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‘Suicide.’
‘Suicide. But howoften do we see drowning as a form of suicide?’
‘Hardly ever. It’ssomething like four percent of all suicides.’
‘Exactly,’ Ella said.Despite the common belief, suicide by drowning was a rare occurrence. Unlessthe victim could subdue their own body below the water, the human bodyinvoluntarily fought for air despite the conscious mind’s desires. ‘Even incoastal towns like this, drowning wouldn’t be anyone’s first choice of suicidemethod. Remember your dad’s sailor friend?’
‘The pain of drowningis too much. People always fight to the surface.’
‘And if we rule outsuicide, what are we left with? Foul play.’
Ripley nodded slowly,the skepticism that had clouded her features beginning to clear. ‘You'resuggesting that Cassandra was the first? That her disappearance, her presumeddeath, was the catalyst for the killings we've been investigating.’
Ella returned to thewhiteboard, her marker squeaking as she underlined Cassandra Sawyer's name.‘Exactly. Our perp didn't start with Donna Shepherd. He started with someonemuch closer to home, with someone he knew, someone close to him. His ownmother.’
‘Ripley's browfurrowed, a shadow of doubt still lingering in her eyes. 'But how can you be sosure it was her son who killed her—and these other women?'
Ella paused, thenturned to the desk, rifling through the case files until she found a picture ofthe photograph from the last crime scene: Penelope Olson and her daughter,smiling out from the frame that stood untouched amid the chaos. She held it upfor Ripley to see.
‘This,’ she saidpointedly. ‘Every other picture in Penelope's office was destroyed, except thisone. It’s too specific to be a coincidence.’
Ripley took thephotograph, examining it closely. ‘You think he couldn't bring himself todestroy this because...?’
‘Because it remindedhim of his own family,’ Ella concluded, her voice firm with conviction. ‘Everyother victim, he obliterated their identity, their legacy. But here, a motherand her child, untouched. It’s not guilt; it's recognition, a reflection of hisown broken past.’
‘So, he’s replayinghis trauma. With each killing, he’s not just erasing these women; he’s tryingto erase his mother, over and over again.’
'No,' Ella said. 'Theopposite.'
'Come again?'
Ripley's confusion waspalpable. Ella set the photograph down, her focus unwavering as she piecedtogether the narrative that she'd spent the past few hours forming, a narrativeshaped by facts, instinct, and the chilling words of a killer. She went back tothe whiteboard and began scrawling again.
‘On the tape, thekiller demanded that Donna Shepherd cure him, and you might not agree, but Ithink our killer was genuinely crying out for help. This unsub doesn't get offon inciting terror. He has no need to make these women panic before he killsthem. There's no sadism here.'
Ripley asked, 'So?'
'He's not trying toerase his mother,' Ella said. 'He's trying to replace her.'
Ripley pushed a straylock of hair from her forehead. She bit her lip then said, 'But the realitynever lives up to the fantasy.'
'Exactly. He projectsthis impossible role onto them, and when they fail, as they always will, itruins his fantasy. These women, they could never live up to the image he’screated in his mind. He wants them to be his mother, but there'llalways be something that doesn't match. A way of speaking, their choice ofwords, their reactions to something he said. He wants them to fill a role, butthese women don't know that.'
Ripley looked at thephoto of Cassandra Sawyer again. ‘He’s not just killing these women; he’spunishing them for not being the impossible savior he’s desperately searchingfor.’
'Yes,' Ella said witha heavy breath, feeling like she'd just spilled a deathbed confession.
'And therapists arethe closest thing to a healing figure he can find.'
'Precisely,' Ellaconfirmed. 'And when reality shatters that illusion, his rage isuncontrollable. These women are surrogates, stand-ins for the nurturing figurehe lost—or perhaps never truly had. But they're doomed from the start. There'salways a flaw, an imperfection that spoils the fantasy, and he can't tolerateit.'
‘But if that's true,then who is he? What's his name?’
Ella shook her head,frustration knotting her brow as she placed the cap back on her marker. ‘That'sjust it, we don't know. He's a ghost. Birth records show Cassandra Sawyer gavebirth to a son, but there's no name, no social security number, nothing. Nocriminal or employment records.’
Ripley frowned, herhands balling into fists. ‘No name? How does that even happen?’
‘Because sometimesparents leave the hospital before they've decided on a name,’ Ella explained,her fingers tracing lines of inquiry on the whiteboard that led to nowhere.‘They're supposed to come back and complete the birth certificate, but somenever do. So you end up with these children, technically nameless, invisible tothe system.’
