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Ella figured he saw a blur of movement in the tiny space, and to someone in the throes of anticipation, it would be a cause for concern.
He knew.
She knew.
The Rose Killer realized this was a trap.
She threw her phone on the bed behind her. Palm to the door handle. She heaved the door open and rushed out into the cold darkness. Two sets of footsteps cracked the floorboards as the Rose Killer sped back from whence he came, panic dogging his every step. Ella was in pursuit, closing in, ready to embrace that sweet victory.
At the turning point, the mystery figure had to adjust, and that’s when Ella embraced the chaos. She skirted, cut him off, and shoulder-barged the fleeing suspect hard against the wall. The impact sent a jolt of pain down her shoulder, but injuries were the last thing on her mind. The man she prayed was the Rose Killer crumpled upon contact, folding inward like a piece of cheap furniture. In either direction, more footsteps came. Ripley from one end, police officers from the other.
The game was up. This man wasn’t getting out of here.
Ella reached down, pulled the man’s cap off his head. He tried to climb to his feet, but Ella dug her heel into his spine. “Don’t even think about it.”
“Got you, you son of a bitch,” Ripley said. “See the six o’ clock news, by any chance?”
One down, a few more to go. One killer at a time, she reasoned.
“Don’t worry. You can catch the news every day in State Prison.”
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
The blinding rain had proved to be his downfall, because on his way to the Capri Motel, a pair of lazy cops had pulled him over and cost him precious time. But now, he was almost at his destination.
He’d sped past them while they nestled comfortably in a layby. He could see their oafish heads in the front seats of their cruiser from fifty feet away, but by the time he realized he was traveling at twenty over the limit, it was too late. Instead of patrolling the streets, they were taking shelter from the rain in their heated vehicles, and one had been blazing a cigar as though no foul crime could ever stain this land.
If law enforcement were this inept, then it was no surprise they hadn’t caught him yet.
But after twenty minutes of back and forth, displays of identification, and promises not to do it again, the Davenport Monster was back on the road with the Capri Motel in his sights. Even though they’d had the real murderer in their midst, they’d been too foolish to put the pieces together.
He wasn’t going to visit his family in the city. He was going to murder Special Agent Mia Ripley.
According to the bitch on the news, he was a coward. Helacked a certain class. He had sexual inadequacies, and low moral character. He was what these so-called professionals called alust killer.Did they really think he’d killed two feminists just to get himself off? It was a preposterous thought. He was a social terrorist, sent to right the wrongs of the modern era. He was here to enlighten people, prevent them from succumbing to fallacies perpetuated by the weak. What better way to prove his point than by taking out the very woman that publicly belittled him?
She fit the criteria down to a tee. Agent Mia Ripley was the kind of woman who needed to be knocked down a peg. Vocal, forthright, self-assured. And if she wanted news of these crimes to reach the masses, nothing would get the world talking like a murdered FBI agent.
It was almost too perfect a fit. He could only hope that the fake Monster hadn’t gotten there first.
He now saw light ahead. He was back on the beaten path, heading past Vine Street where he’d tasted his first sample of cold blood. He veered right, continued onwards for another mile, passing the Capri Motel and then circling back for a more convenient parking spot. He needed to park somewhere isolated, somewhere cameras couldn’t trace him from the motel.
But when he drove past for a second time, he saw there was a commotion outside.
He needed a closer look.
Time to play the role of shameless spectator.
He pulled up just off the motel’s parking lot, killed his headlights, and gawped at the arrest scene playing out before him. A gaggle of officers guarded an invisible perimeter; meanwhile a limp, handcuffed gentleman traipsed across the lot.
His hands burned red as he gripped his steering wheel in rage. There she was, the bitch from the news report, hanging outside the entrance while men did all the work. He had to stop himself from jumping out of his car and gutting her right here and now. It would be a suicide mission with so many officers around, but abrupt fury clouded his ability to think rationally.
No, he’d made an error.
It wasn’t men doing the work.
The frail, shackled man was being escorted by a woman a foot shorter. Some brunette, moving with the confidence of a seasoned professional despite being barely thirty. She stuffed her captor into the back of a vehicle, slammed the door with unnecessary gusto.
He could tell she was one ofthem.Probably a man-hater who blamed all her failures on the patriarchy. The kind of woman who slept her way to the top then later sold her story to the press for millions.
