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Edis eyed her with an unwavering stare. “Mia, is this something you really want to discuss?”
“With all due respect, director, this is sixteen years in the making. It was never about Tobias versus the FBI, it was about Tobias versus me. You know I need to see him alive one last time. I want to be there at his execution. I have to see that man put to rest or I’ll never sleep easy.”
Ella wasn’t so convinced. She wasn’t concerned who put Tobias to death as long as someone did. As much as she’d love to do it herself, the greater good took priority.
“Ripley, are you serious?” asked Ella. “That’s not fair. If we get the chance to take Tobias out, we should go for it without hesitation. It doesn’t matter who kills him.”
“I thought so too, Dark, but after last night, I have to see that man die. I can’t explain it. I don’t ask much in life, but chief, director, I’m asking you to do everything you can to keep Tobias alive if you find him.”
The chief bit his lip and nodded slowly. “Alright. We’ll try. But if any of my guys are in danger, we’re gonna have to take him out.”
“Understood.”
Edis pulled out a brown folder he’d been concealing under his arm. “Chief, Mr. Foster, could I speak to the agents in private please?”
Ben nodded and left the room. The chief took a final moment to emphasize that the manhunt for Tobias was going to move hard and fast. It would be underway within the hour, and that seemed fine by everyone involved.
Now, Ella and Mia were alone with the director. Ella sensed a request was forthcoming. Not a case. Please God, not another case.
“Something dropped on my desk this morning,” he said. “A bizarre case next door in Maryland.”
Ella was sure she’d been to Maryland at some point in the past few weeks but couldn’t recall the exact details. Everything blurred into one single vision these days.
“We’re gonna be pretty tied up here, Will, plus we need to rest. We can’t take any cases on,” said Mia.
“Of course. I just wanted Miss Dark to take a look at this. It feels like something you might have some insight into.”
The director passed the casefile along. Ella opened it up, skipping straight to the full-page crime scene photos. The photos always explained the case quicker than the text did.
Ella had to stop, recalibrate, and ensure she wasn’t looking at crime scene photos from sixty years ago. She saw a dissected body, or more accurately, a bisected body. A young woman lay on a patch of grass, completely severed in two through the midsection. She’d been cut in half, resembling a very famous murder that took place back in 1947.
“You’re kidding me,” Ella said.
Mia peered at the photos over Ella’s shoulder. “Bisection. Don’t see that every day.”
“You certainly don’t, and given the ultra-violent nature of this crime, we’ve been drafted in to help local P.D.”
“An isolated incident?” Ella asked.
“We’re not sure. There was another murder in the town next door last week but there are almost no similarities. But between them, the two towns have a few thousand in population, so it seems unlikely we’ve got two murderers in such a small pool.”
Ella turned over to victim number one. Another young woman, pale and freckled with chin-length hair, multiple stab wounds on her torso. A tragic loss, as she couldn’t have been any older than 18.
Despite the crime’s ordinary features, as disturbing as such facts were, there was something remarkable about these photos. They bore an uncanny resemblance to ones Ella had seen in the past.
And when Ella caught the victim’s name on the data sheet, she had to do a doubletake.
Cheryl King.
Whoever did this wasn’t an ordinary killer.
They were playing a role. These were copycat murders, and they were mimicking two famous unsolved murders.
But why? What motivation would someone have for doing this? And in such a small town, too. Ella found her fingers twitching in excitement, but she stopped and rooted herself in the present. Now wasn’t a good time to investigate a new unsub, as appealing as the case may be. The déjà vu came in disorienting waves. This was an all too familiar predicament.
“One bisected girl, complete with the Glasgow smile,” Mia said. “Even I recognize that. What say you, Dark?”
It was a recreation of the Black Dahlia murder, perhaps the most famous historical murder of the past century. The ‘Glasgow smile’ Mia was referring to was the cut from her mouth to her ears. Apparently, a gang in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1920 used it as their trademark.
