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Ella stared at Thomas Webb, who in turn stared at nothing.

His mouth was slightly open as if he’d been interrupted mid-sentence.

The railway spikes – four inches of industrial-grade steel, according to the forensic tech – had been driven through his palms and feet and secured him eternally to his wooden office chair.

By the time Ripley arrived at the scene, Thomas Webb had been dead for at least an hour. Now, they stood on either side of the corpse while techs swept the hallway outside. Upon closer scrutiny, they’d found that Thomas Webb was also missing his pinky finger on his left hand.

‘It’s another copycat murder,’ Ella said.

‘Is it?’

‘Yeah. I recognize it.’

‘Which one?’

Ella began to circle the body. This unsub certainly had an iron stomach, she’d give him that.

The nails that severed Thomas Webb’s hands didn’t look like they’d gone in easily.

‘1986, Miami. Victim was an old man, found exactly like this. Nails through hands and feet, pinky finger cut off. That makes a pair of eyeballs, an entire head, and now a pinky finger.’

‘Maybe he’s trying to Frankenstein a whole human being.’

‘Doubt it. These elements were all present in the original crime scenes too. He’s just following a blueprint, but why?’

‘Well, that’s the least of our worries,’ Ripley said. ‘You been in the kitchen?’

‘Yup.’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think…’ Ella bent down and inspected the foot-nails.

The heads were flush with Thomas Webb’s skin.

She prayed that Thomas wasn’t alive to endure the pain of this amateur crucifixion.

‘I don’t know what I think. I just know that no serial killer in history has even decided to cook a chicken dinner in a victim’s oven. ’

‘Right, and the timer on the oven has elapsed 1 hour, 26 minutes, and that chicken hasn’t burned to a crisp.’

‘Which means that Thomas Webb was still alive 1 hour and 26 minutes ago, and we’ve had Josiah Nicholls in custody for longer than that.’ Ella glanced up at her partner. The implication spoke for itself.

‘So, Nicholls is innocent. He didn’t do this. He didn’t kill Diana, either. The jury’s still out on Frank.’

‘Unless Nicholls has a partner.’

‘You think?’ Ripley asked.

Ella stood up and took a few steps back. ‘It’s possible, but there’s no motive there. Did you confirm that Nicholls was telling the truth about who he was?’

‘Yeah, it tracks. Frank really did work the Black Candle Murders, and one of the victims was named Cassie Nicholls. Records show she had one son. Where’s Webb, by the way?’

‘Outside with the Sheriff. Inconsolable. Her boyfriend’s on his way.’

‘How’d she react?’

‘As you’d expect.’ Ella gestured to the door. ‘I wish she hadn’t grabbed that door handle though. It was dripping with blood, and the killer must have touched it. Now it’s contaminated.’

Ripley ran a gloved hand down the side of the door. ‘She touched it? Willingly?’

‘Yeah. I mean, she was in a frenzy though. Obviously she wasn’t thinking straight.’

‘Hmm…’

‘What?’ Ella asked.

‘Bit strange, don’t you think?’

‘What’s strange?’

Ripley shrugged. ‘That this woman, an apparent true crime know-it-all, would knowingly grab the only foreign object in the room we know our killer would touch.’

‘Mia, you’re not serious? The woman walked into her dad’s house and found a pool of blood. She wouldn’t exactly be in Sherlock Holmes mode, would she?’

‘I’m just saying. How many times have we walked into rooms where we know there’s a body waiting, but we haven’t freaked out?’

‘Because we spent 18 months training for that. Crime writers don’t.’

‘Another reason why I hate them,’ said Ripley. It’s also pretty weird that she brought you here.’

‘She brought me here,’ Ella echoed quietly, testing the shape of the thought.

She mentally catalogued the sequence: Sarah’s request that Ella bring her here.

Sarah’s insistence on Ella meeting her father.

Sarah’s deliberate delay in the car while checking her reflection.

Sarah’s reluctance to let Ella stay behind.

Sarah freaking out at bloodstains in the hallway, as though she already suspected what she might find.

Profilers lived in the space between coincidence and pattern. Three points made a line; four points made intent. She wasn’t there yet, but only one point remained before Ella had to re-examine this whole thing.

‘Let’s stick to what we know,’ Ella said. ‘There’s another problem too.’

‘There’s always another problem.’

‘Thomas Webb isn’t a member of the White Whale Group. Our killer has deviated.’

‘No, his victimology is consistent. He’s targeting older, retired, ex-cops. Thomas Webb fits that category. All our unsub’s done is select from a different victim pool.’

‘But it means the White Whalers aren’t our connection.’

Ripley scratched her forehead, considering. ‘Well, maybe not the White Whalers, but I still see one connection between all three vics.’

