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Ella wasn’t about to give up.
PM me then. I’ve got a letter from TC I was going to send you. Then she added, my mom was pen pals with him. A little legitimacy went a long way.
“What, really?” he said to the camera. “A letter from Campbell? Cool! Give me a second.”
Ella watched the Sinister Minster grab his mouse, click around, and then begin typing. A little number one popped up in her Private Chats section. Ella checked it.
112 Woodman Avenue, Spring Ridge, MD, 21797.
“Let’s go,” Ripley shouted. “I don’t like the sound of this guy.”
Ella didn’t have time to reply because Ripley had dragged her out the door.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
His name was Tyler Allen according to the police database. On the way to his address, Ella watched his livestream on her phone while Ripley did the driving. The more he spoke, the more she suspected his involvement in these murders.
“Ripley, he’s saying he has inside information about Tobias’s killing spree.”
“You know what’s more concerning?” Ripley asked. “The fact he’s not talking about a series of murders in his hometown. A guy like this would want to exploit that ‘til the cows came home. His silence is suspicious, don’t you think?”
“I do think.” She checked the GPS. Half a mile away. “We’re just going to question him, right? You’re not hell bent on arresting this man?”
“Call it detective’s instinct. I can see a pure psychopath a mile away.”
Ripley slammed on the brakes outside 112 Woodman Avenue, a modest home on the edge of the woods. Unlike a lot of the other properties they’d passed, this one was quite small and single level. There was a row of trash cans outside that looked like they hadn’t been emptied in weeks and a discarded ladder on the front lawn.
And as they got out of the car and covered the driveway, Ella saw a white van parked around the other side of the house.
“Ripley, check it. White van.”
“Bingo. Knock on the door and I’ll stay back,” Ripley said.
Ella hammered on the front door, knocking off a few flecks of white paint. She checked the stream on her phone. The guy was now in full chatterbox mode, reeling off ‘facts’ about Tobias Campbell that Ella really hoped Ripley couldn’t hear. Tyler had obviously extracted this information from sensationalist pieces that printed the myth rather than the truth. Why fact check something when a lie would get more attention?
More concerning was that Tyler didn’t seem fazed by someone trying to enter his home. She smashed the door again. The figure on the screen looked behind him, but continued chatting away.
“FBI,” Ella shouted. “Open up, Tyler.”
Back to the screen. Tyler told his followers, “Ignore the banging guys, there’s someone at my door. I’m not gonna answer. This is too important.”
Ripley hurried up the driveway and made her annoyance at the lack of progress known. “If he’s refusing to answer, we’re going in the hard way.”
“We can’t. Not without a reason. The director’ll kill you.”
Ripley caught her partner’s stare. “What’s he gonna do, fire me?”
Ella checked the livestream again. The guy’s smug face, his fictional ‘facts.’ It was like he was daring them to try and take him down.
“Good point. Stand back. The last thing your shoulder needs is a door against it.”
“Go for broke.”
Ella first tried the handle. Locked.
She stepped back and eyed the door’s composition. Wooden door frame. Two hinges. One Yale lock. Piece of cake. Since she’d ventured out into the field, Ella found the one area she really excelled was smashing doors in. Steel, iron, wood. It didn’t matter. If it had hinges, she could get on the other side without fail.
Two steps forward for momentum, one sole against the dead center of the door. Most people thought that kicking doors in involved penetrating the lock itself, but what you were actually doing was dislodging the lock chamber from the door frame. Wood was easier to burst than metal. The lock itself actually stayed intact.
