything.Not just Jenna and Julianne’s contact information, but plenty of other connections.People from Quantico.Former colleagues.Her distant family.Her dentist.Every person who’d existed in her orbit long enough to warrant saving their details.How many vulnerable connections had she unknowingly surrendered to this phantom?

If the killer had her phone, and had somehow bypassed her passcode, those 36 cops watching 36 doors suddenly seemed like putting a Band-Aid on an arterial bleed.

‘Hawkins.Do you remember what day this was?Where had we been?Where were we going?’

‘I don’t know.All our trips blur into one.I just remember speaking to your friend down in the basement.’

‘The basement?’

‘Your old desk in Intelligence.We talked to that guy with the weird name.’

Ella racked her brain.‘Roadrunner.’

‘That’s him.’