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“Something. I can’t remember. He said he had a job. Somewhere.”
“Where? Please remember. Can you track his phone? Anything?”
“HDG,” Charlotte said. “He said he was going to HDG.”
“HDG? Is that a town round here? A street, a building – what?”
“It’s some place in Baltimore,” Charlotte said.
“He’s going to Baltimore? What for?”
“Work.”
It wasn’t much help but it was something. Ella didn’t know a place by that name so she’d have to do some searching. “Thank you. We’ll get you some help. I’m going to call a medical team in.”
Charlotte clutched Ella’s arm. “No. Don’t. I’m going to get out of here. Find somewhere safe. I hate this town anyway. You’re not going to kill John, are you?”
“No,” Ella said. “He’s going back with me alive.”
“Please, don’t kill him. Promise me you won’t.”
“John will survive,” Ella said, and meant it. She’d never killed anyone and had no plans to.
“Go,” Charlotte said. “Please go.”
Ella trusted Charlotte would be okay and leaped down the stairs out of the house. She got back in the car, grabbed her phone.
It was time to end this.
***
Ella headed towards Baltimore repeating the letters to herself.
“HDG, HDG, HDG. What the hell does that mean?”
Ella ran through the towns she knew in Baltimore and came up short. She ran through everything she knew about John: his M.O., his motivations, his philosophy, his letter, his diaries.
“The diaries,” Ella said.
She felt a brief spark in the back of her brain, like two pieces of electrical wire momentarily touching. Jigsaw pieces coming together and forming a full, identifiable pattern.
She recalled an entry she found in November 1997. It was written like something from his cryptic letter. What did it say? She’d committed the stand-out parts to memory. As long as it was in her short-term memory bank, she’d remember it forever.
November 18, 1997. I’m no monster, but each night, I remember his bloody face brings me great joy. That same night, I left HDG for good and found WB. All I wanted was a friend.
“I left HDG for good,” Ella said to herself. “His hometown?”
She punched Ripley’s number into her phone and called her through the Bluetooth system in the car. Ripley answered after two rings.
“Dark, everything okay?”
“Ripley, does HDG mean anything to you? As in, a location?”
“Around here? Maryland?”
“Yeah. HDG. John Milton is on his way there.”
“Could be Havre de Grace? You heard of that place?”
