And later:I opened the door.Just like someone else did for me.
Someone else.What did that mean?Someone who had told this unsub about Ella Dark specifically, who had known enough about Ripley to drop her name on a phone call.
She was in Louisiana.Seventy miles from Austin Creed’s cell at Louisiana State Penitentiary.The obvious answer pointed there.
But that didn’t fit, because Ella had interrogated Creed a few months ago and he’d sworn that he had no desire to hunt down Ella Dark.Of course, serial killers weren’t the most trustworthy people in the world, but everything had pointed to Austin Creed telling the truth.He said that he didn’t even know who she was, and killing her wouldn’t spare him the death penalty anyway.
So not Creed.
But Creed wasn’t the only person of interest inside Louisiana State Penitentiary.
Lindsey Doyle had been a corrections officer there.She had bonded with Creed deeply enough that her twin sister had lied to investigators and vanished to protect whatever that bond meant.If Doyle could attach herself to one inmate with that kind of intensity, there was no reason she couldn't have done it to another.
Perhaps a different inmate and a different approach.Someone equally vulnerable, malleable and already psychologically damaged by the time he walked through the gates.
But whoever was doing this couldn’t beinsidethe prison anymore.He was very much out in the real world.
Ella pulled her laptop across the desk and opened the Louisiana Department of Corrections inmate database.She filtered by facility – Louisiana State Penitentiary, then by release date – the last eighteen months.Then by gender – male.
The list was long.She started at the top and worked down.
Harry Hebert, 54.Released nine months ago and now residing in a halfway house in Shreveport.Too far, too old, and his conviction was for fraud.
Not him.
Next was Jerome Fraiser, 41.He’d been paroled eleven months ago and then was re-arrested six weeks later for armed robbery in Texas.Now in a federal facility in Beaumont, so out of the picture entirely.
Next.
Darnell Washington, 62.Released fourteen months ago.Deceased – natural causes, eight months after release.Heart failure.
She kept going.Name after name, eliminated for geography or age or circumstance or the simple fact that they didn’t fit the profile of a man who strangled people from behind and carved figurines with professional-level skill.
Then she hit a name that made her stop scrolling.
Edgar Borden.Age 36.Caucasian.Convicted of aggravated burglary and criminal damage to property.Sentenced to four years, served three.Released seven months ago.Prior employment: carpenter and furniture restorer.Last known address: Orleans Parish, Ninth Ward.
Carpenter and furniture restorer.
Ella read the line again.Then she read the conviction summary.Borden had broken into three homes in Jefferson Parish over a period of two months.Not to steal, at least not primarily.He’d vandalised them.Smashed furniture, pulled fixtures off walls, flooded a bathroom by tearing out the plumbing.The homes had all belonged to employees of the bank that had foreclosed on his mortgage.He’d lost his house, his workshop, and according to the pre-sentencing report, his whole family.Financial ruin followed by incarceration.
She went to NOPD database, found Edgar Borden in there and pulled up his release paperwork.Post-release employment had been arranged through a reintegration programme.He’d been placed at a donation centre – Good Shepherd Donations on Claiborne Avenue, which Ella’s online search told her was less than three miles from Rose Michaels’s apartment.
A donation centre.Where secondhand items from all over the parish ended up on shelves and in bins and were picked through by anyone who walked in.Items like music boxes.
Ella picked up the desk phone and dialled the number listed for Good Shepherd Donations.It rang five times before a woman answered.
‘Good Shepherd, this is Patrice.’
‘You’re still open, great,’ Ella said.‘My name’s Agent Dark with the FBI.I’m looking for an employee of yours.Edgar Borden.Is he there by any chance?’
A pause.‘Edgar?No ma’am, he’s not in today.He’s off on Tuesdays.He has his meetings.’
‘What meetings?’
‘I’m not sure I can tell you, ma’am.’
‘Please.If you’d like to verify my identity, we can arrange a call back.You might have also spoken to my partner, Agent Ripley, recently.’
