Page 21 of Girl, Remembered

‘Remember what?’

Ella and Ripley shared a look. Ripley’s slow blink of exasperation said more than words could.

‘Two of Doyle’s followers killed themselves. Most people wouldn’t die for anyone except their children. Yet Doyle’s got a stranglehold on these people that’s so tight they will commit suicide on command. Capturing one of her disciples alive isn’t going to give us anything.’

‘Dark is right. We could waterboard them all day. They won’t talk.’

Dever asked, ‘Then why have I organized Gabriel Winters to be sent here from North Carolina? What’s the point of interviewing him if he won’t give us anything useful?’

‘Trust me on that one,’ Ella said, ‘because we have something on Winters we can use. Something we can’t use on the others.’

Dever asked, ‘Which is?’

‘Don’t worry about that. Right now we need to do something about these three bodies. Mia, are MPD okay to keep everything contained?’

‘Yeah. I trust Hibbert and his crew.’

‘Then tell him to do exactly that. We’ll do the rest.’

Dever drifted toward the nearest available seat, which was Vernon’s chair behind the giant mahogany desk. Dever perched himself on the arm, and Ella didn’t like the image one bit.

‘So? What are we waiting for? Let’s go and inspect these crime scenes. We can’t just leave it all up to the MPD, not when it’s our name that’ll get raked through the mud.’

‘Let’s?’ Ripley asked. ‘As in, you’d come too?’

Dever scratched his chin, and used the motion to cover his mouth, probably while he thought up an excuse. He checked his watch. ‘No. I need to monitor Winters’ arrival. He’ll be here by 11AM.’

Besides his bad memory and vague law enforcement background, Ella had to admit that she knew very little about Terrance Dever, and she’d been forced to trust this man throughout the Doyle investigation.

‘Didn’t you used to be a cop?’ Ella asked.

Dever flinched, and nearly fell off the arm of Vernon’s chair. ‘Something like that. But it was a long time ago. I don’t do field work anymore.’

‘No kidding,’ said Ripley.

‘No kidding indeed. So if you two move your asses to the-’

‘We’re not going to the crime scenes,’ Ella said.

Ripley nodded in agreement. Vernon moved back around to his chair. Dever scurried away as Vernon planted his hands on his desk, still standing.

‘Agents. Please. We need this investigated immediately,’ Vernon said.

Ella caught Ripley’s stare, which said exactly what Ella wanted it to. Ripley was on her side, and nobody in the world, no matter their position or level of authority, would make Mia Ripley do anything she didn’t want to do.

‘Rick, all of this time we’ve been chasing Doyle’s disciples, and it hasn’t led us anywhere. Dark was right. It doesn’t matter if we bust every single guy under her control, it’s not going to stop the virus. All this time, we’ve just been wallpapering over the cracks.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning we could spend days, weeks chasing these new offenders, and if we know anything about Doyle’s followers, they don’t stop at one. They all killed a minimum of three people before we caught them, and while me and Dark are the best in the game, we can’t solve three cases in one day.’

‘The best we’ve done is two,’ Ella said. ‘But, we can stop them from killing other people. We just have to kill the parasite.’

A memory that Ella’s subconscious had filed under cherished popped into her head. The incident had taken place in this very room, on this very subject.

Kill the parasite, kill the host.

William Edis’s words, right before he’d given Ella permission to shoot Austin Creed and, as they believed at the time, put an end to all of this. However, Creed hadn’t been the mastermind they thought he was. Back then, Ella had never heard the name Lindsey Doyle in her life.