Page 2 of Girl, Unmasked (Ella Dark #28)

‘Certainly. Remember that this room is sound-proof. No one outside these walls will hear a thing. There’s a panic button beneath the table. Hit that and the guards will intercept immediately.’

‘That also won’t be necessary.’

‘Very well. Consider it a last resort.’

Huskins spun on his heel, but before he crossed the threshold, Ella said, ‘You know, warden, you didn’t search me for weapons before I came in here.’

‘No?’

‘No. Pretty strange for a maximum security prison.’

A moment of silence, then, ‘I may have spoken to Director Edis recently, and let’s just say I trust him and he trusts you.’

‘Yes he does.’

‘Well, then. Like I said, very few inmates go the way of Jeffery Dahmer. Creed will be here shortly.’

Another Herculean effort from Huskins and the door closed, leaving Ella alone in the meeting room. Dahmer had been beaten to death with a metal bar by a fellow inmate. Everyone knew it was coming. The guards had looked the other way.

In a few minutes, Austin Creed would walk through that door. The man who'd started all this.

And if he’d started it, he could end it too.

***

The lock clicked. And then again.

Ella’s heart rate doubled in speed as the door cracked open, then wider. The prison guards formed a human tunnel, and from the middle emerged a man in chains and an orange jumpsuit.

Time folded in on itself. Two years collapsed into nothing, and Ella was suddenly back in that women’s shelter where the man in front of her had planned to kill five women in one night.

Ella remembered hiding under those the bedsheets, pretending to be a potential victim, then blindsiding Creed and getting into the first real fight of her life.

They’d fought throughout the building, tore it down, and ended up rolling down the stairs together.

Ella still felt the phantom sting of his punches now, but she mostly remembered slamming the door of the squad car on him and leaving him to his new life in jail.

‘Hello,’ Creed said. The voice hadn’t changed, even if the body had.

Creed was much skinnier now, with a gaunt face and chasms below his eyes.

His brown hair touched his shoulders, which helped hide his dissolving hairline.

The guards surrounded him like he was carrying the plague, but Creed only had eyes for Ella.

‘Hello, Austin. Take a seat.’

The guards positioned him in the chair across from her. His hands were cuffed, but in front of him. One of them asked, ‘You need us to stay, ma’am?’

‘No. Thank you.’

The man hesitated. ‘We’ll be outside if you need us.’

The guards exchanged looks but filed out. The door sealed with another click.

And then it was just the two of them.

‘Hope I didn’t interrupt your busy day,’ Ella said.

Creed laughed. ‘Is that supposed to be funny?’

‘You’re laughing, so you tell me.’

‘The only funny thing is you coming all this way to see me. For the second time.’

‘Third. Today, your trial, and don’t forget the time I busted you trying to kill a house full of women.’

‘Didn’t save the four I did kill, did you?’

‘Didn’t give us much chance, did you?’

‘I gave you plenty of chances,’ Creed said, ‘you just didn’t pay attention. Seems like the story of your life, doesn’t it?’

The words landed exactly where he'd aimed them. Looking at Austin Creed across this metal table was like staring into the mouth of a cave where three people she knew had disappeared forever. Julianne, Jenna, Ben. They’d all been killed because this creature in orange had whispered the right words into the right ear.

Her hand ached to pull the Glock from her pocket and paint Creed's brains across the concrete wall behind him. It would be so simple. One squeeze. Problem solved. Edis had practically drawn her a road map to justifiable homicide. She’d had the chance to end a hundred lives over her career, but she’d only ever taken that fatal shot once before.

It had been the right decision then, and maybe this was the right decision now.

No. Not yet.

‘Sounds like you know why I’m here.’

Creed looked at the wall and then back at Ella. ‘This might surprise you, but I didn’t know your name until a few months ago.’

‘Oh really?’

‘I’m afraid so. I don’t know if you’ve ever been thrown in jail before, but they don’t exactly tell you who put you there. In fact, they go a long way to keep it secret.’

Creed was right. They did do that. Ripley had always told Ella to stay away from the press and media when it came to past conquests, and Ella had followed that advice as much as she could. Sometimes, however, it had been unavoidable. ‘And you know me now because I was at your trial.’

‘Yes. I believe you said I was a malignant narcissist who craved fame, and when I couldn’t find it through conventional means, I turned to the alternative.’

‘You remember well.’

‘And you told me I could have been a success, but I went another way.’

‘Partner,’ Ella finished.

‘I caught that too. You think I don’t recognize a Ted Bundy quote when I hear it?’

‘It wasn’t a Ted Bundy quote, it was a quote from the judge that gave him the death sentence, just like I gave you, so let me get to the point of why I’m here, because you might not have long left.

You see, Creed, some of my friends aren’t around anymore, and I think you might have something to do with that. ’

Creed had the nerve to feign surprise. He swept his scraggly hair back. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Don’t play dumb, because I can read you like a book.’

‘I don’t know what book you’re reading, because I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Ella had expected there’d be lies, but at the end of the day, she’d bested Austin Creed once and she could do it again. ‘Really? Then why’d you say that not paying attention is the story of my life? Sounds like you think you a lot about me.’

‘Am I wrong?’

