‘We late?’ Ripley asked.

‘Better late than never.’ Ella ducked as a gust of wind tried to steal her badge. ‘If we’re lucky, we can catch Webb in the back area.’

The double doors squeaked as they pushed into the lobby. A man in a suit guarded the entrance to the auditorium. Ella flashed her credentials.

‘Police?’ he asked. ‘What’s the issue?’

‘No issue. We just need to speak with Sarah Webb.’

The guard glanced towards the glass doors that led to the main area. ‘She’s giving a talk,’ he said, as though no further explanation was necessary.

‘Then we’ll meet her when she finishes. Where’s good to wait?’

‘Can I ask what this is about?’

‘Not right now.’

There was little resistance on his part, which Ella appreciated.

He summoned a worker in a purple shirt and asked him to lead the way to the backstage area.

Ella and Ripley followed him across a narrow walkway that hugged the perimeter of the auditorium.

From here, she could see both the audience and flashes of Webb’s presentation.

There were about 50 people in this 200-seater auditorium, which wasn’t a bad turn out for a Monday night, Ella reasoned.

When she’d spoken at NCU a few months ago, the organizer had told her that the Monday night slot was the kiss of death because most people were at home watching the NFL.

An image lingered on the projector screen behind Webb.

A grainy, faded photograph. It showed a wide stretch of pale beach under an overcast sky.

A crime scene photo from the ‘98 Beachside Burials.

Ella had seen it before but tried not to think about it.

She had enough unsolved cases clogging up her brain capacity already.

‘The killer’s methodology reflects a profound understanding of tidal patterns,’ Webb was saying. ‘Each victim was buried at precisely the correct time to ensure maximum suffering before the eventual drowning.’

Ella caught the subtle eye-roll from Ripley as they sidled towards the backstage area.

Ripley had clearly heard this kind of speculative profiling before, probably had delivered some version of it herself during the original investigation, before reality had worn down the sharp edges of theoretical certainty.

When they reached the green room, which was actually just a large open space behind the stage, the purple-shirt worker said, ‘You can wait here. Is that okay?’

‘Great. Thank you.’

‘She’s due to finish about 9:30. There’s still a Q&A session to go. Do you want me to tell her you’re waiting?’

‘No,’ Ella said. ‘We’ll surprise her.’

They waited. The minutes passed slower than Ella would have liked.

Ten years ago, she’d have been front row with a notebook in hand.

Now, she couldn’t wait for the show to finish.

The main portion of Webb’s talk had concluded and now she was fielding questions about victimology and modus operandi and signature.

Ella’s bread and butter, but she found herself oddly unpassionate about such things tonight.

Ripley was leaning against the wall beside her. She looked one yawn away from falling asleep.

‘Mia, stay awake.’

‘Why?’

‘Because we’re nearly done.’

Ripley shook herself back to life. She blinked the tiredness from her eyes. ‘I’ll give her credit. At least she didn’t spout some of the garbage theories about that case.’

‘Like what?’

‘Dunno. Unlike Frank, I choose to forget. I’m sure Webb touched on some of the misinformation though.’

‘Why don’t you go out there and set the record straight?’

‘Do a run-in?’

‘Yeah. Imagine the look on Webb’s face if one of the actual investigators made a surprise appearance. Push her out of the way and take the mic. It would be like something out of WWE.’

‘People don’t want the truth. They want the story.’

Ella said, ‘You don’t like people like Webb, do you?’

‘Is it obvious?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Then no, I don’t. They profit off tragedy, and worst of all, they get it wrong. They make shit up. It’s easy to be an armchair detective, but none of them would last a day as real cops.’

Through the walls, they heard a smattering of applause. Final ovation. Webb would be heading their way soon, unaware that her night was about to pivot from public speaking event to person of interest in an active homicide investigation.

‘Game face on,’ Ella said. ‘Let’s see what Webb knows about Frank’s last days.’

The sound of footsteps approached from the hallway. Webb’s voice drifted ahead of her, thanking someone for their help with the audiovisual equipment. Ella stepped forward and cut Sarah off. She held up her badge.

‘Hi, Miss Webb.’

‘Yes?’ Sarah Webb looked exactly like her author photo. Fifties, angular glasses, hair pulled back so tightly it might have been responsible for her perpetually alert expression.

‘My name’s Agent Dark and this here is Agent Ripley. We’re with the FBI.’

‘Oh? Did you come for the talk?’

