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The dead travelled with you, no matter how far you flew, and the victims from Ella’s case in Ohio had been particularly clingy travel companions.

Inside, the apartment greeted her with darkness and silence. No lights. No murmuring television.

No Luca.

Ella flicked on the lights and was momentarily disoriented by the immaculate condition of the place. Whenever she left for a case, her apartment was usually in a state of organized chaos, but Luca had clearly cleaned up before leaving for Massachusetts, God bless him.

Ella threw her bag in the hallway and made for the living room.

As she collapsed on the sofa, her body suddenly reminded her of the events of the past few days.

Compared to her usual post-case inventory of injuries, she’d gotten off lightly this time, but what really dragged her down was the exhaustion.

She still hadn’t recovered from Director Edis keeping her locked up in HQ like a damsel in distress a few nights ago.

The incident had drained her in a way Ella couldn’t explain, and even though Edis had his reasons, Ella still wasn’t buying them.

Yes, Edis’s reasons. It was true there was a killer on the loose in D.C.

, and that killer had targeted two of Ella’s associates.

Jenna Bradbury, Ella’s old roommate, and Julianne Cooper, Ella’s old landlord.

Not only were they both dead because they had the unfortunate handicap of knowing Ella Dark, but their killer had also sewn their mouths shut – with strands of Ella’s own hair, no less.

How did this killer learn of Jenna and Julianne’s existence? How did they track them down? Who was this person and why were they doing this?

And the bizarre question that hung in the middle of all this – how had this killer accessed her hair?

Mia Ripley, Ella’s former-turned-current partner, had concluded that the hair must have come from one of Ella’s hairbrushes, judging by the batch of hair that the killer had also dropped outside Ripley’s door.

Which meant someone out there had one of Ella’s hairbrushes.

Who else was on this killer’s hit list? Ella didn’t know, but she’d made the director put everyone loosely affiliated with her in D.C. on police watch. Right now, there were 36 cops outside 36 doors in this city, stretching resources thin but hopefully keeping people safe.

And then there was Luca. Instead of the cop treatment, he’d chosen to hide out at his mom’s house in Massachusetts instead. She’d tried to call him since landing but his old farm had a distinct lack of cell reception.

She stood up and headed over to the window.

She parted the blinds with two fingers and surveyed the D.C.

skyline staring back at her. In the few days she’d been gone, the holiday spirit had descended upon the city with all the subtlety of a brick through a window, and it seemed her neighbors subscribed to the ‘more is more’ philosophy of Christmas decorating.

Garlands hung from every balcony and there was an inflatable Santa and some epilepsy-inducing lights on the balcony directly opposite.

This would be her first Christmas in this apartment with Luca, and she could already tell those flashing lights were going to turn her bedroom into a rave every night.

Ella turned away from the window and stood in the middle of her apartment, suddenly unsure what to do with herself.

Society had drilled it into her head that she should relish this alone time.

It was one of those unwritten rules of relationships - cherish the moments when your partner was away because they’re rare and precious.

But Ella hadn’t reached the stage in her relationship where familiarity bred contempt.

Maybe they were lucky. Maybe it would always be like this. The missing, the longing, the relief of reunion. Or was that just wishful thinking? Relationships evolved; they had to. People grew together or they grew apart. There was no stasis in human connection, just the illusion of it.

Nearly 2 AM now, but Ella knew that sleep was optimistic.

On the plane back from Ohio, Ripley had talked about her grandson’s tendency to get over-tired; so exhausted he couldn’t sleep, which got him into a vicious cycle until fatigue finally knocked him out.

Ella hadn’t known such a bodily response was possible, but it explained a lot.

Sometimes it took a one-year-old to put things in perspective.

She moved into the kitchen and opened the fridge twice in succession.

She wasn’t hungry, just restless, and restless hands always gravitated to fridges and cupboards.

Modern neurosis had evolved alongside modern appliances, so instead of pacing holes in carpets, people obsessively looked to the places they stockpiled instant comforts.

No. There must be something else she could do until fatigue finally dragged her down. Clean up? Not likely; Luca had already worked his magic. Finish up paperwork for the last case? That would just remind her that there was a killer in D.C. using her DNA as a calling card.

Ella sighed and glanced toward the bedroom.

Maybe she should just surrender to the inevitable.

Go to bed, lie awake and catalog her paranoia.

She triple-checked the locks on the doors and windows, then found herself studying the balconies outside.

The gaps between them weren’t impossibly wide for someone determined enough.

The skeletal fire escape zigzagging down the wall could easily be a welcome mat for anyone with good enough climbing skills.

And that giant, inflatable Santa on the balcony opposite was the perfect size to conceal a person.

She squinted at it, suddenly suspicious of its jolly, inanimate grin.

Was this healthy suspicion, or was she finally going mad?

She was halfway through her musings when her cell phone suddenly exploded on the coffee table. The vibration against wood sounded like an electric saw hitting metal, and it made her heart pound against her ribcage.

Incoming call.

Nothing good ever came through phones at 2 AM - that was one of those unwritten rules of existence.

She stared at the dancing phone as if it might detonate, then saw that the screen was blaring Luca’s name. Ella suddenly understood why people believed in telepathy. She grabbed it and answered.

‘Hawkins. Is everything okay?’

‘Ell, can you hear me?’ The line was choppy, crackly.

‘It’s two in the morning.’

‘I’m on Massachusetts time.’

‘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.’

Roadrunner. The man documented everything. If anyone would remember the exact date she’d been frantically hunting for her phone and hairbrush, it would be the Human Spreadsheet.

‘When are you coming home?’ Ella asked.

‘At your discretion.’

The familiar dance of longing versus logic began. She wanted Luca here now, but another part of her knew better. Besides, he was still on administrative leave for using excessive force in a previous case. Coming back to D.C. now would just complicate things.

‘You stay put. No point coming back until you’re cleared.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure.’ She wasn’t, but certainty was sometimes just another mask you wore until the real thing showed up. ‘I’ll talk to Roady on Monday, and you should get off that roof and get some sleep.’

‘You too.’

After they said their goodbyes, Ella sat in the darkness with her phone clutched tight. She suddenly felt more exposed, as though this new knowledge had made her more vulnerable to this killer.

She glanced at the window and imagined her reflection visible to anyone watching from outside. Then she rose and closed the blinds.