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“That’s right. You made me this way,” Ella laughed. “We’re going to the nearest motel and resting until tomorrow. I don’t know about you but I didn’t sleep a wink in that hospital last night.”
“You win. The chief said there’s a motel near the precinct so head towards that.”
It was only late afternoon but Ella knew from experience she’d reached her limit. The Detective’s Wall. The past 24 hours had been information overload and she needed to give her brain a moment to process everything, to stir it all together and see what mixture came out on the other side. Sometimes it was slop, sometimes it was gold. The unconscious mind was much better than the conscious mind at making small connections, which was why hard investigative work could only get you so far. There was no point learning information if you didn’t dwell on it and process it thoroughly. Ask anyone the plot of the last book they read and they could only give you the main beats. That was because few people stopped and ruminated on the story, instead rushing to the next major development or cliff-hanger.
Their unsub was not one of these people. He was a thinker, a processor, a detail-oriented perfectionist. She wasn’t going to catch him with the sledgehammer approach. She had to think like him and ultimately outthink him. That was the only way these people ever saw justice, because they came up against someone smarter than them. This killer was too organized to leave prints behind. He was too mindful to show himself to CCTV cameras. If she wanted to topple him, she had to get on his level and drag him down with her.
***
Ella paced up and down the motel bedroom with her phone pressed against her ear. Moments ago, she had a missed call from her contact down in the sewers. If there’d been an update she needed to know.
“Hello?” the voice said. “Miss Dark?”
“Hey, Liam is it?”
“Officer Liam Snegg. You tried to call me earlier?”
“Yeah, I just wanted to see how you were getting on down there.”
“I’m not sure if you’ve been briefed but we found a box of masks in a storage room down here. We’ve also found a box of firearms in a second storage room. We have every reason to believe your target has been using these rooms to stow his supplies.”
Ella struggled to contain her delight. She clenched her fist and hammered on the wall. “Guns too? Yes! That’s great news.”
“We can’t say for sure that they belong to your target,” Liam said, “but given the other findings, it’s a solid connection.”
“How would someone get into those storage rooms?” Ella asked.
“A key. A lockpick. Brute force. Take your pick.”
Ella would bet her last dollar that Tobias had someone in the waste management system as part of his operation. He could easily bribe someone on the city council to give him access, or he could have manipulated one of the sewerage workers directly. That gave her another avenue to explore if they didn’t find Tobias down there.
“It sounds like you’re making some great progress down there.”
“We are. We’ve come across a bunch of old clothes down here too but we’re not linking them to the target just yet. We’re bringing in the K9 team throughout the night to see what we can find there too. This operation isn’t ending until we track this son of a bitch down.”
Exactly what she wanted to hear. She had renewed hope that this could all come to an end tonight. “Thanks Liam. Can I check in with you tomorrow?”
“Please do. Until then.”
Ella hung up just as a second call came through. Perfect timing.
“Ben!” she said. “Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick.”
“Hey Dark. I’ve been hiding out like you told me to. How are things down there?”
“It’s a tough one down here but I’m sure we’ll make some progress tomorrow. The D.C. cops are making great headway down in the sewers. We’ve got you to thank for that. You should be proud of your attentiveness. You did something we couldn’t do.”
“Ha. Don’t thank me. All I’m guilty of is smelling sewer water. But forget about that for a while. You need to stop dwelling on it. I’ve done everything I can to distract myself.”
“How’d you do that?”
“Using the weight machines in my mom’s garage. I’m down in Virginia. Your old haunt.”
“Ah, I miss that place. Maybe I’ll come down once this is over and show you the sights.”
“Good plan. When’s that gonna be?”
“Whenever this case is over. Could be tomorrow, could be weeks away. It’s always impossible to say.”
