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'It's primal,' Ripley said. 'Thesooner you realize that sex is the backbone to everything, the sooner the worldstarts making sense.'
Ella grinned. 'It won't make thebig book of quotes, but I get it.'
She turned her attention to theleather-bound ledger that lay open before her, its pages teeming withhandwritten entries—appointments, names, dates—all penned by Rebekah before herlife had been so brutally snuffed out.
Her fingers traced the rows of textas she scanned the pages, seeking connections, hoping for the errant detailthat would rise above the mundane. Then, she paused, her breath hitchingslightly.
There it was—a name etched in blackink. 'Daniel.' No last name followed, only an appointment time that coincidedwith the estimated hour of Rebekah's death. It was a thread, unspooled andwaiting to be pulled.
‘Daniel...’ Ella whispered, feelingthe pulse of the investigation quicken.
She rifled through the precedingpages, searching for any recurrence of the name. The seconds ticked by, markedby the soft rustle of turning pages until another entry halted her progress.Daniel Puder, the name written with a familiarity that suggested repeatsessions. Could it be the same Daniel? Was this the link between therapist andkiller?
'Ripley, check this out,' Ella saidas she tried to contain the surge of adrenaline. 'Rebekah saw a Daniel Pudermultiple times before her last entry of just Daniel.'
‘Same guy?’ Mia asked, one eyebrowraised.
‘Maybe,’ Ella responded, her eyesnever leaving the book. ‘If it is, he could be our connection. The one who tiesall of this together.’
The office felt smaller suddenly,as if the walls themselves were leaning in, eager to overhear the theoriesalready coalescing in Ella's head. Each name in the ledger, each appointment,was a piece of a larger puzzle. And now, she might just have found a cornerpiece.
Her eyes morphed into twinsearchlights, scanning the sea of names on Donna Shepherd's client list. As hergaze flitted from one name to another, each was immediately categorized anddismissed in her mind - irrelevant, unconnected, cold.
‘Any mention of a Daniel on DonnaShepherd's list?’ Ripley asked over Ella's shoulder.
She flipped through the pages. Andthen, there it was—a name that jumped out at her like an electric spark: DanielPuder.
‘Ripley,’ Ella said, her voicesuddenly sharp with urgency, ‘Daniel Puder is on this list too.’
Mia leaned in closer and slammedher fist into the table. ‘That's not a coincidence.’
‘Definitely not.’ Ella tapped thepaper, her finger resting on the name as if pinning down a vital lead. Theyboth knew the significance; two victims, both therapists, and one clientoverlapping in their histories.
‘Two months,’ Ella mused aloud asshe noted the last appointment date for Puder with Shepherd, her brow furrowedin concentration. ‘He hasn't seen Donna in two months, and there’s no record ofhim seeing her on the night Donna died.’
‘Maybe he stopped needing therapy?’Mia suggested, though the skepticism was evident.
‘Or maybe he found amore...permanent solution to his problems,’ Ella countered, the idea forminglike frost on a windowpane. There was a gap in the story they had yet to fill,a missing piece in the timeline that gnawed at Ella’s instincts. She sat backin her chair, the wheels creaking slightly under the shift of her weight.
She felt a caution born ofexperience, a safeguard against the seductive pull of an easy answer. Yet,somewhere in the hollows of her gut, she felt the tug of something significantabout this man named Daniel Puder.
The clock on the wall tickedsteadily, indifferent to the gravity of their inquiry. With every passingsecond, Ella felt the urgency mounting, the need to chase down this lead beforeit went cold. She cracked her neck, feeling the restlessness in her limbs, theitch to move, to act, to solve.
'Let's find out what we can aboutPuder,' said Ripley. 'Try him on the database.'
Ella pulled her laptop closer andhammered the keyboard in a frenzy. Ripley's suggestion echoed in Ella's mind;the possibility that Donna Shepherd's office had been breached during off-hourswas real and tangible. It suggested premeditation, a killer who planned, whowaited for the opportune moment to strike.
‘If Daniel knew her schedule, hewouldn't have to book a session with her to attack her,’ Ella said. Her eyessquinted as she navigated through the Wisconsin police database. She wasn'tfamiliar with the system, but most police systems were uniform in theirlayouts.
She found what she sought: aprofile emerging on the screen like a specter from the digital depths.
‘Daniel Puder,’ she read aloud,‘Twenty-eight years old.’ A quick glance at the map confirmed his proximity tothe original crime scene—merely two miles. Proximity didn't imply guilt, but itwas a thread she couldn't afford to ignore.
‘Anything juicy?’ Ripley leanedover Ella's shoulder, her breath warm against Ella's ear.
‘Let's see.’ Ella scrolled, delvingdeeper into Daniel Puder's past encounters with law enforcement. Her heart ratepicked up as a file loaded, revealing an image of a skinhead gentleman, roundeyes like marbles, and a history that sent a shiver down her spine. ‘Arrestedfor assault,’ she murmured, the words tasting sour on her tongue.
‘Assault?’ Ripley's brow furrowed.
