Girl, Remade, page 17
She considered the possibility of a deep-seated vendetta, a personal vendetta so ingrained that it had morphed into a singular, obsessive focus. Could it be that these women, in their professional roles, represented something more to the killer? A figure from his past, a catalyst for his rage, crystallized into a specific image he now sought to destroy over and over again.
The destruction of the offices post-murder was another piece of this confounding puzzle. It wasn't enough for the killer to end the lives of these women; he had to obliterate their professional sanctuaries, spaces of trust and healing. It was as if he aimed to erase their impact, their very existence, leaving behind a path of destruction so absolute that nothing could be salvaged.
But why? What drove such hatred, such a need for obliteration? Was it a past trauma, a perceived betrayal that had rooted itself so deeply within the killer's psyche that it now drove him to this specific, repeated act of violence?
Next, she thought of the tape recording she'd unearthed in Donna Shepherd's office.
The haunting words of the killer played over in Ella's mind.
I've killed someone, and I want to do it again.
Until now, the tape had been a dead end, a voice without a face, without a name to anchor it to reality. The forensic audio analysis had yielded nothing; the voice didn't match any in the existing databases, and no background noise could be isolated to provide a clue to the location. It was as if the killer had vanished into thin air after leaving behind this accidental auditory proof of his crimes.
The killer claimed he had killed before. That wasn't just a threat; it was a confession, a piece of the puzzle she hadn't fully appreciated until now. Ripley thought it might have been an intimidation tactic, but what if Donna had managed to escape the killer's clutches and report him? This threat would have become a much larger investigation. If Ella knew serial killers, they only pointed out their murders when they had nothing left to lose. At the point of this confession, the unsub had a lot to lose.
Then, amidst the cycling cadence of the recording replaying in her mind, a spark ignited in the depths of her analytical prowess. An idea, embryonic and unformed, began to take shape.
The profile of the killer, a meticulously cruel puppeteer, played over in her head. His victims, all mirror images of a singular archetype: women in their forties, blonde hair, green eyes. It was an intricate pattern, woven with precision, each victim a thread pulled taut by obsession.
As she looked out over the lake, her focus narrowed, honing in on the unsub's ritualistic behavior. He killed not just with his hands but with intent, replaying a scenario that was personal, maybe even symbolic. It was as if he sought to exorcise a demon that took the same form each time it manifested—a demon that had first materialized as someone specific. Ella scanned her memory bank for historical cases along the same lines; Glen Rogers killed redheads and left them in bathtubs, each victim a surrogate for his own mother. Ted Bundy killed brunettes with middle parts because they reminded him of the first girl who rejected him. David Berkowitz fixated on women with long dark hair because they reminded him of a woman he couldn’t have.
'Who was this first victim?' Ella muttered to herself.
The image of a woman—his prototype—began to coalesce in Ella's mind's eye, her features an amalgam of the victims' photographs that littered Ella's desk back in her office.
This prototype, this original source of his festering hatred, must have been someone significant in his life, someone who left an indelible mark on his psyche. A mother, a lover, a therapist who failed him? The exact identity was still a mystery, but the connection was undeniable. This woman had shaped the killer's twisted perception, becoming the blueprint for his subsequent series of violent reenactments.
She needed to act, to transform this newfound understanding into a strategy. If the killer was indeed recreating the murder of a significant figure from his past, then understanding who that person was could be the key to predicting his next move, to preventing further loss of life.
Somewhere, buried beneath layers of trauma and violence, was a woman who had unwittingly become the face of death for others.
The realization hit Ella like a cold wave as she turned back toward her car, her mind burning with the implications of her epiphany. The killer's actions, his specific choice of victims, it was all a twisted homage to this first, unknown woman. She represented the genesis of his rage, the turning point that had set him on this dark path.
She thought again of historical killers with similar psychopathologies; Glen Rogers, Ted Bundy, David Berkowitz, Harold Shipman, Edmund Kemper.
And there was one common denominator.
The killer always had a personal connection to the first victim.
She pulled out her phone, dialled her tech guy back at the FBI offices. It was late, but Marcus was a night owl.
The phone rang once.
Twice.
'Ella,' the voice said. 'It's nearly midnight.'
She reached her car, jumped in and started up the ignition. 'Marcus, sorry to bother you so late, but I need something.'
'I might be able to help if you make it quick.'
Ella didn't know who this unknown first victim was, but one thing was for sure.
She'd been in her forties, with green eyes and shoulder-length blonde hair.
'I need access to the facial recognition software,' she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Ella sat rigid, her spine curved into a question mark over the luminescent glow of her laptop. The small desk in her cramped office was littered with case files and coffee-stained reports, but none so crucial as the digital gateway before her. Marcus had come through, granting her access to the FBI's image recognition software—a tool not without its flaws.
Marcus had warned her about the software's quirks, its propensity to chase ghosts through the digital underbrush. But still, she leaned forward, initiating the sequence with a decisive click.
