Page 1 of Girl, Unmasked (Ella Dark #28)
Ella Dark pulled to a stop in front of the barrier, then rolled down the window of her rental car. The guard leaned out of his booth.
‘Yes ma’am?’
‘Agent Ella Dark with the FBI. Unscheduled visit.’
‘I.D.?’
Ella flashed her badge, fully aware that it wouldn’t be enough to get her beyond the iron gates up ahead. However, she wanted to assess this place’s capacity for security. The guard took her badge and scanned it with his PIV reader. It bleeped red.
‘Thank you, Agent Dark, but I can’t grant you clearance on this alone. What’s the purpose of your visit?’
‘Confidential.’
‘Understood, but this is a Supermax. We can’t let people waltz in here unannounced, badge or not.’
‘Of course. Maybe this will help.’ Ella unfolded her golden ticket and passed it to the guard. He took it, glanced over it, then regarded Ella with a keen eye.
‘This is signed by the FBI Director.’
‘Yes, it is, sir.’
'And you're looking for access to a prisoner,' – the guard skimmed the affidavit once more, then his eyebrows shot up – '0847291.’
‘Correct.’
'Creed.' The guard scratched his beard, looking like he'd never been in this situation before.
Maybe he hadn't, because Austin Creed had been inaccessible to everyone except his legal counsel ever since he'd been handed a death sentence last year.
The guard leaned out of his booth and handed Ella's documents back.
'Alright, head on through, but you'll need to pass this affidavit to the warden's office.
They'll need to check it once you're inside. '
The barrier rose, and the guard gestured for Ella to head through.
A tunnel swallowed her car, and then she emerged in front of a metal gate crowned with barbed wire.
Two armed guards stood on either side as the gate slid open, and then they ushered her through.
The gate closed behind her, and now Ella was in front of Louisiana State Penitentiary, known around these parts as simply The Farm, because the giant, concrete complex had been built on an old slave plantation in the early 1900s, and still retained the same purpose: caging men who'd never see freedom again.
Ella parked up in a visitor's spot and jumped out before she could think too hard about this.
There were 6,000 inmates from all across America in this building, 40 of which were awaiting the lethal injection.
The place was home to multiple high-profile serial killers and mass murderers, including Derrick Todd Lee, Daniel Blank, and Anthony Bell.
And of course, Austin Creed.
Creed was the first serial killer Ella ever caught, and while she knew him as Austin Creed, most of the world knew him as the Mimicker, because his M.O.
was to copycat infamous serial murders of yesteryear.
Ed Gein, Richard Ramirez, Edmund Kemper, John Wayne Gacy, and finally a haphazard attempt at mimicking Ted Bundy before Ella intercepted and put him behind bars.
At the end of last year, Ella had been present for Creed’s sentencing hearing, and her testimony had helped secure him a death sentence.
But since that day, people in Ella’s circle had wound up dead. First Julianne, her landlord, who’d been stabbed to death with her lips sewn shut with locks of Ella’s own hair. Then Jenna, her old roommate. Same method.
And finally Ben. Beautiful, admirable Ben, who'd been smart enough to run all the way to California to escape the death that followed Ella everywhere. He'd gotten a bullet instead of a blade because even the killer knew you couldn't get close enough to stab someone who could outrun the wind.
Just yesterday she’d been to Ben’s funeral in California, and amongst the flowers and tributes there’d been a card. A smiling photo of Ella and Ben had adorned the front, and inside there’d been a message:
Death is the greatest form of love.
Ella hadn’t sent that card, and the quote inside was straight out of Charles Manson’s mouth.
Creed had an obsession with serial killers, and Manson had once been caught manipulating people on the outside.
For Ella, that had been confirmation that Austin Creed was behind this whole thing, and while he couldn’t kill anyone from inside his cell, it didn’t mean that – like Manson – he couldn’t employ a puppet.
She entered the reception area, and behind the bullet-proof glass counter, she caught the eye of a corrections officer, heavy-set, north of fifty. The nameplate read C. WASHINGTON.
‘Can I help you?’
Ella placed her badge and affidavit on the metal tray and slid it to her. ‘Agent Ella Dark with the FBI. I’m here to see Austin Gareth Davies Creed, inmate number 0847291.’
Washington looked at the badge first. Then the paper. Her face changed when she got to the signature at the bottom. ‘This real?’
