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Havre de Grace. Ella recognized the name but couldn’t remember why. That could be it.
“How far away is it?”
“About forty miles. Not far. You oughta know it because it’s where Phillip Colten died. You talked about that case to me before.”
“Oh… oh holy sh…” she said before stopping herself. Her brain went into overdrive.
The case of Phillip Colten was one of Maryland’s most famous – if not the most famous – unsolved murder. Colten, a wannabe actor, was found restrained and stabbed to death in his bedroom. The main suspect was his estranged wife. Colten was also a single dad and his son was never found.
Ella thought about the case, highlighted the main parts of it in her brain then pushed the gas down to 90 “Crap, Ripley. Phillip Colten?”
“Yeah? I investigated that case. My first day on the job.”
“No one ever found out who killed Colten.”
“Believe me, I know.”
Ella slammed her fists down on the steering wheel. “Mia, think about it! Our killer wants us to find his zero victim. The first person he ever killed. Is it possible…?”
“You mean? Was this our unsub’s first kill?”
It fit from every conceivable angle. This was the finale. The last step in his master plan. To go back where it all began.
“Colten was pummelled to death and it became a nationwide case. So did Cheri Jo Bates and Elizabeth Short and Kara Banks. This could be where our killer got his obsession with unsolved murders from. He’s infatuated with them because he committed one of them. No serial killers were ever connected to the Colten case either.”
“So he’s going to kill someone that resembles Colten? A middle-aged man. That could be a million people in that town.”
“No. The victim isn’t important to him here,” Ella shouted as she channeled Milton’s thought process. “This the final step in his grand scheme and so he has to do it in the location where it all started – his own childhood home. Not the house he stalked. Not the house he later moved to. The original unsolved murder that’s plagued him his whole life. He’s going to recreate it. He’s going to kill whoever happens to live in that house now.”
“Hold on, Dark, I’m coming. It could be a family in that house. Kids. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
“You know where the house is, right?”
“I spent months going in and out of that place. Yeah I know it.”
Ella had everything she needed. Now she understood his motivation. She realized who his zero victim was and why he killed him.
“Good. It’s time to bring this son of a bitch down.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Ella reached the old Colten home in Havre de Grace twenty minutes quicker than she should have, traffic laws be damned. She shot out of the car, pistol drawn, and approached the old Victorian house. It was more of a tiny, rectangular column than a home, probably the cheapest home in the neighborhood by a long shot – especially considering its history. Since the famous murder that took place in the house’s bedroom in 1988, it had become a macabre attraction for dark tourists the world over.
A set of steps led up to the front door. Ella grabbed the handle and turned.
Locked.
Break in? Wait for Ripley? Sneak around the back?
The street was deserted at this hour so sneaking around wouldn’t raise too much suspicion. She leaped over a small fence and headed around the side of the house to the back door. There was a twistable piece of metal hanging out of the lock.
That meant the killer had already broken in.
Completely new modus operandi, Ella thought. This was his first home invasion so the results would be unpredictable. The home’s occupant wasn’t listed on public record, nor was their telephone number. But she knew that whoever was unlucky enough to be inside would become his next victim, be it man, woman, child or all of them.
Her breath came in hot, painful waves. There were two options the next few minutes would bring, either she’d find a dead body in a pool of blood or she’d come face to face with a psychopathic serial killer. She checked the time – just after 11pm – around the same time he’d killed all of his other victims. She couldn’t wait for Ripley. This was a venture she had to make alone.
Ella pushed open the door and stepped through. Then something hit her. She picked up on a scent. The same odor she’d found every time she’d shared airspace with a serial killer. It wasn’t blood or decomposing bodies; it was something else entirely. Something she’d picked up chasing down the world’s worst offenders. Once you were in their presence, your senses took a hit. You could smell their aura, taste the oncoming slaughter. Ella had now become attuned to the very presence of murderers in the way an animal might sense danger in the wild.
