CHAPTER FOUR
Ella and Paige sat in the back of their dedicated transportation, about one hour from their destination. Ella had asked to travel by road instead of air for this jaunt. One, because plane travel felt too risky, too confined. She wouldn’t put it past Tobias to have a hijacker ready and waiting in place. And two, a car journey would make it feel like she was still close enough to Mia to get home in any sudden emergencies.
But on reflection, it may have been a bad decision. It meant Paige had four hours to tell her life story, and tell her life story she did.
“That’s when Edis called me up and asked me if I’d be interested in putting my skills to use out in the field. I didn’t know what to tell him, but we’d all heard about you and your adventures, so I had to say yes. I couldn’t say no, could I? You probably felt the same as I did, right?”
It had been three hours of this, with Paige hardly stopping to take a breath. From what Ella learned so far, Paige was a research analyst in the Criminal Justice Division and she’d made waves when she helped uncover an underground terrorist cell operating throughout North and South America. Her work had helped sabotage a planned terror attack in New Mexico, and she’d done it by psychoanalyzing the ring leader. To assist her, Paige had researched psychological profiles of other terrorists in the FBI database, most of which were written by Ella.
“Absolutely,” Ella said. “I was terrified, nervous, convinced I was going to screw everything up. But that’s normal. If you feel like that then you’re off to a good start. You need to approach everything with some kind of feeling, whether it’s excitement or crippling anxiety.”
“Profound,” Paige said. Her legs jittered constantly. “Do you prefer this job to your last one? I mean, we more or less did the same thing behind a desk. Do you ever want to go back to it?”
Ripley had always bestowed advice about the struggles of the job to Ella. Any declarations of fulfillment were always punctuated with a warning. The job can be rewarding, but don’t be surprised to find your personal life in shreds.
Not that it was untrue. Every job had its hardships, but what was the point of announcing them? Paige must have felt on top of the world, and Ella wasn’t about to kill that buzz.
“I could never go back to Intelligence. And once you’ve been out here for yourself, you’ll never go back either.”
“I hope not. This has been my dream since I was a kid. I really don’t wanna blow my chances, so if you could put me right whenever I step out of line, I’d be really grateful. What do we do about sleeping? Are both in separate…”
Ella grabbed Paige’s hand. “Paige. Relax. I can tell you’re nervous but you don’t need to overthink everything. Our focus is the case. Don’t worry about anything else right now, okay? The small details will come in time.”
Paige froze, even holding her breath. The silence made for an alien environment. Ella looked ahead at the rear-view mirror and saw the driver breathe a sigh of relief. Ella slapped her casefile on Paige’s lap.
“Tell me your thoughts.”
Paige leafed through the file again, taking time to find her footing. “I think we’re dealing with someone very organized. A sexually motivated offender. He’s going to keep doing this until we find him.”
“Why?” Ella asked.
“Cutting a victim’s leg off isn’t something you do on impulse. He planned this. He didn’t just decide to become a killer one day. He’s been fantasizing about this for a long time.”
Ella nodded. “What makes you think he’s sexually motivated?”
Paige thought for a moment. “Dismemberment near the genital area? Doesn’t that suggest he gets off on this?”
Ella looked the pictures over again. “It might. There are four types of homicidal mutilation: defensive, aggressive, offensive, and psychotic. We can rule out defensive, because he’s not doing it as a forensic countermeasure. We can rule out aggressive, because these wounds were inflicted postmortem. They weren’t part of the killing method.”
“Can we rule out psychotic? This guy is clearly well-aware of what he’s doing.”
“No. He might be competent when it comes to breaking into homes, but he could still be losing grip on reality. He might hear voices or suffer from delusions. ”
“I see. I don’t know what an offensive dissector is, but I assume it means he did this as an act of power?”
“Bingo. It means the dismemberment is the real purpose of the murder, common in lust and necro-sadistic killings. These kinds of acts are driven by sexual urges. What else can you see?”
Paige scratched her forehead then pushed her hair behind her ears. “I don’t know,” she said. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. It’s good,” Ella said.
Paige huffed. “Good that I don’t know?”
“Good that you’re happy to admit it. When I first started doing this, I would twist every piece of information to try and fit the puzzle I had in my head. I never said the words I don’t know once, at least not in front of my partner. If I had, we could have solved those cases a lot sooner. Sometimes, there’s not even anything to know. Murder can just happen without any grand meaning behind it.”
“Your partner? You mean Agent Ripley? What’s she like in the flesh? I’ve only ever heard stories about her.”
Ella glanced out the window at the passing Pennsylvania traffic, struggling with the challenge of condensing Mia’s personality down to a few sentences.