Page 52

Thirty thousand feet above the Eastern Seaboard, Ella watched storm clouds gather below. A flash of FBI credentials at the boarding gate had landed her and Luca a spot in first class courtesy of the lack of flyers. Someone might as well be in there, the gate operative had said.

Ella made the most of the extra legroom seats, and for once, no case files littered the table between her and her partner. Just the New York Times with a headline that made her want to laugh and groan simultaneously.

ELEMENTALLY, MY DEAR WATSON.

Luca hadn't stopped grinning since he picked up his copy at LaGuardia. She couldn't blame him - it was his handiwork after all. He'd fed that headline to the reporter outside the Gramercy Theater.

'You're proud of that headline, aren't you?'

Luca's smile could have powered Manhattan. ‘Maybe a little.’

‘A little?’

‘Okay, a lot. The line came to me when I had Amelia in cuffs.’

The story beneath wasn't half bad either. No sensationalism, no breathless speculation about satanic cults. Just facts assembled into something approaching truth. Four victims chosen to represent the classical elements. One killer with delusions of transformation. The FBI's behavioral analysis unit saves the day.

They'd gotten most of it right, which was a minor miracle in modern journalism. What they hadn't printed was even better. Amelia Blackwood had sung like a captured songbird once Ross got her in the box. Maybe it was relief at finally being caught. Maybe the weight of four bodies had gotten too heavy to carry alone.

The marine biology connection had been the key. Amelia Blackwood worked alongside Sarah Chen for two years as a part-time lab assistant at the Marine Research Institute. That's where she'd gotten the burns - an accident with sodium thiopental while assisting Sarah. When Sarah had testified that the incident was due to Amelia's negligence, the compensation claim had been denied. Sarah's casual destruction of both Amelia's face and future had earned her a spot on the list.

The perfect inside job - who'd suspect the quiet lab tech with the scarred face ?

The NYU angle explained Marcus Thornton. Amelia was a marine biology student there, and she knew about Marcus’ love of rocks through her brother, Felix. The hole in the quarry that claimed Marcus had been cut using Amelia’s father's concrete saw – heavy industrial equipment from the farm that could slice through limestone like butter. Just another tool Amelia had repurposed for her twisted alchemy.

Felix had also been the one to recruit Amelia to the cult, much to his regret. They’d found the poison in Sarah, Tessa and Victor’s systems; the same poison they found in the water bottles on Lydia Soulwright’s table. Amelia had also planted bottles of the same brand in the bathroom at Madam Butterfly's. Luca had seen someone go in there right before he did. Cultist Number Three – confirmed by several people to be Amelia Blackwood. This had been Amelia's attempt to frame Ezra Crowley for the murders by suggesting that he'd already spiked the bottles before Lydia got her hands on them. That way, police could still find him guilty even though he was locked in a holding cell.

The grave robberies made sense now too. Amelia had confessed that she’d been practicing on the dead before moving to living subjects. Each desecrated grave had been a chance to perfect her ritual before targeting actual victims. The ancient bones had been her test subjects.

‘You know what gets me?’ she asked. ‘All that planning. All those perfect murders. Then she throws it away on a forty-foot swan dive.’

‘Guess even serial killers have performance anxiety.’ Luca scooped up the paper and tucked it into his carry-on like a trophy. The gesture was pure Hawkins - earnest and enthusiastic and somehow endearing despite itself. Or maybe because of it.

Ella's stomach did that thing it had started doing whenever she looked at him too long. A flutter that had nothing to do with altitude and everything to do with the man who'd literally caught a falling killer because he thought she might need the help.

She didn't deserve him. Not after what she'd pulled at the precinct earlier tonight.

'Listen. About earlier. With Ezra. I shouldn't have mentioned the infiltration thing. I put you at risk.'

'It's fine.'

'No, it's not. There are still seven armed cultists out there who know your face now. I got caught up in the moment and-'

Luca reached over and found her wrist. ‘Dark, it’s fine. Turns out those cultists weren’t homicidal maniacs. Only one of them was.’

‘I know, but still. ’

‘Still nothing, but there is something we need to talk about.’

We need to talk . Four little words, enough to tie Ella's guts in knots. ‘What about? Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet.’

‘Warmer than an oven. It's just...’ Luca stared out of the window. ‘I don’t know how long I can keep doing this.’

'Doing what?'

'This. Us. Working together. We're supposed to be partners, Ell. But this case has felt like we're on different teams.’

Ella's lungs went tight. Different teams. The locker room euphemism for this isn't working out . She’d rather have jumped off that balcony with Amelia than hear this from him.

‘What brought this on?’

‘Come on, Ell. You know what. Every time we work a case, I'm watching your back instead of the perp's. And you're doing the same with me.’

‘That's what partners do.’

‘Yeah, but there's partner and then there's partner .’

‘Right, so what are you saying?’

'I'm saying maybe we need to think about our situation. Being partners in the field and... whatever else we are. It complicates things.'

A part of her knew exactly what he meant. Every time they went into the field together now, part of her brain was tracking his movements, calculating his risks. The kind of distraction that got people killed in their line of work.

'So what's the alternative?'

'We pick one. Partners at home or...' He gestured between them. Partners in the field. We can’t have both. We need distance.'

Ella's heart cracked clean in two. Distance. The death knell of every relationship she'd ever had.

Ella searched for the right words to defuse this emotional bomb but her tongue had turned to lead. She'd always put the job first. Always choose the hunt over the heart. But since she'd met Luca Hawkins four months ago, that had all changed. She wasn't about to go back to the old Ella, the one who forced ex-boyfriends to flee to the other side of the country out of fear for their lives. She'd had another boyfriend die on the job, another partner die on the job.

‘I’d rather have you at home than in the office,’ she said without a second thought. ‘I don’t want distance.’

‘Same.’

‘Well then. We’re in agreement. ’

‘I guess we are.’

The plane banked, angling towards the moon. Towards home, whatever that meant anymore. But with Luca by her side, Ella thought she might just find out.