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‘It’d make things a lot easier. Cage match, winner becomes the new director.’
‘I wish,’ Ella said. ‘In the red corner, weighing barely a hundred and twenty pounds.’
Ben crunched down the line, speaking through a mouthful of something. ‘You need more of these oats I’ve got here. These things are like magic.’
‘Your cereal obsession is out of control,’ Ella said. ‘Pretty soon you’ll be…’
Ella trailed off, abandoning the comment mid-sentence. Her mind jumped elsewhere as she fixated on the images of Caesar ciphers scrolling across her laptop screen. It was an unexpected comment from Ben that suddenly sparked a revelation. Amongst the rolling pictures in front of her, one stood out. One she’d moved past without a second thought.
But then a sudden memory of Ben from the day before flashed in her mind. The vision of him shoveling cereal into his mouth and saying, I remember when cereals were simple. Frosted flakes, tons of sugar and maybe a puzzle on the box.
‘Still there?’ Ben asked.
‘Yeah, sorry,’ she said in a distant voice. Something was stirring in her. A revelation she hadn’t expected.
‘What is it? I know that tone.’
‘Nothing, it’s just…’ Ella clicked into the picture, blew it up and saw words that had become disturbingly familiar.
In a clock’s face, where hands unite. Thrice six they mark, in day or night.
They were right there in front of her, written in black and white.
On the back of a cereal box.
Super Crunch cereal.
A bolt of lightning hit her. She felt a window open up into the killer’s psyche, and it suddenly awarded her a new perspective she hadn’t yet considered.
A pond, a park, a row of garages.
All public places.
All areas that kids might play together in.
‘Ben… I gotta run,’ Ella said. ‘Can I call you back later?’
‘Sure. Be safe out there.’
‘You too. Speak soon.’
Ella disconnected the call and stared at her discovery. The exact same riddle as the one found at James Gorton’s crime scene was on the back of this cereal box – but what was the connection?
As Ella tried to piece things together, the office door burst open. Ripley came in, holding a plastic bag with a cell phone inside.
‘Dark, we’ve got clearance to look through James Gorton’s phone. Let’s see if we can narrow down this old high school clique.’
She regarded her partner for a moment, weighing her new theory against the evidence.
‘Mia, I don’t think our unsub wants to kill these victims.’
Ripley placed the phone down and pulled a connector cable out of her bag. ‘Come again?’
Ella turned her laptop screen around.
‘No. I think he wants to be friends with them.’
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
