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It stunned Ella and made her blood run cold. She hadn’t heard any scuttling or any footsteps. It was as if whoever it was had been standing behind the door this whole time.
“Mr. Pierce? My name is Ella Dark and I’m with the FBI. We’d like to ask you a few questions relating to a series of homicides in the area.”
There was a brief pause. “What about them?” the voice asked, low and baritone.
Identical to the voice they’d heard on the phone.
“There have been a number of murders and we believe you may have some information that could be useful to us.”
Another moment of silence, like he was thinking of the right thing to say.
“Mr. Pierce?” she asked.
The voice disappeared. Ella waited for what felt like hours, but was no more than ten seconds. Finally, the door began to rattle. She heard the sound of a creaky deadbolt being pulled aside.
Come on. Show yourself to me, Ella thought. The door opened a few inches before coming to an abrupt stop. He’d left the chain lock on.
“Mr. Pierce, please open up fully. We can’t talk like this.”
His face appeared between the cracks. Ella only caught an obscured view.
“I didn’t do this,” Chuck said. “It wasn’t me.”
“Didn’t do what?” Ella asked, trying to gauge how far the man’s knowledge extended. As far as she knew, many details had been omitted from the newspaper reports. With any luck, Chuck might give something away.
“Those girls. None of them.”
Ella tensed up, a wave of exhilaration surging through her veins. Chuck had just outed himself with a single word.
Not both of them.
He’d said none of them.
Ella looked back at her waiting partner, and despite the darkness muffling her expression, Ella instinctively knew that she was thinking the same thing.
“You read about the murders in the newspapers?” Ella asked. “All three of them?”
“Yes. Tragic stuff.”
Ella coughed. “Well, that’s funny Mr. Pierce, because the third murder hasn’t been reported in the news yet.”
Chuck stared at her with those blank eyes of his, dead pupils, matching the darkness that engulfed him from behind. His hands trembled against the door, rattling the lock, inviting the two agents to break it down and capture him.
The mental bond between field agents was the closest thing the world had to psychic abilities. Within milliseconds of each other, the three individuals came alive. Chuck Pierce vanished into the darkness. Ripley was by her partner’s side and Ella’s foot was against Chuck’s battered old door.
It bounced around in its frame. Ella took another step back and kicked again, this time ripping the door frame down entirely. The door collapsed on the other side, dust erupting from the floor like a volcano.
Ella rushed inside with Ripley in tow, pistols drawn, hurling themselves into the unknown darkness of the strange residence. It wasn’t gigantic, but there were enough rooms for Chuck to hide and perhaps slip by them without their knowledge.
“Light!” Ripley shouted. “Find a light so we can see this asshole.”
Ella scrambled against the wall for a switch but no light was to be found. “Can’t find it,” she called, panicking. Every second wasted was a second Chuck had to slip outside and into the vast woodland. “Go left, I’ll go right.”
She watched Ripley disappear around the corner out of sight. Ella turned the other direction and found herself in what passed as a bedroom. She shone her flashlight around to get an idea of the place’s exit points, but there didn’t seem to be any. The cottage must have been three or four rooms at most. She identified familiar trappings: a bed, a bookshelf, a small cabinet, a log burner.
Then a desk.
Covered in papers, drawings, notes, newspaper clippings, dusty old textbooks.
