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Ella glanced up from the crimescene photographs she had been examining. The images laid out before her showedDonna Shepherd's office, frozen in time by the flash of a camera. Sparse.Clinical. And notably devoid of technology. ‘I don't see a computer.’
‘Everything should still be there,’Ripley replied, leaning forward to peer at one of the photos. ‘As it was.’
Ella leaned back in her chair,tension knotting between her shoulder blades. The absence gnawed at her. Donna,a professional therapist with no findable means of record-keeping. It was likea puzzle missing a vital piece, and every instinct told her that the missingpiece was the key to unraveling the mystery of Donna's murder.
‘Then there's another angle we'renot seeing,’ Ella murmured, standing up abruptly. The chair groaned softly asit rolled away. A change of scenery might offer a new perspective—somethingtangible she could grasp onto in the slippery slope of the investigation. ‘Ithink it's time I paid a visit to Donna Shepherd's office myself.’
'Good idea,' Ripley said.
‘Maybe something more will standout to me there,’ Ella said , reaching for her jacket. The fabric whispered asshe slid her arms into the sleeves. ‘Want to tag along?’
Ripley shook her head, returning tothe reports scattered across Ella's desk. ‘Better not. I'll stay put, keep aneye on Puder. Just in case he gets any bright ideas.’
‘Alright,’ Ella said. ‘Call me ifanything changes.’
‘You know I will.'
With a final scan of the documentson her desk, Ella turned and walked out of the room. The click of her heelspunctuated each step as she made her way through the maze of the precinct. Hermind was racing ahead to the crime scene; Donna's office would be afreeze-frame of the woman's last moments, and somewhere within its confines layclues that they had yet to uncover. Each clue a potential whisper in the screamthat was Donna’s silent office, beckoning her to listen closer, dig deeper.
Ella pushed through the doors andinto the world outside, where the sun offered little warmth and the windcarried whispers of the coming winter. She knew that the answers were there,hiding in plain sight or buried beneath layers of the mundane. And she wasdetermined to unearth them, piece by piece.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ella approached the building, itsfacade as unremarkable as any other downtown office block. But what lay insidewas far from ordinary. The uniformed at the door nodded curtly, recognizing thebadge that Ella thrust in his direction.
‘Fed?’ he asked, his voice a roughwhisper that barely disturbed the silence of the corridor.
‘Indeed. I’m working with ChiefCaldwell. I’m here to see Donna Shepherd’s crime scene.’
The office pushed open the heavyglass door for her, and she stepped into the sterile coolness of the lobby. Asshe crossed the threshold, a wave of heaviness settled over her. It was thesame oppressive sensation that clung to the walls of crime scenes—a malignresidue that no amount of scrubbing could erase.
Donna Shepherd's office lay ahead,a plain wooden door amidst a row of identical portals, but the air around itseemed to quiver with the echo of a scream swallowed by time. Ella's handhesitated on the knob before turning it. Pushing the door open, she entered theroom where life had transitioned to death.
For a moment, Ella just stoodthere, letting the reality of the scene seep into her pores. The ordinarinessof the space—the gray carpet, the functional desk, the innocuous officechair—clashed violently with the chaos that had erupted inside. Books lay upendedon their spines, like victims of some silent bibliographic catastrophe. Papers,once neatly filed, now fanned across the floor in a mocking display of orderundone.
Ella started moving again, steppingcarefully between the yellow placards that marked each piece of evidence, eachdetail that might lead her to the truth. Her eyes were drawn to the disarray onDonna's desk—folders jutting out at odd angles, pens scattered like thrownmatchsticks.
‘Rebekah Holden's place was ahurricane hit,’ Ella muttered to herself. ‘This is... less so.’
The mess spoke volumes to Ella,told stories in the silent language of displacement and disorder. The killerhad been here, had rifled through these very papers, perhaps searching forsomething, perhaps simply relishing the destruction they could wreak.
She tread carefully between the seaof crime scene markers, her boots whispering across the carpet that hadabsorbed the final echoes of Donna Shepherd's life. The layout drew her in,beckoning her to view it through the eyes of one whose heart pumped not bloodbut rage.
Ella paused beside Donna's desk,the epicenter of turmoil, her gaze tracing the trajectory of tossed objects.She imagined the violent ballet that must have ensued—papers taking flight in awhirlwind, books cascading down in a helpless tumble—each item a displacedfragment of a picture she was desperate to reconstruct.
Ella's fingers grazed the yellowmarker just in front of the desk, the beacon where Donna Shepherd had met herend. Ella could almost feel the echo of Donna's final heartbeat, racing interror before being extinguished.
She straightened and measured thedistance to another marker—this one adjacent to a leather chair ten feet away,its cushion slightly askew, as if someone had risen from it in haste. This wasthe spot where the killer must have sat, an island in the midst of chaos. Ellamoved toward it,and stood behind the chair, placing herself in the shoes of theunsub, letting the moment wash over her.
In her mind's theater, she playedout the scene: Donna, seated at her desk, perhaps offering insights or truthstoo bitter for the killer to digest. Words that were meant to heal had insteadtwisted into provocation, sparking an inferno of rage within the depths of atroubled psyche. The chair would have been a launchpad for the fury thatfollowed.
The unsub would have surgedforward, hands driven by a tempest of emotion wrapping around Donna's throat.The struggle, intense and likely two to three minutes long, would have leftDonna lifeless upon the ground. And then, as though the act of murder hadn'tquenched his thirst for destruction, he would have vented the remnants of hiswrath upon her office.
'Odd,' Ella muttered under herbreath. It wasn't enough to silence Donna; the killer felt compelled toobliterate the space around her. It was a strange modus operandi, one thatspoke volumes to anyone who could interpret its language.
The scattered pages and toppledbooks weren't simply aftermath; they were insights into a mind where rage didnot subside with death—a mind where the tempest raged on, seeking new avenuesto assert its dominance. It presented a chilling portrait of the unsub, onethat Ella knew would be crucial in painting a psychological profile.
Ella began devouring the office,fingers moving with the precision and urgency of a safecracker. Desk drawersslid open and shut with soft thuds, their contents rifled through, butrevealing little more than stationery and personal trinkets. She scanned bookshelveslined with legal tomes and psychological manuals, each spine examined thendismissed. Her quest through the cupboards was equally fruitless, yielding onlycleaning supplies and stacks of printer paper.
