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Ella blinked herself out of her trance. “Not sure. Eliza visited this guy’s profile 34 times in 90 days.” She opened up her browser and searched for the man’s profile through Eliza’s friend list. She found it but the profile was completely blank.
“Weird. Eliza’s been visiting an empty profile on a regular basis.”
“Could be a way for them to communicate. I heard terrorist cells communicate through empty social media profiles because they’re harder to trace.”
Ella thought about it but it didn’t seem to fit. “Or he deleted everything suddenly.”
“Or that.”
She pulled up the information for Cheryl King’s profile and searched for the name Eric Martin on there. One result.
“Check this Ripley. Cheryl and Eliza had a friend in common. Not sure why that didn’t come up straight away.”
She blinked the sleep out of her eyes and took a closer look. She deleted the code around the information.
PROFILE; USER ID: 771245 ERIC MARTIN. INACCESSIBLE. INFORMATION NOT FOUND. ERROR RETURNED.
Ripley came around to Ella’s side of the desk. Ella highlighted the piece of code for her.
“Error returned. What does that mean?” asked Ella.
“Might as well be Chinese to me,” Ripley said. “Send the piece of code to Kathy and ask her. I’ll start searching for this guy’s address. What’s his name?”
“Eric Martin.” Ella copied the code into an email and sent it back to Kathy with a query. It could be nothing, but it could be significant. They definitely needed to check this guy out, but they needed a stronger reason than the one they had. Eliza might have visited his profile 34 times but that wouldn’t exactly stand up in court.
“Got an Eric Martin in the next town over. About five miles from here. Twenty-eight years old. Unemployed. No photo.”
“His exact address is listed?” asked Ella.
“Yup.”
“Great.” Ella’s email pinged again. A response from Kathy. She’d only written a single line, but it was more than enough reason to question this guy.
It means she blocked him, Kathy had written.
“Ripley, our first victim blocked Eric Martin on social media. And he was friends with the second victim. He’s the only mutual friend between them both. What if he’s deleting the virtual evidence?”
“If he’s doing that, he might be hiding physical evidence too. Trying to cover his tracks.”
“Exactly. The fact the feds are in town might have lit a fire under his ass. That means he could be disposing of anything that links him to these crimes: clothing, murder weapons, any trophies he took from the victims.”
Ripley shuffled to her feet, wincing a little. Ella was fast noticing that every time Ripley moved suddenly, she’d get a burst of pain. “Then we gotta move quickly.”
Ella didn’t address Ripley’s issues. Ripley hated nothing more than appearing weak. “What if this is our long-haired demon?” Ella asked.
“Only one way to find out,” said Ripley. “Bring your coffee with you. I’ll drive.”
Ella grabbed her things, then began to imagine a world where she helped bring down two serial killers in one day. The rush was like nothing else. Ella had a good feeling that when Ripley handed back her badge and gun she’d miss this feeling.
CHAPTER NINE
Eric Martin’s address was a small cottage tucked away behind a row of farmhouses in Spring Ridge, two miles outside of Hicksberg. Isolated, quiet, and more than enough space to carry out a bisection without the neighbors hearing. It must have cost a pretty penny too, and that raised Ella’s suspicions even further.
Ripley parked their car out of sight, stood at the foot of his snaking driveway and surveyed the area. She familiarized herself with the layout in case Eric took the coward’s way out, but he had no shortage of directions he could flee. It was open land at every turn.
Despite the rapidity, Ella had a good feeling about this. Small town crimes tended to be easier to solve because of the nature of rural identities. Everyone knew everyone. Word got round fast. Nothing stayed secret for long. Living in a place like this was like sharing a diary with every man, woman, and child in town.
Ella’s only worry was that the suspect had anticipated their arrival and was either ready to attack or had already fled.