‘Come on,’ she whispered, urging the machine to life. She'd used the software before, but wasn't allowed direct access to it herself. It was only useable by the FBI's tech department, and most matches had to be verified through a facial recognition expert before data could be passed onto field agents. Thankfully, Marcus was a get results now, fill in paperwork later kind of worker.
The software was capable of astounding precision, but it could equally spit out false positives like a slot machine run amok. Still, this was a gamble she was willing to take. Ella initiated the search protocol, feeling the thrum of the hard drive mirroring the pulsation of blood through her veins.
The program whirred to life, putting her laptop under strain. If the enigmatic killer's confession held any weight, there was another victim out there—Donna Shepherd wasn't the starting point. This predecessor could be anywhere: filed away under accidents, buried in the suicides list or lost amongst the missing persons. The magnitude of possibilities was daunting.
She uploaded images of the three victims into the software. She input the parameters with surgical care: women who had died or disappeared between the ages of forty and fifty. Ella initiated the search and leaned back, the muscles in her neck tensed as if bracing for an impact.
She reached for a cold cup of coffee, the liquid dark and bitter as the abyss she felt herself staring into. With each passing second, the specter of doubt loomed larger. Had she led herself astray with her theories? The silence in the room grew louder, punctuated only by the hum of the laptop fan working overtime.
Ella's gaze remained fixed on the progress bar crawling across the screen, a digital lifeline inching towards revelation or disappointment. She thought of the victims, their stories unfinished sentences that ended abruptly on the page. She felt a kinship with them, an understanding that their lives were more than the sum of police reports and autopsy findings. They deserved justice, and she was the conduit through which it must flow.
The cursor blinked in the corner of the screen, a heartbeat waiting for the floodgates of data to open. Ella straightened her posture, her hands set firmly on the desk, ready to sift through the sea of faces soon to be at her disposal. She didn't just hope to find a connection; she needed to.
It was a hunt, and she was both the hunter and the hound, tracking a scent that might only exist as a wisp of a clue in a digital ether. But as every good detective knows, sometimes all it takes is one thread to unravel the entire tapestry of a crime. Ella Dark was ready to pull.
The software churned through data, its algorithms dissecting and cross-referencing with an indifference to the urgency of human need. Ella watched the progress bar inch forward, her lips pressed into a thin line. Her heart thrummed against her ribcage, each beat a drum roll leading up to the crescendo of discovery. She could almost hear the whispers of the lost souls, their fates entwined with the outcome of this digital gamble.
Then the result finally flashed up on the screen
Ninety-six matches.
Ninety-six faces, ninety-six stories etched with sorrow and secrets. It was both overwhelming and promising, a paradox wrapped in pixels. She began the arduous task of combing through the results, scanning each face for the telltale signs she had come to know too well.
One by one, she examined the faces of the deceased and the missing. Disappointment crept into her veins like ice water as none seemed to fit the mold carved by the unknown predator.
Ella rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, trying to dispel a sudden bout of fatigue. The faces blurred together in a macabre slideshow that mocked her efforts to find the link, the clue that would lead her to the killer.
She forced herself to keep searching through the faces, to scrutinize them one by one. This was the grind, the painstaking detail work that separated the tenacious from the faltering. She reminded herself that breakthroughs were often born from the ashes of earlier failures, that each wrong turn brought her closer to the truth.
Then, amidst the sea of strangers, her eyes locked onto one image that made her whole body go numb.
There, staring back at her from the cold glow of the screen, was a face that could have been a mirror image of the victims.
A woman with eyes that mirrored the haunted look of Donna, Rebekah and Penelope, a visage eerily similar in its contours and expression.
Disbelief rooted Ella to her chair, her pulse throbbing in her ears as she double-clicked on the image. There was no denying the resemblance—it was uncanny, as though they were crafted from the same dream.
Her hands trembled slightly as she accessed the file, seeking the details that would either cement this lead or crumble it to dust. Ella's eyes flickered over the information until one detail leaped from the screen, striking her with the force of a punch to the jaw.
The location from which the woman had vanished.
A chill stung her nerve endings, her body reacting before her mind could fully process the implications.
It wasn't just any random town or city.
The woman on the screen had gone missing from Sturgeon Bay.
For a suspended moment, Ella was motionless, her mind grappling with the magnitude of what lay before her.
This was it.
It had to be.
And Ella knew that the hunt had just taken a dramatic turn—one that she could never have anticipated.
***
Ella clicked through digital pages with a quaking hand, absorbing every word of the newly unearthed files in front of her. Her eyes widened incrementally, her breath hitched; the ramifications of what lay illuminated on her computer were staggering.
With each line she read, the perplexing web of the case began to untangle. It was as if she’d been staring at an abstract painting all this time, only for it to abruptly resolve into a clear, discernible image. Names and dates that had once seemed arbitrary now pulsed with significance, aligning in her mind's eye flawlessly.
Ella scrolled further, her pulse thrumming in her ears. She hunched closer to the screen, her fingers brushing stray strands of hair behind her ear in a subconscious gesture of focus.
