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The call to William Edis would go one of two ways. Either he'd shut her down before she got three words out, or he'd give her enough rope to hang herself with. Ella stabbed at his number from the corridor outside Room 305 and waited for the axe to fall.

Three rings, then four. Just when she thought it would kick to voicemail, William Edis picked up.

‘Do you know what time it is, Ella?’

No hello. Classic Edis. ‘Same time it is in your office. You're still there, aren't you?’

‘Budget season.’ A sound punched through the line - Edis kicking his trash can. He did that when the numbers didn't add up. ‘Three different committee reports on my desk and they all tell different stories. Someone's lying to me.’

‘Want me to profile your accountants?’

‘Don't tempt me.’ Papers rustled. ‘What's so urgent you're calling at seven PM?’

Ella leaned against the wall. Her legs ached from standing through the lecture, and the blisters from the Oregon fire two weeks ago still made every step a reminder of what happened. ‘Got an unusual missing persons case at NYU.’

‘Since when do we handle missing persons?’

‘Since this one walked out of a locked room mystery.’ Ella pulled up the mental snapshot of Marcus Thornton's file. ‘Professor of Geology. Perfect attendance record for twelve years. Never missed a class, never even called in sick. Then Friday he vanishes. Phone dead. Car gone.’

‘And?’

‘And his rock hammer's missing.’

‘His what?’

‘Exactly. Who takes a rock hammer when they're planning to disappear?’

‘Dark...’ The warning in Edis's voice could have stripped paint. ‘We've got actual cases. Real ones. With bodies and jurisdiction and those pesky things called evidence. ’

Ella guessed this would be the director’s response. Time to play her trump card. ‘Come on, sir, you’re always saying we need to stay in the university’s good books. Especially NYU.’

‘How did the talk go? You didn’t bore them, did you?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Good. How’d you find out about this missing professor situation?’

‘One of the other professors collared me and Hawkins. She’s in a real state.’

Ella could hear Edis hammering away at his keyboard. ‘Tell her we’ll keep it on our radar, but it’s up to the cops to summon us, not citizens.’

Guess the trump card didn’t work. Maybe her ace in the hole would work better. ‘He drives a Mustang.’

The typing on the other end stopped cold. Ella smiled. Everyone, even Bureau directors, had their pressure points. For Edis, classic cars ranked right up there with national security.

‘What year?’

‘Not sure. But he restored it himself. Ground up.’

‘You're playing me.’

‘Only because it's working.’

A sound that might have been a laugh. ‘Alright. Convince me this isn’t a simple missing persons case.’

Ella thought of Olivia Westbrook's haunted expression, the way her hands kept twisting together as she talked. Fear had tells, just like lying did. ‘Something's wrong here. People don't just vanish anymore. They leave digital footprints, credit card trails, cell phone pings. This gent, Marcus Thornton, doesn’t seem to have any of that.’

‘You already looked into his bank statements?’

‘No. I was being dramatic.’

‘What’s saying this guy didn’t just need a break from grading papers?’

‘With a rock hammer?’

‘Point taken.’ Edis shuffled some papers. ‘What's the local PD saying?’

‘Still trying to trace his dead cell phone, but you know they’re just buying time on the off-chance he shows up again.’

‘And you think they're wrong?’

‘I think...’ Ella paused, organizing her thoughts. Edis hated rambling. ‘I think we've got a respected academic who spent twelve years building a routine, then broke it without warning. No preparations, no goodbyes. Just grabbed his geological tools and disappeared. ’

Silence stretched between them. Ella could almost hear Edis weighing the options, running his own cost-benefit analysis. She could feel him coming round to the idea, but she played her last kicker regardless. ‘Besides, sir, remember what the docs said? You said you’d owe me one.’

After Ella’s showdown with the Scarecrow, she’d been sent to the Bureau's medical review board. They’d tallied up all of the injuries she’d endured over the years like a grocery bill; permanent scarring to her legs, lung damage from smoke inhalation, multiple concussions, a malunion in her forearm.

The damage was enough to warrant medical intervention, so the doctors had pushed an SF-50 form across the table – a Personnel Action document that would process her medical retirement with a $500,000 payout.

All she had to do was sign a waiver disqualifying her from field work. Permanently trade her badge for a pension and a desk somewhere. Back to her old life, maybe in Intelligence or Counter-Terrorism.

She’d wrestled with the idea, slept on it for a few nights. Ripley had taught her to get in and get out of this game before a bullet decided for you, and with how many times Ella had come close to death over the years, accepting the offer seemed like the wise choice.

But then Edis had pulled her aside and offered her door number two: stay on active duty, and he'd make sure the Bureau covered every medical bill, every therapy session, every prescription. No questions asked. Because apparently losing Ella would cost the FBI a lot more than half a million dollars.

Ella had torn up the SF-50 form the same day.

‘Low blow, Ella. Using that against me.’

‘I told you I would.’

A long sigh crackled through the line. ‘Fine. Take a look. But you’ve got until tomorrow morning to make something of this, got it?’

‘Of course. If I send you a few details, can you work your magic?’

‘Jesus, Dark. You want me to clean your car too?’

‘No, but you can put a trace on our missing guy’s car if you want. I’ll text you the plate number.’

‘Send it to Surveillance. I’ll email them and tell them to fast-track it.’

‘Thank you, sir. Do I need to prep NYPD that we’re looking into it?’

‘Depends if it’s an active case on their end or not. Send me the contact’s name and I’ll make a quick call.’

‘Appreciated. I’ll keep you updated. ’

‘Do, but not tonight. Call me in the morning.’

The line went dead. Ella pocketed her phone and headed back toward Olivia's office. She thought of all the times that Edis’s name had flashed on her cell and brought that sense of crippling dread because she knew that she’d be neck-deep in corpses before the day was out. Now, here she was, ingesting that dread of her own free will, hunting a mystery she had no obligation to.

The closest Ella had come to hard drugs was cleaning up her old roommate’s joints on Sunday mornings, but she imagined this was how it felt – that first hit of uncertainty, that alarm of not knowing what waited around the corner. Some people needed needles or pipes to get their fix. Ella just needed a puzzle that didn't quite fit together.

And Marcus Thornton's disappearance was what Jenna would have called some righteous bud.

Time to find a missing person.