AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘But which direction?’
‘Down. Always down.’
‘How do you know?’ Ripley asked.
‘Like I said, I wasn’t one of the popular kids at school.’ Ella got to work, grabbing a pen and shifting every letter in Mark’s message down by seven letters on her notepad. One by one, the scrambled message began to unravel. The first four words slowly revealed themselves, sending Ella’s heart pumping into overdrive.
TLLA became MEET.
TL became ME.
HA became AT.
AOL became THE.
‘Meet me at the…’ Ella began, her voice shaky. She was finally seeing beyond the veil into the deranged psyche of a serial murderer.
Ripley leaned forward, her eyes wide with anticipation. ‘At the what? Where does it say to meet?’
Ella continued decoding, the remaining words falling into place like pieces of a sinister jigsaw puzzle. The message, once veiled in secrecy, now lay bare on the table between them, its implications sending a chill down Ella's spine.
MEET ME AT THE CRYSTAL POND TEN PM TONIGHT OR YOU WILL DIE.
She turned her notepad around to show her work.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Ripley said, her expression grave. ‘It’s a direct threat.’
Ella's hands were steady, but her mind reeled with the weight of her discovery. ‘It's more than a threat, Ripley. It's an invitation, a twisted summons to his chosen killing ground.’
‘But why?’ asked Ripley. ‘What’s the advantage over killing his target in a different location? It just means more moving parts.’
Ella turned to the next message. Her key to the scrambled message from Miles’ house was thirteen. She began decoding, a second message slowly assembling itself.
MEET.
ME.
AT.
THE.
‘Ripley, it’s the same few words every time.’
‘Less talking, more deciphering,’ Ripley said.
Ella followed her partner’s instruction. The scrambled message became readable.
MEET ME AT THE CEMETERY IN CLEARVIEW PARK TEN PM TONIGHT OR YOU WILL DIE.
‘This one was for Miles Rampell.’
‘Crystal Pond, Clearview Park. He’s luring his victims away from their homes.’
Ella blanked herself off from the world for a moment and tried to visualize this killer’s intended process. If the victim managed to crack the code and actually headed to these destinations, then what? He’d have risked killing them in more public spaces?
She struggled to make sense of it.
‘Final one,’ Ripley continued. ‘Let’s see where our killer wanted James Gorton to go.’
