A woman named Irene.
A sex worker.
Underwent surgery at Lancaster General.
And finally, had two different colored eyes.
That meant the next victim on Zack’s list would bear the same feature.
Ella knew someone who fit the profile.
And she’d sent her right into a serial killer’s waiting arms.
***
Paige Ellis parked twenty feet from Zack Harris’s apartment and snuck towards the door under the cover of the night. The official files said it was an apartment block, but it was just a concrete slab of four small rooms joined together with garages on the back. Zack’s was the one at the end of the row.
Pistol gripped with two trembling hands, breath heavy enough to see it in the cool night air. Paige felt like this moment embodied everything she wanted from a law enforcement career, from an entry-level job with New York PD to counter-terrorism to personally hunting down the worst of the worst. She was walking justice, ready to make the world a better place by her own hand. This is what it all came down to.
She checked the deserted little avenue. There was one light on in the end house, no other signs of life anywhere.
Now wasn’t the time to be courteous.
Paige tried the door handle, yanked it around a little and unsurprisingly found it locked. It jiggled in its door frame, metal clashing against metal, but didn’t budge. She stepped back and prepared to go full force – her first time ever booting a door down in the real world. She’d practiced back at the Bureau assault course but there, it didn’t matter if you screwed up.
She shook the tension out of her leg and prepared to strike, but before she did, she heard a click.
The door fell open, a strip of blackness appearing between the door and the frame.
Something was inviting her in.
Faulty lock? Someone on the other side?
“Zack Harris, FBI!” Paige shouted, edging her way inside. She closed the door behind her in case their unsub planned on making a sneaky escape. A flicker of light came from up ahead, perhaps from a lamp or an electronic device. It provided just enough visibility to make out the trappings of the apartment. It was one giant square, living room to the right, kitchen to the left. Paige checked the corners either side of her, but it was nothing but dirty, damp walls. She stepped lightly along the left-hand wall, giving her ample view of any oncoming attacks.
She passed a refrigerator, oven, cupboards, trash can, coming to a door that led into a bathroom. Paige threw door open and pointed her gun at the darkness.
“Zack. Come out!” she called again.
She felt for a light switch and found a pull cord. The bathroom burned a bright yellow.
This case had given Paige enough nightmare fuel to last a lifetime, so what was a little more?
It looked unlike anything human, like it had been stripped off a mannequin. All of its fleshy qualities had now been reduced to plasticity. Veins, tendons, stiff and rigid toes.
But the amputated leg sitting in the bathtub wasn’t just a dreadful discovery, it was confirmation that she had invaded a serial killer’s lair.
Before Paige could turn around, something twisted and tightened around her neck. Needles dug into her flesh and deafening roars assaulted her eardrums. Something had grabbed her and taken hold and she struggled for breath. She fired two shots out of panic, smashing a mirror, a glass panel. The shards dropped to her feet, and when she glanced down, she saw another pair of feet behind her.
Warm blood ran down her neck to her shoulders. An alien sensation, and try as she might, she couldn’t intake any oxygen to her lungs. Paige kicked her feet out for some kind of leverage and found it against the bathroom door. She pushed herself back into her attacker, taking both she and him to the floor.
He was faster than her, less disoriented. She fired another shot, blowing up the drywall, but the attacker’s hand around her wrist rendered her unable to aim or fire. Then he was on top of her, this young man, undoubtedly the same man who’d killed four women. Paige kicked and scrambled but her energy was fast depleting. Her pistol fell from her hand and the man pushed it far out of reach.
Was this what death felt like? Was it going to be as painful as they said, or was it like slipping into a deep sleep?
No. She wasn’t going to find out yet. She couldn’t let Ella down like this. She couldn’t let all of those women die for nothing. She had to fight right up until her last breath.
The man pinned her down then put his face right up against hers.