Page 59 of Girl, Remembered

It wasn’t.

It was from Luca.

Creed said you talked so much at his trial he got bored. Oh, and he fed Lindsey’s dad to his alligator.

‘Who is it?’ Vernon asked.

The information on the message was unexpected, and while it fit into the puzzle, it was wholly useless. Given that Doyle and Creed lived five miles apart, it was probable they’d interacted at some point. It explained Doyle’s obsession with Creed, but the woman was beyond psychological profiling. She existed in a category of her own, some amalgamation of stalker, cult leader and serial killer.

‘Luca.’

‘And?’

‘I talked so much at Creed’s trial that Creed got bored, and that he fed Lindsey’s dad to his alligator.’

‘What?’

‘What I said, but that’s not going to help us catch her.’

The bluntness seemed to work. Nobody inquired further on the bizarre alligator front. Ella would deal with that further down the line.

Ripley asked, ‘Dark, could Doyle be talking about Creed?’

Ella gave it half a second of thought. ‘No. He’s a hundred miles away, behind bars.’

‘What about that guy who mentored you in Virginia PD? The guy working the gun store scene?’

‘Jim Strickland? But he has nothing to do with what happened with Creed. If we’re going back that far, we might as well go back to my shooting instructor when I was seventeen. Hell, why not go all the way back to my dad’s balls?’

Ripley didn’t rise to the comment. If not for the rage simmering in Ella’s gut, she’d have been thankful for it.

‘Who interviewed you for your job here?’

‘In Intelligence? Dave Pitt interviewed me. Mike Johnston hired me. Roadrunner trained me.’

‘Pitt is dead. Johnston lives in Toronto. Roadrunner…?’

‘Nobody is finding Roadrunner. His own mom couldn’t find him.’

‘Then who else got you here?’ Ripley was counting on her fingers now, which she only did when she was running out of patience with her own brain. ‘Academy instructor?’

‘Terry Malone. Retired, lives in Florida. Doyle isn’t flying to Boca to kill a seventy-year-old firearms instructor, at least not tonight.’

‘What about whoever wrote your psych eval and cleared you for your badge?’

‘I don’t even remember his name, Mia. Some contractor. If Doyle knows a name I can’t remember, she’s better at my own life than I am.’

‘It’s William Edis,’ said Dever.

Dever, silent until now, spoke the words confidently, not unlike a deathbed confession.

Voices ceased, and all attention turned to the speaker.

‘Edis,’ repeated Ella.

‘Yeah. Of course it is,’ Dever said. ‘Edis pulled you out of Intelligence. He started the program that paired you with Ripley. He gave you your first case, which was Creed. He sang your praises at every turn. He made you a full-time field agent. Who else could it be?’

Goddammit.