Ripley stepped forward. ‘Definitely not. We need to speak with you about Frank Sullivan.’

Sarah had looked hopeful, but that expression quickly crumbled. ‘Frank? Is he okay?’

Time to be the messenger of death again. Twice in one day. The burden never got any easier. But delivering bad news was like a bandage – cleaner when done quickly.

‘I’m sorry, but Frank is dead.’

Webb’s body went still in that particular way people did when their brain was frantically rejecting information their ears had just received. It was like someone had reached inside and disconnected vital wires.

‘Dead? How?’ Her voice came out hollow.

‘There’s a lot to talk about. Can we go somewhere more private?’

***

Ella, Ripley and Sarah Webb had crammed themselves in Sarah’s Nissan Altima.

Ella and her new friend in the front, Ripley in the back.

It formed a pressure cooker of awkward proximity, but Webb had insisted on the car rather than going back inside.

Public spaces had ears, and privacy was a journalist’s oxygen.

The rain hammered against the roof in percussive bursts.

‘Frank was murdered? Can you tell me how?’

‘Someone broke into his house, shot him in the stomach and then…’

‘Then what?’

Ella was unsure how to articulate the next part. The words alone didn’t seem to do the horror justice. ‘You’re familiar with the Jennifer Marlowe case, I believe.’

‘Marlowe?’ Webb released her death grip on the steering wheel, then leaned through the wheel and planted her hands on the dashboard. Ella thought it was an odd position, but grief was an odd emotion. ‘I know it well. You’re not saying that…?’

Ella nodded.

‘Someone gouged out Frank’s eyes?’

‘And put stones in the sockets,’ Ripley said from the back seat.

Sarah shot her a look of disbelief, which then turned to fear.

Ella guessed she was weighing up the possibility of this being connected to her.

No matter what people said, their own safety was always their concern in the wake of bad news.

‘A carbon copy of the Marlowe scene? That’s…’ Webb trailed off, then suddenly became transfixed by the water rolling down her windshield.

‘We understand you were talking to Frank, is that correct?’

‘Yes,’ Sarah muttered. ‘How did you know?’

‘His former partner told us. Can you describe your relationship with him?’

‘Relationship? There was no relationship. We were talking because he wanted me to do a book about the Marlowe case.’

‘That would be a short book.’

‘Yes it would, which is why I turned the idea down.’

Ripley asked, ‘But did you have access to Frank’s files?’

‘I made copies of them, but why does that matter?’

‘Because the stones component of the crime is obscure knowledge. Whoever killed Frank has that knowledge.’

Sarah gripped the handbrake and momentarily opened herself up for body language examination.

Until now, she’d made a barrier between herself and Ella via her arm, which Ella would have taken as a sign of suspicion under other circumstances.

But Sarah’s lower body positioning – feet angled slightly in her direction, knees apart – suggested every word coming out of her glossy lips was genuine.

‘I put that info in a book years ago. Anyone who’s read it will know about the stones.’

‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ Ripley said, ‘but you’re not Jane Austen. How many people are going to have read that book? And remembered that detail?’

‘Four-thousand copies sold, but yes, that’s worldwide.’

‘Mia, it only takes one,’ Ella said, then turned back to Sarah. ‘How did you learn that detail when you first wrote the book?’

‘My dad, Thomas Webb. He was a detective, retired now. He had connections to Florida State, and he got me the files.’

‘Right.’ Ella filed the name away. Thomas Webb. Someone else they needed to talk to.

Mia chimed in, ‘I’m just saying it’s improbable that the killer’s info came from that book. The stones were identical, and besides, the killer knew about Frank’s obsession with the case too. That’s not common knowledge.’

‘Well, some people know about Frank’s obsession. Not just me.’

‘How?’

Sarah swallowed a lump in her throat. She smoothed her hair and knocked a few strands out of her bun in the process. Ella took this as another sign of sincerity, because women this presentable didn’t scuff their hair voluntarily, even if they were acting.

‘We had… a group.’

Ella’s eyebrows climbed her forehead. ‘What kind of group?’

‘I guess you could say we were amateur investigators. We’d look into cold cases, things like that.’

‘But you’re a journalist,’ Ripley said. ‘Shouldn’t you be doing that kind of stuff anyway?’

‘No. Well, yes, but I’m a freelance journalist, and journalism is dead. I strive for integrity, but people don’t care about integrity anymore. We’re competing with sensationalist pieces, opinion pieces, podcasts, YouTube videos, documentaries, mini-series.’