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The serene environment of Amelia's bedroom, filled with innocence and dreams, juxtaposed against the grisly scene downstairs, left a pit in her stomach. She refocused on the bed, its soft pastel shades and the plush unicorn that seemed to be guarding it. The thought that the killer had been so near, potentially mere moments away from the young girl, was chilling. How close had he come to her? And why hadn't he disturbed her?
As her eyes roamed the room, they settled on something she hadn't noticed initially – a small vent near the baseboard, just a few feet from the bed. It was oddly out of place, a metal rectangle in the midst of the room's playful decor. The vent cover looked slightly askew.
Ella tapped her partner on the shoulder.
Ripley followed Ella's line of vision. She caught it, too.
‘A vent,’ Ripley said. ‘What about it?’
Ella glanced out of the window again and couldn’t see how this killer could ascend or descend without serious injury. Plus, there were houses at the rear. Someone could easily have spotted an intruder climbing through their neighbors’ window.
‘Our killer wouldn’t risk going this route,’ Ella said. ‘I think this is a smokescreen. A red herring.’
Ella hesitated for just a moment, an instinctual reluctance tugging at her as she edged closer to the vent. She reached down to fully remove the cover.
With a deep breath, she pried it away from the wall, revealing a darkness that stretched on beyond her vision. As she shone her flashlight inside, she caught a reflection of something that turned her blood to ice.
Her initial thought was a rat corpse. Her second, a doll stuffed down there by a curious child.
But as she reached in and took hold, her fingertips found something leathery, rough but durable.
Gently, Ella pulled the strange item from its resting place.
Ripley knelt next to her. ‘Jesus, Dark. What the hell is that?’
Ella held it up to the light.
‘It’s a mask,’ she said.
But it was a mask she didn’t recognize.
Hand-stitched. The eye holes were jaggedly cut out, one larger than the other. Its mouth was similarly uneven, contorted into a permanent twisted grin. The chin was sharp and pointed.
‘Get that to forensics right now,’ Ripley said. ‘But what film is that mask from? It doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen before.’
Ella didn’t have an answer. Even to her horror-infected brain, the mask was an outlier. She needed to do some more research.
‘I don’t know.’
Ripley was already at the exit. ‘Come on. Let’s get that swept for prints, then we’ll take a look into Ginny’s life. See if there’s any connection to the other…’
Ella hadn’t taken her eyes off the strange mask, but Ripley’s comment broke her out of her haze. Her toes curled into the soft carpet beneath. ‘Hold on, what did you say her name was?’
‘Who? The victim?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Ginny Mathers. Why?’
In all of the commotion, Ella hadn’t even processed the victim’s name.
But now she did, something slid into place – something that suggested there was much more to this case than cinematic murders.
Ella’s stomach tied itself in a knot. She stared at the monstrous face hanging from her fingertips, then back to her partner.
‘Ripley, I have it,’ she said. ‘It makes sense.’
‘What are you talking about? What does the victim’s name have anything to do with this?’
