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“You don’t think it was a coincidence?” asked Ella.
“He could have killed any of the other two-thousand people around here and he chooses one in the same building as us? My gut says no. This wasn’t an accident.”
Ella assumed these victims were purposely targeted, but Ripley had a good point. This town had a thousand miles of land to choose from. Hitting the location that happened to house two FBI agents was akin to winning the lottery.
“I talked to him a couple of hours before he died. I upset him.”
“And we still don’t know why.”
“Is this because of me?” Ella asked. Again, she’d invited someone in and they’d wound up dead. “Maybe this angel of death thing is a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Ripley shook her head. “It would only be self-fulfilling ifyoukilled him, but this is the work of some vengeful son of a bitch craving power and control. These are his domination fantasies coming to life, and he’s targeted someone close to show he can operate right under our noses. He wants us to think he’s invisible, but we’ve got him scouted.”
“Do we?”
“Yes. The owner is on his way in. He’s going to check the cameras for us. Plus, if what the maid told me is true, this victim is kind of… odd. I hate to say it, but he’s a perfect victim.”
“You’re not kidding,” Ella said. “Judging by his rucksack over there, he was getting ready to leave. Didn’t the clerk say no one else was staying at this hotel, though? How would our killer know this guy was even here?”
“Yeah, I got questions and lots of ‘em,” Ripley said. “Come on, let’s go and wait for the owner to get in. The sheriff and the forensics team are on their way too.”
Three perfect victims, Ella thought. What was this killer trying to say?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“I’m… at a loss,” Dennis said. “Why would somebody do this to Gary?”
The manager’s office was an immaculate rectangle of minimal furnishings and a crooked calendar hanging over an old computer. Ella wanted nothing more than to straighten it up, but now wasn’t the time. The motel’s owner, a man named Dennis Cromwell, sat frozen at his desk, shook by the horrors that had taken place on the floor above. He buried his face in his palms and grabbed a chunk of his thin blonde hair as he ran them over his skull.
The owner had confirmed in his native southern twang that the victim’s name was Gary Weathers. From what Ella had gathered from Dennis’s brief spiel, Gary was something of an eccentric.
“We’re hoping you might be able to help us with that,” said Ripley. “First of all, we have one burning question. One of your staff told us no one else was staying in this motel. Why’d she lie?”
Dennis frowned off the comment, as though he’d taken it as an accusation. “That’s not on her. That’s my fault. She wasn’t lying, she just didn’t know.”
Ella said, “The clerk didn’t know someone was staying here? Seems like something a staff member ought to be aware of.”
“Gary’s a pal of mine, alright?” Dennis snarled in a confessional tone. “I was throwing him a bone. I didn’t want anyone to know.”
“No one knew he was staying here other than you?” asked Ella.
“Me and Sandra, the maid. I told the other staff he was my buddy who just needed to hang out here for a while. They didn’t know he was sleeping upstairs.”
Ella ruminated on the situation. This Gary Weathers fellow was a secret guest with only two people aware of his whereabouts. Either this killer got very lucky or he knew of Gary’s circumstances.
Ripley asked, “Why would you keep it a secret, Mr. Cromwell?”
“Didn’t want to get in trouble. We’re a chain motel. If the top brass got word I was giving my pals handouts.” Dennis mock-slashed his own neck. “I was worried one of the staff might blab.”
Ella got it. “So, no one other than you and the maid knew Gary was living here?”
Dennisthrewhis hands inthe air, a sign ofhis surrender. “Hey, don’t look at me. I was in bed all night. My wife can vouch, so can my kids.”
Ella didn’t genuinely consider Dennis a suspect. Dennis might have been the only person who knew the victim’s location, but that little fact contradicted what Ella knew about this unsub. Not only was their killer too smart to advertise such an obvious connection between killer and victim, but Dennis’s voice was too much to shrill be the same one from the audio footage.
“That all?” asked Ripley.
Dennis shrugged. “I don’t know. Doorbell cam will have caught me getting home and not leaving ‘til this morning. Does that work?”
