Page 20 of Girl, Unmasked (Ella Dark #28)

Ella leaned in, burning a hole in the section of the manuscript Ripley had circled. A tingle of electricity ran through her.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Look. Right here, in the middle of this thing.'

Ella followed the line of Ripley’s finger to a paragraph that jumped off the page.

In this moment, it was just Cain and his angel.

He'd dreamed of this for so long, fantasized about every cut, every scream.

And now it was real. The iron tang of blood filled his nostrils, sweeter than any perfume.

Her flesh parted beneath his blade like silk, revealing the divine beauty hidden beneath mortal skin.

Nothing else mattered. Not his wracking cough, not the ache in his bones, not tomorrow's shift at the bookshop obscure. Just him and her, creator and creation.

She read it once, twice, three times, each pass ratcheting her pulse up another notch.

But she couldn’t see what Ripley had seen.

'Just seems like crap to me. What am I supposed to be looking at?'

‘Focus, woman. You really can’t see it?’

Ella shrugged. ‘No?’

‘Look at ‘bookshop obscure.’ Doesn’t that seem… off to you?’

Ella blinked, trying to see past the horror show and into whatever linguistic quirk had caught Ripley’s apparent eagle eye. ‘It's a weird phrase, sure, but this whole damn book is one big weird phrase. What's your point?’

‘No, it's more than that. Look closer. The word 'obscure.' It's italicized.’

Ella frowned. Read the line again. Damn if the old dog wasn't right. 'Obscure' was set apart from the rest of the text, leaning slightly to the right.

‘Okay. But why’s that significant?’

‘Because every time this jackass author mentions a proper noun, it’s in italics. Names, places, whatever. But ‘obscure’ doesn’t fit. Not on its own.’

The gears ground in Ella's head. ‘You think it's an error?’

‘More than that.’ Ripley leaned in. ‘It suggests that this bookshop is a real place, but maybe he ran an auto-spellcheck and it changed it to 'obscure' rather than what it was supposed to be.’

Ella felt a spark. Hope, maybe, or the beginning of an adrenaline rush that would either lead to a breakthrough or another dead end. ‘Okay, Sherlock. I'm listening. What was it supposed to be?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve only been in Norwalk since this morning, like you.’

The world tilted and realigned itself along a razor's edge of possibility that Ella hadn't even considered before now.

A mistake. A typo.

Could it really be that simple? A breadcrumb left by a mind that planned murder down to the last artery spurt?

Ella put her paranoia aside. She wanted to jump up, do a victory lap around her shoebox office. But the cop in her, the one who'd seen too many promising leads turn to ash, planted her ass in front of her laptop.

‘Mia, you might've just hit the jackpot.’

‘Don’t get excited just yet. We need to actually find something this might relate to.’

Ella hammered Bookshop Obscure Norwalk into the search bar and hit enter.

One second. Two.

Then it popped up.

There it was, in pixelated black and white.

Bookshop Obscura – specializing in horror, true crime, and dark fantasy.

Ella clenched her fist and slammed it down. ‘Dammit, Ripley. You did it. You out-thought this son of a bitch. Bookshop Obscura. It’s a real place right here in Norwalk.’

Ripley wheeled closer. ‘I knew reading would come in useful one day. Here, check the ‘About’ section. Might say who works at this place.’

Ella followed Ripley's directions and navigated to the page in question. A headshot popped up, along with a name and a brief paragraph beside it.

And Ella’s brain refused to believe the checks her eyes were writing.

'Holy crap,' Ripley said. She must have caught it, too.

The owner’s name was William Kane.

‘Kane,’ Ella said. ‘Just like…’

‘Cain. Our little protagonist.’

But that wasn't all, because the face staring back at her could have stepped right out of Drago LaChance's descriptions. Gaunt features, hollow eyes, hair wild enough to make Einstein look presentable.

Ella didn't believe in fate, but she sure as hell believed in bad guys getting sloppy. And this felt like the universe handing her a gift-wrapped lead, complete with a neon sign that screamed ‘brEAK GLASS IN CASE OF PSYCHOPATH.’ She scanned the guy’s bio:

William Kane is the owner and proprietor of the Bookshop Obscura, and has been since 2001. He is the author of seven horror novels, but is still striving for that one major hit. His books include The Grave Dancer, Ghostmortem, and Coffee With The Devil.

‘Ghostmortem,’ said Ripley. ‘Pretty clever.’

‘Yeah, great.’ Ella attacked the keyboard and hammered William Kane’s name into the police database. She gnawed her lip as she willed the digital hamster wheel to spin faster. Ripley hovered at her shoulder, close enough that Ella caught a whiff of her shampoo.

The screen flickered, and Ella's world zeroed in.

‘Well, I'll be damned,’ she muttered.

William Kane's rap sheet unfurled before her like a love letter from Lady Justice herself. One count of domestic battery, three years back. Seems Mr. Kane had decided his wife's face needed rearranging, courtesy of his fist.

‘What is it?’ Ripley asked. ‘I can’t make sense of this stupid database.’

‘Our boy's got priors. Seems he likes to use his hands for more than just typing.’

‘Oh sheesh. So he fits the profile, and he’s got a criminal history.’

Ella glanced at the clock. 5:07 PM. If Kane kept banker's hours, she might just catch him before he locked up shop for the night.

‘Absolutely right. Which means I need to see if Mr. Kane here is hiding any angels in his bookshop.’

Ripley rose up alongside her. ‘I’m coming with you. If William Kane is our man, then I need to punch him for making me read this crap.’

Ella grabbed her jacket and palmed her keys, already plotting the fastest route to Bookshop Obscura in her mental GPS. Her plan was to drive fast and ignore red lights. ‘Come on. Bookstore shuts in around twenty minutes, according to the site.’

And Ella was out of the door. Time to see if William Kane was as repulsive in the flesh as he was between the lines.