Girl, 11 by Amy Clarke (grave mercy TXT) 📗

distraught and left with nothing but questions. Then there was the woman in Douglas’s basement, dosed with some kind of tranquilizer he must have had on hand for his kidnapped girls. Maybe it was the same drug he’d used on her, all those years ago, when she wouldn’t stop kicking the back of his seat as he drove her away from her life, from her childhood. How easily this man extinguished lives to find fulfillment in his own. He had probably been doing this for years: finding vulnerable women who looked up to him, who craved his approval, and slowly dismantling their lives until there was nothing left. Maybe that was how he was able to stop killing for so long—temporarily satisfied by the control he was able to exercise over them.

A gust of wind kicked up, slapping the exposed skin on her face. Pushing through the ache in her shoulder, Elle raised her gun again, but only got it to a forty-five-degree angle before the stabbing pain became too much. She tried to take a step forward, but Douglas shook his head.

“No, no. You stay just there.”

“Why now?” she asked, doing as he said and planting her feet on the ground. Natalie was still limp and unmoving. Her body must have been half frozen; she was terribly still. Please, God. Don’t let her be dead. Not now. “You could have come for me anytime. Taken your revenge in a thousand ways. Why do this? Why resume the countdown after so much time has passed and people have basically forgotten about you?”

The comment had the desired effect. Douglas’s jaw clenched and the arm holding his gun wavered. Then he laughed again. “Let’s not forget who you’re talking to here, Eleanor. The story of my work has made you famous. No one has forgotten about me.”

She pushed her lower lip out and shrugged her shoulders. “Still, this isn’t your best work. I mean, you’ve only had Natalie a few days. You already screwed up with Amanda. How can they fulfill their purpose in the countdown if they don’t even do their full six days of work before they rest?”

His face paled. She had been right; that verse in his house wasn’t a coincidence. It was his driving force. She looked at the end of his pistol pressed into Natalie’s head. He was only holding it with one hand, so if she knocked him off balance with her bullet, it might be enough to keep her from being hit. But Ayaan was a better shot, so if she hadn’t taken it, that meant it wasn’t worth the risk. Even if he died, his finger could still reflexively pull the trigger, and Natalie would be gone.

She was going to have to make him come after her. If he turned his gun away from Natalie again, Ayaan would not miss a second chance. Elle put every ounce of fury and frustration from the last two decades into her voice when she said, “So, how does this end, then? You kill Natalie, out of sequence, because you fucked up and killed Amanda before you meant to? That’s sloppy, Douglas. You’ll never get what you need that way.”

“Is that so?” he asked.

“The countdown is ruined. You’re not fulfilling some grand design; you’re just like any other old monster, caving to instinct and anger. All it took was some security camera footage and a nosy janitor to bring you down.”

“Shut your mouth, stupid woman. You have no idea what you’re dealing with here.”

She let out a single, harsh laugh at his words. Her desire to kill this sad, small man dissipated like car exhaust. Elle took another step toward him, daring him to move his gun away from Natalie’s head, to shoot her instead. Four more steps, and she’d be on him. In the distance, sirens wailed.

“Make me shut my mouth, you pathetic old man. You don’t have control over me anymore. We caught you. Two women captured the brilliant, uncatchable Countdown Killer. You are finished, and I can’t wait to stand in front of a jury and tell them exactly who you are.”

Douglas’s arm jerked, the tip of the gun moving off the back of Natalie’s head. Elle braced herself for the bullet she knew was coming her way.

A shot rang out. Douglas froze, let out a gasping cough. The hairs on the back of Elle’s neck stood up as Ayaan stepped forward into her peripheral vision, handgun extended. Two more shots exploded, forming a perfect triangle of holes on his chest. He stumbled, staring down at himself in shock as the gun fell from his hand.

Elle didn’t wait for him to fall. Unzipping her coat, she raced across the snowy ground. She dropped to her knees and fell across Natalie’s still body, covering her with whatever warmth she had left to give.

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Justice Delayed podcast

February 18, 2020

Transcript: Season 5, Episode 11

[THEME MUSIC + INTRO]

Elle voice-over:

I am an investigator. I am a survivor. I am a storyteller.

This month, I have had to learn what to do when a chapter ends before I know how the next one will start. Over the past few weeks, I have released episodes detailing what happened in this case. I have told you about the two victims in the cabin, trying to give them back their identities after decades languishing in unmarked graves. I covered what we have been able to learn about Luisa Toca, how her ex-husband tried to convince her the man she was dating was a killer. We may never know why Luisa visited her boyfriend’s childhood home the day before she died or what made her text Leo a picture of it, but it was the last activity on either of their phones before they were killed.

I have described what his newest girlfriend experienced after she heard Natalie screaming and came to investigate, finding the two of them in his basement dungeon. He drugged her and left her for dead, but like us, she