‘I pay a lot of attention. Too much.’

‘I know your name is Ella Dark. I know you’re from Washington D.C. That’s it. What do you think I know?’

‘Wrong already. I’m from Virginia. I grew up in a farm town, just like you, and I think you know an awful lot about my friends, my work, my colleagues, and even my ex partners.’

Creed inspected his chains, like the answer might be written on them. Ella studied his body language, and the man was completely closed off. His knees were touching each other and his shoulders were tensed up. There was no relaxation in his posture, which meant he was putting on an act.

‘I’d be lying if I said I didn’t know what this was about. My lawyers asked me about some dead women with their mouths sewn shut – and one dead man.’

‘And?’

‘I told them what I’m telling you now. I don’t know anything about them.’

Ella wasn’t buying it. ‘Sure about that?’

‘I don’t know if you noticed, Ella, but I’m locked in a concrete box all day.

’ Creed rattled his chains. ‘There are thirteen locked doors between me and the free world. Guards watch me around the clock. I can’t take a piss without a camera on me.

So tell me, how exactly would I kill three of your friends? ’

‘Easy. You got someone on the outside to do it for you.’

Creed’s eyes lit up like she’d just solved a riddle for him. ‘It’s a seductive idea, but completely impossible in a place like this. Every single thing I do is monitored, even my mail.’

‘Charles Manson managed it, and you apparently know all about him.’

Creed went to smile, then clearly thought better of it. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t remember mimicking Charles Manson.’

‘No, because Manson never killed anyone himself. He got other people to do the work for him, and that’s what I think you’re doing. So you can either tell me the truth, or I can-’

‘Can what? Put a bullet in me right here? Don’t think I haven’t noticed that gun in your jacket, Ella, and even if you killed me, then what?

How would that stop someone mimicking the Mimicker?

It wouldn’t. Like I said, you should pay more attention.

I have no reason to lie to you, because the last I heard, they’re going to speed up my execution date – all because of your dead friends.

Apparently I’m a high risk prisoner, so the sooner I’m dead, the better.

If I knew anything about this, I’d tell you, because then I might have a chance at seeing next year, but I’ll be dead before the summer comes. Now, does that answer your question?’

A brief silence while Ella processed the outburst, and she hated that the words made sense. Being connected to these murders only fast-tracked his execution. Why would he orchestrate something that guaranteed his own death would come faster?

But then again, who was to say Creed valued those extra months? The man had mimicked five different serial killers not for the thrill of killing, but for the infamy. What was survival compared to a legacy the likes of Bundy and Gacy?

Except Creed was a narcissist, and narcists clung to life. They believed, even in chains, even on death row, that they were special enough to beat the system. Every day alive was another day to manipulate and exist as the center of his own universe, and would he really trade that for revenge?

Which meant either he was telling the truth, or he was willing to die to protect whoever was doing this.

'What about the card at Ben's funeral?' she asked. 'The one with the quote.’

‘What quote?’

‘Death is a type of love.' Ella purposely got it wrong in the hopes that Creed would correct her.

His forehead creased. ‘I don't know anything about a funeral card.'

‘It had my picture on it. With Ben.'

'I don't even know who Ben is.'

‘My ex-boyfriend. Shot in California.’

The confusion on his face looked genuine.

But then again, Creed had fooled plenty of people in the past. Ella studied his micro-expressions, the way his pupils dilated slightly, the unconscious tilt of his head.

After years of reading killers, she'd learned to spot the tells, but Creed wasn't giving her any.

Either he was the best liar she'd ever encountered, or he was telling the truth.

‘I haven't sent any cards. I told you, every piece of mail I touch gets read by the guards.’

Ella locked eyes with him and mentally ran through everything one more time. Director Edis's voice echoed in her head: When the host dies, the parasite dies too.

Such a simple equation. One pull of the trigger and maybe the killing would stop. Maybe whoever was out there carving up her life would lose their purpose through losing their messiah.

But what if Creed was telling the truth? What if she put a bullet in his brain and the murders kept coming? She'd have killed him for nothing. Executed a man who was already scheduled to die, and gained nothing but another ghost to carry around.

The frustration began to eat her from the inside, because if Creed was being honest – and every instinct she'd honed over the years suggested he was – then she was staring into an abyss with no bottom.

Someone had killed three people she cared about, and that person knew intimate details of her life and relationships and friendships.

Someone who'd been at Ben's funeral, close enough to leave a card with their photo on it.

And that someone wasn't the man sitting across from her in chains.

She stood up. Today wasn’t the day for Austin Creed to die.

‘Leaving so soon?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

Whatever answers she needed, they weren't going to come from Austin Creed. Ella moved to the door and pushed the buzzer. As it began its slow journey open, Creed asked, ‘Ella, one question for you. Did you ever visit my farm?’

The question tripped her up. No. She’d never been to Austin Creed’s farm, even during the initial investigation. ‘No I haven’t.’

Guards swooped in and surrounded Creed like he might fly away. Two of them grabbed him under the arms and hauled him to his feet. As they carried him past her, Creed twisted his head back to look at Ella one more time.

‘We’re everywhere, and there’ll be more of us tomorrow.’