Ella did the mental arithmetic. There was indeed one connection, as much as Ella didn’t want to admit it. ‘Sarah Webb.’

‘Yeah. Our killer’s got something against your new bestie. Or…’

‘No,’ Ella stopped her partner before she got there. ‘Sarah was with me when Thomas was killed. Plus, it’s her dad . Don’t be ridiculous.’

Ripley began to pace the room. She tried not to touch anything as she peered behind Thomas Webb’s desk. ‘You seeing what I’m seeing, Dark?’

‘I’m seeing a crucified body and not much else.’

‘Alright, I’ll rephrase. Are you seeing what I’m not seeing?’

‘Give me a clue.’

‘This is an office, apparently,’ Ripley said as she gestured to the desk, the bookshelf, the power cords dangling from various outlets. ‘Where’s this guy’s computer?’

‘Who’s to say he had one?’

Ripley prodded the desk then stuck her finger in Ella’s face. ‘Dust doesn’t lie. Look.’

Ella did. She inspected the desk too. The faint outline of a monitor and keyboard were present. She checked below the desk and found a notable lack of hard drive. ‘What’s this dust say?’

‘See these edges?’ She traced her gloved finger just above the surface without touching it.

‘The dust accumulation is disrupted here, here, and here. When dust settles on a surface, it does so at a consistent rate in a consistent pattern, unless something disturbs it. What we’re seeing is thicker dust around the perimeter but almost none inside these margins. ’

Even after all of this time together, Ripley still had the ability to impress. Ella added dust forensics to Ripley’s resumé. ‘So, someone moved whatever was here recently?’

‘Yeah.’

‘How recently? Weeks?’

‘No. Hours. Dust behaves like a fluid in slow motion. When an object that’s been sitting in place for weeks or months is suddenly removed, it creates a micro-disturbance in the air, like a slow-motion splash. These particles haven’t fully resettled yet.’

‘Jeez, Mia. And you call me a nerd. So, what, something was sitting on this desk a few hours ago?’

‘Three hours max.’

Ella processed that. ‘You’re sure?’

‘I told you. Dust doesn’t lie.’

‘So, not only did our unsub nail Thomas Webb to his chair, but they took his computer too?’

The question hung in the air between them, neither wanting to voice the obvious question: what was on Thomas Webb’s computer that was worth killing for?

The office door creaked, and Sheriff Bauer’s face appeared in the gap. There were bags beneath his eyes that hadn’t been there this afternoon. Three homicides in as many days had aged the poor guy a decade.

‘Techs need the room,’ he said. ‘Gotta get the body to the M.E., stat.’

Ella glanced one final time at Thomas Webb’s unseeing eyes.

Someone had positioned his head to stare directly at the door, thus ensuring whoever entered would meet his dead gaze immediately.

It was a theatrical touch that spoke of ego, and it just so happened that the first person through the door was his closest relative.

‘Is Sarah still outside?’

‘Yeah. Girl’s a mess. Had to stop her from calling her mom three times. Ex-wife’s in Hospice with late-stage Alzheimer’s. No point traumatizing someone who won’t remember it tomorrow.’

Another micro-data point filed in Ella’s mental evidence locker. Sarah had never mentioned her mother’s condition. An omission born of privacy, or calculation?

‘We need to talk to her, Mia. Let’s go.’

***

Ella found Sarah Webb sitting in the back of a police cruiser.

Her legs were dangling outside the open door, as if she couldn’t commit fully to either remaining inside or stepping back into a world where her father no longer existed.

There was no easy way to question a woman who’d just found her father crucified to a chair, but Ella at least had to try.

‘Sarah. I’m sorry,’ Ella began.

‘Me too,’ Ripley said. She positioned herself slightly behind Ella’s right shoulder. Their standard interviewing formation. The arrangement came natural, like an old married couple who’d forgotten they were two separate people.

‘He was making dinner.’ Sarah breathed. Tears had cut trenches beneath her eyes. ‘He makes...made...chicken every Tuesday.’

‘We’re going to find who did this to Thomas, but to do that, we need to ask you some son-of-a-bitch questions. Is that okay?’

‘Now? I don’t think…’

Ella subtly glanced at her partner. Ripley radiated such skepticism that you could bottle it and sell it. Eu de Doubt.

‘We’ve only got one question,’ Ripley said. ‘It concerns…’

The screech of tires severed Ripley’s sentence.

A beaten-up, black Toyota slammed to a halt at the curb, parking half on grass in flagrant disregard of the crime scene perimeter.

The engine cut off abruptly. The driver’s door flew open before the car had fully settled, and a man scrambled out.

He looked to be in his late thirties, maybe early forties, dressed in casual clothes that looked hastily thrown on – jeans, untucked button-down shirt.