‘Very.’
Nobody sees him. Not since the sentencing.'
‘I know.’
Washington picked up her desk phone, punched three numbers and waited.
'Need Huskins in reception.' She listened to something on the other end.
'No, right now. We got FBI here with federal clearance for Creed.
' She hung up. Looked at Ella through the glass.
'Deputy Warden's coming down. You can wait over there. '
Ella nodded her thanks and took a seat.
It was time to find out the truth, and if she couldn’t do that, then she might just make good on Director Edis’s request.
Three days ago, Edis had called into his office for one last meeting before his retirement.
He'd handed her the affidavit – his parting gift, he'd called it. He’d told her that when the host died, the parasite died too, and the implication had been crystal.
If Creed was orchestrating the murders of Ella's friends from his cell, then putting a bullet in him might be the only way to stop it.
Which was why she had a Glock 17 in her jacket pocket.
***
Ella had heard people on the outside talk about prisons being too soft. Three meals and a bed, they'd say. Cable TV and exercise yards. It was like a summer camp with bars.
But walking behind Warden Huskins as he led Ella through the corridors, she pitied people who thought places like this were anything but hell.
Noise from every angle. Screaming for no reason, prisoners flushing toilets in unison to block the pipes, people singing loudly while others shout for them to shut the hell up.
Twenty-three hours a day in a concrete box, with one hour to remember what sky looked like.
Men went mad in here. They cut their own throats with filed-down toothbrushes just to get five minutes in the medical ward.
‘Creed’s in isolation, because if I leave him out here in gen pop, he’d go the same way as Jeffery Dahmer.’
‘I’m sure he would.’
‘I’d have no problem if Creed miraculously shuffled off his coil, but the problem is that most times the other prisoners don’t go all the way. That means hospital visits and medication and tax payer money wasted on keeping a serial killer alive.’
‘Does Creed get much mail correspondence?’
Huskins let out a hearty laugh. ‘You’d think he was Father Christmas with how much mail he gets. It baffles me.’
‘Do you read every letter?’
‘Every single one. Half of them are from journalists, reporters, that kind of thing.’
‘And the other half?’
They reached what Ella assumed was the meeting room. The door was an eight-foot steel monster with a handle that Huskins had to grip with both hands. He peered over his shoulder and said, ‘Groupies.’
‘All of them?’
In a feat that took all of his effort, Huskins planted his feet and yanked.
The door moved an inch or two, but once it gained momentum it swung wide to reveal a windowless concrete box beyond.
There was already a female armed guard inside, and she was standing to the side of a metal table.
If someone had have asked Ella to picture a female prison guard, she’d never have imagined one that looked like this.
She was a well-proportioned blonde woman, probably early thirties, but without the dry skin and grey roots that their mutual insisted upon them.
‘Sorry. Precautions. This is one of our safe rooms.’
‘Understood.’
Huskins ushered her inside, then said, ‘Yeah, mostly groupies. I say this as a married man with three daughters: women are insane.’
The air in the meeting room was just above freezing. Ella had never known the south to be anything but roasting, but January in Louisiana was proving her wrong. ‘You think?’
‘Oh yeah. Mental cases. You never get any men writing to Creed, but women treat him like he’s kind of heartthrob.’
‘Only the women who write to him. Ask any woman on the street and they’ll say he should be put to death tomorrow.’ Ella seated herself at the table with the guard to her left. She looked over at her. ‘You know, I don’t need security for this. It’s fine.’
‘Protocol, miss,’ the guard said.
‘I know, but nothing about this meeting is following protocol. I don’t want anyone hearing this conversation.’
The guard glanced at Huskins, who took a moment and then nodded. ‘If you insist, Miss Dark, but I’ll need guards stationed outside this door, okay?’
‘Fine.’
Ella did insist, because Creed was more likely to open up one-on-one.
If there was an audience, he’d play to them.
Huskins gave the guard the signal, and then she left, but not without dragging her feet.
She kept glancing back like she was missing out on the gossip of the century.
She positioned herself outside the door, but Huskins made her move a few feet further away.
‘I’ll go get Creed. He’ll be escorted by five guards, and he’ll be handcuffed. We can fetter him too if you wish.’
‘That won’t be necessary.’ Ella wanted Austin Creed free, because the more limbs he had use of, the more excuse she might have to do what she planned to do.