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Ella’s first thought was that she shouldn’t have bothered coming, because Ripley seemed to have the whole thing under control.

But if she hadn’t have arrived, she’d have missed her partner caving in Sarah Webb’s head, and that spectacle was better than a lottery win. Ella had no idea how she’d explain it to the higher-ups, but she’d find a way.

Now, they were sitting on the sand while the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office cleaned up. Nathan Taylor – or Robert Lawrence – was still alive. Sarah Webb was also very much alive. Both had been taken to separate cruisers.

‘How’d you find out?’ Ripley asked.

‘Thomas Webb had written a book and pitched it to Scarecrow Press – Nathan’s publishing house. That’s why he’d stolen Thomas’s computer, so we wouldn’t find the email history.’

‘And that brought you here?’

‘No. I went to Nathan’s apartment and found something on his bookshelf. A Goosebumps book. With a purple cover and a scarecrow on the front.’

Ripley made an unrecognizable sound. A laugh that aimed for bemusement but stopped at disbelief. ‘He still had that?’

‘Yeah. That’s what tipped me off about his identity. He changed his name a few years ago. Not sure why.’

‘Didn’t change his trauma though.’

‘Not your responsibility. It’s usually me saying that to you. You couldn’t have predicted what he’d become.’

Ripley shrugged. ‘Maybe not.’

‘And no, it’s not your fault he went this route. You can blame yourself all you want, but Nathan was always going to become a killer, dead father or not.’

Sheriff Bauer broke away from a pack of officers up ahead and ambled over. He took off his hat. ‘Agents, we found something.’

‘Please, I can’t do any more somethings ,’ Ripley said.

‘It’s the body parts. Sniffer dogs found them. Our perp buried them in the sand.’

Ella’s head snapped up. ‘What? They’re here?’

‘Yeah. All of them, right next to each other. You wanna see?’

‘Not really.’ The answer was immediate.

‘Same,’ Ripley said. ‘Don’t want to see my mentor’s eyeballs. That’s the last thing I need.’

‘Understood. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you ladies for what you did here. If it wasn’t for you, we’d be chasing our tails.’

Both of them turned to Ella, but she waved a dismissive hand. ‘Don’t look at me. Mia did the hard part. She chased Webb here, disarmed her, then beat her and Taylor to hell with a shov-’

Ripley slapped Ella’s knee. ‘Yeah. A shove. Webb had me at gunpoint, but I just… shoved her.’

‘What? Really?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Huh. Doesn’t explain the bruises on her head, but I’ll believe ya,’ Bauer winked. ‘Anyway, if you ever need anything, you know where I am, yeah?’

‘Thanks, Sheriff,’ Ella said. ‘We’ll probably be heading back tonight.’

Bauer put his hat back on and gave them a salute. ‘Take care, won’t you.’

‘You too.’

When Bauer was out of earshot, Ella nudged her partner. ‘Didn’t this case teach you anything? Lying is bad.’

‘I’m a civilian. I can’t go ‘round hitting people with shovels.’

‘Didn’t stop you an hour ago. By the way, those trophies? Explains the sand at Thomas’s house.’

‘Oh yeah. Taylor must have visited here, then gone straight to kill Thomas.’

‘Yup.’

‘You know, Dark, I still don’t understand his psychopathology. What the hell was he? He mimicked those cold cases down to a tee, and he told me his motivation was to write the ultimate story. But why kill me? How did he know I’d be here?’

‘He got lucky with that part,’ Ella said.

‘Sarah told us she was struggling, right? And she told me Nathan’s industry was on life support too.

So, together they concocted this elaborate plan.

They thought they could craft the most compelling true crime story ever written, and Sarah would be right at the center of it, so she’d have insights no one else would. ’

‘Insights,’ echoed Ripley. ‘Ha.’

‘Yeah. Everything they did was to craft the narrative, like framing Nicholls, deviating from the White Whale Group by killing Thomas. Suspicion would naturally fall on Sarah through the course of the investigation, which is why she killed her own dad. No one would believe a killer would do that.’

‘True.’

‘But I think for Nathan it was more than money, fame, whatever. He was mimicking killers, but I think he actually became a serial killer in the process, hence this burial site. This was his way of avenging his dad’s murder, but then he saw you.

I saw how he looked at you outside Thomas’s house. Did you recognize him then?’

‘No, but I recognized that I recognized him, if that makes sense.’

‘Yeah. Anyway, you want to go home? It’s nearly Christmas, and I don’t want to spend it in Florida.’

‘You read my mind. Not about Christmas, just about not being in Florida.’

‘Let’s go.’

They hauled themselves up and made their way across the sand, up the ramp and back onto the access path. There was an endless line of police cruisers parked up, and the first two had a pair of familiar faces in them. In one, Sarah Webb. In the other, Nathan Taylor.

‘You want to go say goodbye?’ asked Ella.

Ripley wrinkled her nose, then swallowed a lump in her throat. ‘Yes, actually.’

‘He’s over there.’

‘No, not Taylor. I want to speak to Webb.’

‘You do?’

‘Yeah. I’ve got some things I want to say.’

Ripley approached the car containing a beaten, bloody, and probably-concussed Sarah Webb. She yanked open the back door.

‘Evening, Sarah.’

Sarah huffed. ‘Come to apologize?’

‘No. I’ve come to tell you that you’ll be going to prison, but probably not for life. You’ll be charged with conspiring to commit murder, reckless driving, assaulting a federal agent. You’re looking at around 20 years in jail.’

‘You think I don’t know how sentencing works?’

‘I’m just saying that one day, you’ll be out, and if I see you trying to profit from your ordeal by writing another book, I’ll personally track and burn down every copy, okay?’

Ella had to hide her grin. Of course there was an ulterior motive to Ripley’s conversation.

‘I get it. You don’t like writers. You don’t have to rub it in.’

‘No, Webb. You’ve got it wrong – again. See, I don’t hate writers at all.

I don’t even hate true crime writers. What I hate is pretentious pseudo-intellectuals who, behind those big glasses and stupid turtlenecks, are really just brainless idiots with egos too big for their empty heads.

And you know what? Just to prove I’m telling the truth.

I’m going to write the book on this case, got it? ’

‘What? You? You can’t-’

Ripley slammed the door in Sarah’s face and walked off, leaving Ella alone, staring at a downtrodden Sarah Webb through glass.

They were two sides of a coin, really. Both occupying opposite ends of the same spectrum.

One consumed by the stories, the other relentlessly pursuing the truth behind them.

But no, Ella felt no flicker of sympathy for the author in the back seat. Ella offered a small nod, then turned and left. There was nothing more to say.

Time to go home.