All of these murders were related to a manuscript calledHalo of Blood, formerlyThe Angel Maker.The unpublished book was written by Drago LaChance, or Drogo Lachowski.
Lachowski had submitted to a single publisher – Eagle Eye Publishers, and it had been rejected.Ella had discovered the manuscript in a drawer, and all of the kill scenes in the book had been removed.Ella didn’t know whether or not Lachowski had submitted it with them missing, and in his current state, she doubted he’d remember, but there didn’t seem to be any alternative.
From that point, someone had re-enacted the scenes from the book in real life, and all of the victims were people from the author's life who'd wronged him.Sophie had rejected Lachowski's manuscript, Martina had told him he would never be a writer, and Kane had humiliated him in public.All of the victims had been killed indoors in isolated environments.
Proof of these homicides had been found on the suspect’s cell phone.He claimed to have committed them, but has no memory of them.
All of this evidence suggested that Drogo Lachowski was guilty.
But then, on the other side of the coin, Drogo Lachowski did not fit the profile of someone able to commit these acts.
Planned homicides like these required tact, guile, and a steady mind.Although this unsub was capable of ultra-violent acts, he was not completely removed from reality.He, at the very least, had the forward-thinking abilities to pull these murders off without leaving a trace behind.That spoke of a mind that had at least one foot still planted in reality.
Drogo Lachowski, by his own admission, claimed thatHalo of Blood– an eighteen-thousand-word novella- was subpar.A psychopathic killer with delusions of grandeur, this great would never dismiss their own creation, especially not if they went to extreme levels to adapt it to reality.He would be boasting of its greatness to anyone who'd listen.
So, where did that leave her?
Fifty-fifty.One half of her, certain Lachowski, was their guy, the other screaming that they had the wrong man in chains.
Ella turned to the cell phone on her desk.The one with Lachowski’s death gallery.Ella snatched it up, scrolled through the images one more time.
The images assaulted her retinas in rapid-fire.Sophie Draper lay out like some blasphemous altar piece.Martina Payne crucified against the night sky.William Kane, with his innards laid out like tentacles.She studied every photo one by one, but all she saw were sights she hoped would fade from her memory one day.
Ella jumped between other apps on LaChance's phone, but all she found was a minimal browsing history and ancient text conversations, most of them one-sided.She navigated to the deleted folder – nothing.She skimmed through the apps, although there weren't many installed.A clock, a calendar, a map, a messenger app.A notes app, never used by the looks of it.What kind of writer doesn't use the notes app on their phone?Even the drugged-out ones usually had something.
Then her thumb hovered over a cloud storage icon.
The same annoying one she had on her phone, too.One that non-consensually stole your files for apparent safe-keeping, then clogged up the storage capacity until you went in and manually deleted everything.
And next to the icon was that beautiful little checkmark.Synced.
Ella hit it, waited as the wheel spun.The app sprang to life with its familiar blue-and-white borders, then Ella came face to face with a login screen.
She mouthed a curse, but tapped the email bar anyway.
Saved email:
The beat in Ella’s chest hit double time.‘Please God have the password saved.’
Ella tapped the email address, and all of the credentials auto-filled.Ella exhaled like she was blowing out smoke from her last cigarette.
Then, like a gift from the digital gods, the app blinked open.
Thumbnails.Row after row of them, stretching off into digital infinity.Photos.Dozens.A hundred, maybe.
The pictures came into focus, and Ella couldn't scroll fast enough.She pulled up each image one by one and found the scenes that didn't make the cut in LaChance's scrapbook.The same shots she'd seen in his gallery, only from different angles, capturing every little detail of the three victims.
Close-ups of wounds, wide angles showcasing the full scope of mutilation.Barbed wire crowns and slashed throats and flayed skin.Some artfully composed shots, some so blurry she couldn’t tell what body part she was looking at.
These were the deleted scenes of LaChance’s gallery of the dead.
Pictures that the killer took were then deleted from the device, but blissfully unaware that the photos were instantly saved to the cloud storage.
But everything here, Ella had seen before.Hell, she’d seen it in the cold flesh.She needed something new, not just a rehash of the Angel Maker’s greatest hits.
Nothing helpful.Just more fuel for the nightmares she knew would come later, when she finally let her guard down long enough to sleep.A ball of frustration lodged in her throat, and Ella was about to put the phone back in its plastic bag when one photo in particular caught her eye.