The more details she uncovered, the faster her heart pounded, a drum roll crescendoing to a climax she knew was just pages away. There was a burgeoning sense of vindication, of being on the cusp of something monumental. She had always trusted her instincts, relied on them to guide her through the most tortuous investigations. And tonight, they were alight with the thrill of the chase, with the near-certainty of impending revelation.
Her hand paused momentarily, hovering over the mouse. Ella took a deep, steadying breath, preparing herself for the next page. She clicked, and there it was—the final piece of the puzzle, sliding into place with a resounding mental click.
The picture was complete, the narrative laid bare in a way she had scarcely dared hope for.
The room around her seemed to recede, the edges blurring into insignificance as the full impact of her findings settled upon her like a mantle. The glare of the computer screen in the otherwise gloomy confines of her office made the shadows retreat to the far corners, where only silence and anticipation dwelled. She was relentless in her pursuit, combing through every piece of information the database had to offer, recalling the brief moments that she'd processed then pushed to the back of her mind.
Every angle was scrutinized, every potential oversight considered and ruled out. Her eyes scanned lines of text until they became a blur, but she blinked the fatigue away, unwilling to succumb to the body's plea for rest. As a seasoned detective, Ella knew this was the critical juncture, the point at which most would falter, but not her. Not now. She sifted through digital folders, her mind weaving disparate threads into a tapestry that revealed a picture so unexpected she was sure she couldn't be anything but on the right track.
She thought of the tape recording of Donna Shepherd's death.
The confession of a first victim.
The pleas for someone to cure him.
The photograph of Penelope Olson and her daughter.
None of it was an accident.
A bead of sweat traced its way down her temple as she leaned closer to the monitor, the air around her charged with the electricity of imminent breakthrough. The pieces fell into place. Ella exhaled a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding, and for a fleeting moment, allowed herself the luxury of savoring the sweet taste of triumph.
But triumph was a companion that demanded action, and Ella was all too eager to comply. She rose from her chair, the wheels protesting as she pushed back with urgency. Without sparing a glance at the clock—whose hands pointed accusingly at an hour when most were lost to dreams—she strode out of her office and into the deserted precinct halls.
Her boots clicked against the tiled floor. There was no stranger feeling than being an empty police precinct, but there was no time to dwell on the solitude; she had to find Ripley.
Ella burst into the conference room, where the soft sound of steady breathing guided her to the figure slumped over a mess of papers and cold cups of coffee.
‘Ripley,’ she said, her voice cutting through the quiet. No response. She reached out, shaking Ripley's shoulder with more force than she intended. ‘Ripley! Wake up!’
Ripley's eyes snapped open, confusion warring with sleep before awareness settled in.
‘Shit, I must have fell asleep while I was on the phone to Edis,’ she rasped. Ripley rubbed the sleep from her eyes. ‘What time is it?’
‘Five in the morning.’
‘Christ. What is it? You found something?’
'I found something, alright.'
Ripley shot upright, back to full alertness. 'Please tell me you found the unsub.'
The corners of Ella's mouth twitched upwards, a mix of adrenaline and grim satisfaction coloring her tone.
‘No, not the unsub,’ she said. ‘But I've found his mother.’
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Ella grabbed a marker pen and began attacking the whiteboard. She was ready to spill everything.
‘His mom?’ Ripley asked.
‘His mom. Look,’ Ella said, unleashing her new theory upon the blank canvas. ‘I put our three victims through image recognition software. I got ninety-six hits, but there was one that stood out. A woman named Cassandra Sawyer.’
Ella moved to a pile of paperwork she’d loaded on the desk. She pulled a printout of Cassandra Sawyer’s details – including a close-up photograph. Ripley pulled it to her side of the desk.
‘God damn,’ Ripley said.
‘Right? Blonde hair, green eyes, high cheekbones. This woman is all of our victims’ features distilled into one.’
Ripley scanned the photograph and asked, ‘Who was this person?’
Ella scrawled her name at the center of her web. ‘Cassandra Sawyer lived three miles from here. She was a Sturgeon Bay local until eighteen months ago when she…. vanished.’
‘Gone?’ Ripley asked. ‘Presumed dead? Disappeared to another state?’
‘The former, because police did find something that belonged to Cassandra.' Ella fetched the next piece of paper from the pile and threw it in front of her partner. 'Some of her clothes washed up on the shore by the lighthouse.'
Ripley leaned in, examining the photograph laid out before her. The garments, a blouse and a pair of slacks, were soaked through, clinging to the rocks where they’d been found. The fabric of the blouse was translucent from the water, while the slacks were splayed out, as if trying to escape the fate that their owner could not.
‘And there was no sign of Cassandra herself?’
‘No, so you can imagine what the police suspected,’ Ella said.
‘Suicide.’
‘Suicide. But how often do we see drowning as a form of suicide?’
‘Hardly ever. It’s something like four percent of all suicides.’
‘Exactly,’ Ella said. Despite the common belief, suicide by drowning was a rare occurrence. Unless the victim could subdue their own body below the water, the human body involuntarily fought for air despite the conscious mind’s desires. ‘Even in coastal towns like this, drowning wouldn’t be anyone’s first choice of suicide method. Remember your dad’s sailor friend?’
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