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Ella took it to heart. “I promise.”
“Good, so feel free to tell me as much or as little as you want.”
Ella took a deep breath and said, “Robert Reed.”
“Reed?” her partner said. “Special Agent Reed?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What about him?”
Ella said, “I found a file on VICAP labeledsuspected assassin, criminal group affiliation, Logan Nash.I couldn’t view it because I didn’t have the clearance. It’s locked to everyone but the author, Robert Reed.”
Ripley scratched the side of her head, pulling a clump of dark hair out of her tight ponytail. For as long as Ella had known her, Ripley had always dyed her locks a seductive shade of copper. She’d recently gone natural, something that Ella was still getting used to.
“Must have been an old file, right?”
“First uploaded in 2012, last updated in 2018. But that’s not all. After I tried to open the file, I got a call… from Robert Reed.”
Ripley’s face suddenly contorted, her eyes widening like two green suns. “Come again?”
“I saved his number to my phone. Then he called me, literally minutes later.”
“That’s… not possible,” Ripley said.
Ella shrugged. “When I saved his number, I might have accidentally called him or sent him a notification or something. I checked and couldn’t find anything, but my phone is a piece of crap.”
“No, Dark, I’m telling you. That’snotpossible.”
“Why not? Do you know Reed? You must have had dealings with him in the past.”
Ripley pursed her lips then said, “Yes, Robert was a close friend of mine. We came up together. I knew him for thirty-plus years.”
Ella figured she might be able to convince Reed to part with his information through Ripley. She’d never met or spoken to Reed herself, so the idea of what Reed would consider a rookie asking him to part with his research would come off as a little brash.
“Is he still working?”
Ripley stared blankly at her, as though she’d been asked an unanswerable question. “Let me think, the last time I saw him was at a funeral in 2018.”
“Nothing since?”
“No, Dark, because it was his funeral.”
Ella was taken aback, her stomach tying itself into a knot. “Huh? Are you kidding?”
“No. I assure you, Robert Reed is dead.”
Ella grabbed her phone, navigated to the recent calls list, and saw the man’s name second-from-the-top. A call from beyond the grave. Ella darted between the screen and her partner, not sure what to say.
“If he’s dead, then who the hell was calling me?”
CHAPTER FIVE
Mia Ripley flashed her badge to the officer guarding the entrance to the Heaven’s Garden building on Vine Street and stepped through. Ella followed closely behind, the scourge of her new mystery weighing heavily on her face. Ripley had promised her they’d get to the bottom of her bizarre phone call, but right now, they had a crime scene to inspect.
As they were heading up the stairs to apartment forty-nine, Ripley said, “You know, you could just call the number back.”
“I was going to, but now... I don’t know.”
