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“What makes you think I know his identity?”
Ella couldn’t get the words out fast enough. “There’s a thread on your forum about a meet-up last month. This Master D guy said he met you, talked to you for hours, invited you to his place for beers or something. I know you guys are pretty superficial, but I don’t know anyone shallow enough to call themselves Master D in the flesh. What’s his real name?”
“Yeah he did invite me to his house, but I didn’t go. I don’t know where he lives.” Clarence cupped his hands together, brought his elbows into his chest. His gaze flicked between the two agents with double his baseline blink rate.
Ella knew better.
She moved closer, leaned over the table. She took Clarence’s coffee cup out of his hands and said, “Broderick, they don’t call me the human lie detector for nothing, and you just told enough lies to make me think you’re not so innocent after all. Now, if your little friend is involved in all of this, then that means you’re mostly off the hook. If you’re protecting him, then you’ll both be in the courtroom together, so what’s it going to be?”
Clarence pushed his chair back and asked, “But he’s a pal. Bro code.”
Ella had to stop herself from drowning the guy in coffee. “Bro code is not sleeping with your buddy’s ex. It’s lending your pal ten dollars when you know you won’t get it back. It’s not shielding a murderer.”
Clarence tensed up, his expression grew tighter. “You won’t tell him I ratted?”
Ella sighed. “No.”
“Alright. Master D’s real name is Mason Price. He lives in Groom Lake, but I don’t know where exactly. I’ve honestly never been to his place.”
Ripley rushed out of the door. Ella had a pretty good idea of where she was headed.
“Could he do this? In your opinion?” she asked.
“D? I… don’t think so. But he definitely has a few screws loose.”
“Explain.”
Clarence breezed from side to side, fighting a losing battle with the temptation to stay quiet. “D’s kind of intense. He definitely trolls like crazy, but D isreal, you know?”
“No, how do you mean, real?”
“Most guys in this game are fantasists. Cowards who wouldn’t even confront their neighbor about a loose fence panel. They just roleplay as alpha chauvinists, but D? At our last meet he got real verbal with a few women in the bar. Said some things that shocked even me.”
Ella passed the man his coffee. She’d heard enough.
She was out the door.
His name was Mason Price.
***
Ella was first at the door this time, banging on it with a clenched fist. Ripley had found Mason’s address in seconds, and it was conveniently located less than two miles west of Vanessa May’s house.Itwasa large two-story property, with a beautiful red brick façade, a bright green lawn, and two Alfa Romeos on the driveway.
Ripley clocked the latter. “Two cars. He might have visitors.”
“Then we’ll take them down too.”
“You got a good feeling about this guy?”
“Yes. The one thing our victims have in common is that they were all ambushed in their own homes, and that’s this guy’s so-called fantasy. Mason described two of the crime scenes before they’d even happened. He’s got a deep hatred of women and he praised the Davenport Monster on Clarence’s forum.”
“Don’t call him that,” Ripley said. “These bastards don’t deserve nicknames.”
“It’s too late for that. The world knows him by that name; it’ll stick forever. All we can do is show everyone that he’s not a monster, he’s a cowardly bigot.”
A figure moved and shifted behind the frosty glass. Dark clouds descended from the heavens above, threatening rainfall on this deceptively sunny afternoon.
The door swung open. Ella was greeted with a sight she didn’t expect.
