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Mumbled voices. Unintelligible. Talk about guns, abduction, ‘the girl.’ Then a simple exchange:
The boss is out in MD.
Where at?
No one knows. Some old house by the lake.
The file ended.
Ella clasped her hands into a prayer position and closed her eyes. Tobias was hiding out here. He couldn’t have followed them because the conversation took place days ago. But Maryland was massive – he could have been holed up anywhere.
“Holy shit,” Ripley said.
“Ben, this is excellent. We need to get the police down here. Are they on the way?”
“I don’t know. They can’t tell me. Obviously he might not be there now, but if he’s got a hiding place there then… you know.”
“Absolutely, we’ll look into it. Are you safe?”
“I’m golden, just promise me you won’t do anything silly.”
“I promise. I’ll call you when I’m back in D.C.”
They hung up and Ella played the audio file again. Then, like a sonic energy had taken control of her body, she reached over the table in a fury and grabbed the noose. She inspected it like it was some alien artifact, putting her mind through a rigorous torture session to connect a link that had just sparked in the back of her brain.
“Dark? You’ve gone white as a ghost.”
Noose. Murderabilia. Maryland.
“Shit, Ripley, I know where he is. I know where this son of a bitch is hiding. It’s obvious. We’re checking the sewers like idiots but we’re looking in the wrong place.”
“What? Where?”
Ripley ran the theory through her mind from start to finish, ensuring she hadn’t missed anything, overlooked anything. It had taken three elements to bring it together: the noose, murderabilia, and a fading memory. Ella grabbed her phone and checked the distance between Spring Ridge and her intended destination.
“It’s only fifty miles from here.”
Ripley blinked off the confusion. She leaned forward and grabbed Ella’s forearm. “Ella, explain it. I’m not following.”
Ella wasn’t sure where to start. Her thoughts were jumbled. She took a deep breath and went back to the beginning.
“I got suspended from the FBI, remember? Meanwhile you went off on your own looking for Tobias.”
“Yeah? I checked the drug dens around D.C. and…” Ripley zoned out. “Oh… fuck.”
“That house in Maryland. In Edgewater. You told me about it. The Collector’s house. The guy with all that murderabilia stuff.”
The agents both rose to their feet in tandem. The night wasn’t over yet. There was still one more battle to go.
Ripley said, “The Collector was one of Tobias’s followers. I’m not sure, but I think I killed him when Tobias lured me to the Deadlands. Old guy, white hair. I blew his head off.”
“So his house is free,” Ella said. She waved the noose in Ripley’s face. “And what did Tobias say to us the other night in my apartment? This is the same noose I took my first life with. It’s only fitting I take yours with it too.”
“The same noose I saw in the Collector’s trophy room,” Ripley said. “Damn it to hell, we’ve been in the same state as him for two days. Are you ready?”
“Yes, but are you? I’m wounded but fine. Your injuries are worse than mine. Why don’t we take a million cops with us?”
“Because we’ve come this far. We’re doing this ourselves. We’ve figured it out.”
