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Then another number called. A cell number she didn’t have saved.
‘Hello?’ she asked.
‘Ella, Bob again, on my personal phone. I need to talk to you – off the record.’
Ella’s curiosity piqued. She didn’t like the sound of this. ‘Ah, now the illicit call makes sense,’ she said.
‘Yeah. Listen closely because I can’t talk for long. Your buddy Logan Nash? He’s already causing problems.’
Ella shuffled down a corridor, away from prying eyes. ‘What’s he done, Bob?’
‘He’s already gone beyond borders. We got alerted he was seven miles out of his zone, so we had to swoop in and find him.’
‘But you got him?’
‘Yeah, we got him,' Bob said. 'He played it stupid, pretended he lost track of his whereabouts, but I know better. He's planning something and I don't like it.'
Despite being nestled in a corner, Ella suddenly felt like she was being watched. Barely two days in, and Nash was already trying to pull some tricks. What if he was coming for her? What if he was organizing his travel arrangements to some lawless faraway land?
‘Where was he when you caught him?’ Ella asked.
‘Liquor store. Probably one of the Diamonds’ stores.’
Ella rested her forehead against the wall, tempted to slam some of the frustration away. ‘You took him back to his safe house, right?’
‘Yes I did,’ Bob said, ‘and that’s why I’m calling.’
Ella lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Where is he, Bob?’
‘I can’t give you the exact address or number, you understand that, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘But our safe houses haven’t changed since you were here. He’s on the outskirts, zero security, probably bored… up to his neck in boredom, you could say.’
Ella read the subtext. They said the real music was the silence between the notes.
‘Thank you, Bob. This conversation never happened.’
‘Take care. Good luck in California. If you need me, call my cell, not my desk.’
‘You got it.’ Ella ended the call. One of Ella’s first tasks at Virginia PD ten years ago had been to keep an eye on a safe house. Bob Stone had been her watching partner, and the offender they were guarding had been a local strangler.
Up to his neck.
Ella knew exactly where Logan Nash was being held, but what could she do? In a day or two, once surveillance on him had died down, there was nothing stopping him fleeing. For all she knew, he could already have an escape plan in place. Worse yet, a murder plan.
She moved back up the corridor, thoughts whirring like a carousel. Before she could deal with Logan Nash, she still had a horror movie fanatic to find.
‘Dark,’ Ripley called from the end of the corridor. ‘Get over here.’
Ella met her, discarding the Nash issue for as long as her conscious mind would allow. ‘We got something?’
‘Morton’s drawn up his list of perverts.’ She waved a piece of paper in Ella’s face. ‘He can’t remember who was at his place last Saturday night, so he’s listed all of his little voyeur friends. Fifty-six names.’
Ella took the list and scanned each line. ‘Popular guy.’
Ripley looked eager, maybe because she was one step closer to leaving California. ‘Surprisingly, and more importantly, one of the guys on this list is our unsub. That means we’ve got a lot of work to do.’
