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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ella strode into the office like a wraith in the night, her arrival jolting Mia Ripley from her slumber. It might have been two AM, but Ella didn’t have time to rest. She had riddles to solve – three of them, in fact.
‘Ripley, wake up,’ Ella said.
Her partner emerged from her low-quality sleep, her weariness dissolving to intrigue. ‘Why? What time is it?’
‘Time’s a luxury we don’t have. Look what I’ve got.’ Ella slammed a pile of papers on the table. One brown envelope, two white pieces of paper. ‘I’ve been back to the Mark Jensen and Miles Rampell crime scenes, and I found this in their trash cans. Envelope and letter from Mark’s cabin, and the letter we couldn’t find at Miles’ house.’
Ripley perused each new item one by one. ‘Christ, this adds a whole new element to the M.O.,’ she said.
‘Yes, it does. It means our unsub is taunting his victims before he kills them. Or it's a calling card.'
‘It can’t be a calling card if he sends them beforehand,’ Ripley said. ‘What do these things say?’
‘That’s what we’re about to find out. I haven’t looked deeply into them yet, but the more parallels we can make, the more chance we have of cracking these things. Did the team get any luck on the riddle from James Gorton’s place?’
‘No, but this place is pretty barren at the minute. You know what the night shift is like.’
Ella laid out the three riddles she had. She needed to dissect every word, every phrase in a race to unravel the killer’s mind. The office, usually a place of order and routine, now seemed to transform into a battleground of wits, with Ella at its center. She spread the riddles out on the table, their cryptic messages a stark reminder of the twisted mind she was up against.
Ripley got out of her chair and stretched herself back to liveliness. ‘Okay, Dark, you read them out, I’ll make notes. Together, we’ll break down this asshole’s games.’
‘Yes, we will. I'll start with Mark Jensen's riddle since he was our second victim. I tried searching the area where Demi Hart was killed but found nothing. If she discarded it, chances are we have no chance of finding it.'
‘Yeah. Let’s work with what we have.’
‘Okay, so Mark’s riddle is: Within a rainbow, my place is sure. In ancient wonders, I am pure.’
Ripley, pen in hand, scribbled notes, her brow furrowed in concentration. ‘Ancient wonders... could he be referencing historical sites?’
‘No historical sites around here,’ Ella said.
‘Well, what ancient wonders can you think of that might link to Connecticut? What even are the ancient wonders?’
‘Pyramids, Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Temple or Artemis…’ Ella began.
‘Four more,’ Ripley said. ‘I don’t know what they are, I just know there are seven of them.’
‘Seven wonders,’ Ella said, the comment igniting a spark of recognition. ‘Seven, seven, seven,’ she repeated.
‘Wait a minute,’ Ripley leaned over to read the riddle herself. ‘Seven wonders. Rainbow. How many colors in a rainbow?’
Ella fought the urge to count on her fingers. ‘Seven.’
‘Within a rainbow, my place is sure. I guess that could mean any color, but seven like a more likely answer, but what does seven signify? Could be anything.’
‘Make a note of it,’ Ella said as she moved onto the next riddle, the one she’d fished out of Miles Rampell’s trash an hour ago. ‘Next riddle: A coven's count on a moonlit night. I’m death in tarot, a superstitious blight.’
Ripley began to scrawl something then said, ‘Ugh, tarot.’
‘As in tarot cards?’ Ella asked.
‘You know another type of tarot?’
‘No, but I know nothing about tarot. Or covens.’
‘I’m guessing he means a coven of witches, but I don’t know how many witches are in a coven.’
