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Every fiber of Ella’s being told her that she was in the right place, and now she just had to trust her gut. The clue had been in the riddle he’d handed over to Lauren Phillips, and while this would mark the first occasion that the killer had targeted two victims in one night, her insight into the criminal mind told her that he wouldn’t wait another night. He was going to finish this tonight.
The minutes ticked by, each one stretching out like an eternity. Her thoughts drifted through the case, weaving together the fragments of evidence, the victims' stories, the killer's messages. Each element was a piece of a macabre puzzle, and she was close to seeing the full picture.
Ella's training had prepared her for moments like this, yet nothing could fully temper the pulse of adrenaline coursing through her veins. She was aware of every sound, every shadow, the house itself seeming to hold its breath in anticipation.
She’d heard nothing from Ripley or the chief. As far as she knew, they were checking on the safety of the other potential victims that Lauren had mentioned.
Then, finally, there was movement. A slight, almost imperceptible sound at the front door. Her heart rate spiked, not with fear, but with the readiness of a predator poised to strike. She watched, almost in slow motion, as a brown envelope was slipped under the door, the paper brushing against the wood with a whisper.
Ella remained motionless, her eyes fixed on the envelope. This was it, the moment she had been waiting for. The killer was here, in her grasp. She could almost feel the electric charge in the air, the inevitable confrontation drawing near. Her hand instinctively moved towards her weapon, the familiar weight of it a reassurance in the charged atmosphere.
But then she had to remind herself that she wasn’t a part of this case anymore. She was officially a rogue agent, and any bullets she fired would need to be accounted for. Her shot count had to match the amount of bullets taken from the armory, and if they didn’t, there’d be questions.
Therefore, she needed to be smart, not brutish.
She counted the seconds, giving the killer enough time to plant his message and remove himself from the theater of conflict. He was close, perhaps just outside the door, waiting for his riddle to be discovered, for his game to continue.
But this game was about to take a turn he hadn't anticipated.
Ella moved across the kitchen, steadying her nerves as she reached the envelope. She scooped it up off the floor, turned her back to the window, and discretely tore the seal and pulled the paper from within. She casually flung the envelope onto the kitchen surface, feigning disinterest, an illusion of disregard.
Meanwhile, she took the killer’s message over to the kitchen table, placed it on her lap – out of sight of prying eyes and then went back to drinking her coffee and staring at the homeowner’s laptop.
The riddle called out to her.
Where digits twin in a silent ballet.
And a binary code spells a new way.
And just like all the others, it was punctuated by a decodable cipher.
WOOD WO GROBO S NSON WSNXSQRD.
She scanned the riddle, her mind instantly piecing together the puzzle. Where digits twin in a silent ballet. And a binary code spells a new way. The answer came to her with almost disappointing ease: the number ten, represented by twin digits in a silent, unmoving dance, a perfect binary in the world of numbers. And binary code was made up zeroes and ones. A quick calculation told her the answer couldn’t be one, therefore, it had to be ten.
The cipher, WOOD WO GROBO S NSON WSNXSQRD, remained untouched in her lap, a jumble of letters that held yet another hidden message.
But solving this puzzle was not her intention.
Complying with the killer’s riddles would only encourage him to disappear. According to the previous riddle, Trinity Davies was the final target, so who knew where the killer might disappear to after he’d made amends with Trinity? He could disappear to another state, another country, change his identity, commit suicide. This might be their last chance to capture him before he was no more.
Therefore, she had to draw him in.
Her eyes were trained on the front door, her ears tuned to the slightest sound. She sipped her coffee, a semblance of calm in her posture. But inside, she was coiled like a spring, ready to pounce. She knew the killer was out there, watching, waiting for the moment to strike. Ella was giving him exactly what he wanted - a victim seemingly oblivious to the danger, engrossed in her own world.
Her plan was a gamble, a high-stakes play in this deadly game. But Ella was confident in her skills, in her ability to read the situation and react. She was no longer just an agent following leads; she was a hunter setting a trap for her prey.
Discretely, she glanced down the cipher in her lap, mentally decoding it letter by letter. All she had to do was shift every letter down by ten in the alphabet. Slowly, the message revealed itself, unraveling like a thread she didn’t want to pull on.
MEET ME WHERE I DIED MIDNIGHT.
The realization hit her LIKE a freight train. Where I died – the words echoed in her mind, painting a vivid picture of the junkyard, the refrigerator, the site of his near-death, where his innocence was lost and his thirst for vengeance born. His actions were inexcusable, but she couldn't help but feel a pang of empathy for the boy who had been locked away, left to suffocate in a dark, airless fridge. It was a tragedy that had birthed a monster, and now he wanted to go back to the beginning, to the genesis of his pain and anger. He wanted to confront his past, to face the demons that had tormented him for so long. And he wanted Trinity – the girl who’d apparently orchestrated the original attack – right there with him.
But Ella remained in place.
Neither she nor Trinity were going anywhere.
The clock on the wall said it was 23:49.
