Page 32 of Girl, Deceived

Mark maintained his composure. He’d given very little away during their whole exchange, and all of Ella’s instincts concluded that he was an innocent man. Of the recent murders, at least.

‘I understand.’

With a final nod, Ella turned and followed Mia out of the interrogation room. The door closed with a soft thud, leaving Mark and his public defender behind. Once outside, Mia and Ella walked in tandem down the corridor.

Ella lost herself in thought, replaying the interrogation in her head. Echoes of her footsteps reverberated off the sterile walls, punctuated by the occasional murmur from other rooms.

‘Dark?’ Mia prompted.

Ella blinked and looked over at Mia. ‘What are you thinking?’ she asked.

‘That thing about failed actors and the pressure of Hollywood. It might be a stretch, but it's worth looking into.’

‘This could be less about horror, more about the desperation of a broken dream,’ Ella said.

‘The city of failure,’ Mia said.

Ella sat back down at her desk. She had a lot of work to do.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Ella's desk was bathed in the dim light of a lone desk lamp. The walls behind her were lined with corkboards, each one plastered with photos of crime scenes, victims, and snippets of horror film scenes. Red strings crisscrossed between different points of interest, forming a web of theories and connections.

Ella stared at the board intently, her finger tracing the line from the Halloween four reenactment to the Hellraiser two scene. She clocked the time. Ten PM. If their killer was keeping up his pattern from the past two nights, another body could land in their laps before the night was out.

‘Did you check out the Dread Pages?’ Ripley asked from across the desk.

‘Access denied. It’s invite-only, but I’ve got my girl at HQ sneaking me in the back door. She’ll email me when it’s done.’

‘Perfect,’ Ripley said. ‘Why don’t we go over the profile? This guy’s motivations are messing with my head.’

Ella moved to the whiteboard behind her and began unloading her thoughts. ‘Two victims. Same race and gender, similar ages. Under other circumstances, we’d assume a sexual component, but we can pretty much rule that out.’

‘No signs of sexual assault according to the autopsy reports,’ Ripley said.

A general rule in psychological profiling was that a knife was considered a substitute for genitalia. Stabbing was symbolic of penetration, but this case was a rare anomaly.

‘The victims don’t seem to run in the same circles. Two disparate lifestyles. The only connection is that they lived three miles apart.’

Ripley tapped her pen against her teeth as she rummaged through her papers. She landed on photos of Jessica Owen and Kathleen Carter. ‘Something stands out to me here, Dark. Something about these victims.’

Ella stopped scrawling for a second. ‘What?’

‘Jessica is stick thin, strawberry blonde, hair cut at the shoulder. Kathleen's got long brown curls, slightly wider. And these are our killer's first two victims. Something about that seems off to you?'

Ella looked over the pictures on Ripley’s desk and applied basic serial killer profiling. If she was this killer, what kinds of victims would he initially target?

‘They’re visually different, agreed, but if there’s no sexual component, looks wouldn’t be a factor. He’d opt for convenience.’

Ripley threw her pen down and said, ‘You’re right, but even mission-oriented killers prefer a certaintypeof victim, and that type usually involves appearances.’

Ella couldn’t make it fit. ‘I don’t think our unsub cares about that. He just wants young women who fit the mold of horror victims. Remember, he might have chosen them because of their character, not looks. Teacher, student.’

‘True. Just something that was on my mind.’

Ella went back to the board and noted Ripley’s comments. ‘Keep them coming,’ she said.

‘Jessica Owen was blitz-attacked outside her own home, meanwhile he lured Kathleen to a secluded area. He could have simply stalked Jessica, but Kathleen’s scene required some serious legwork. Not to mention, he killed Kathleen first, so on his very first kill, he took some incredible risks.’

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