Page 80 of Girl Between (Dana Gray FBI Mystery Thriller #5)

“Sorry for the inconvenience,” George was saying, but Abigale didn’t seem bothered as she nimbly climbed down the ladder to her canoe.

“I know the drill,” she said on a sigh. “Take as long as ya need. Gotta catch dinner anyways,” she added, patting her tackle box at her feet.

“Good luck,” George offered.

“Luck’s got nuthin to do with it,” she replied, kissing the crucifix she wore around her neck and pointing skyward. “Good Lord willing, I’ll be back in an hour. Just leave things as ya found ‘em.”

“Will do,” George promised.

She gave a little salute as she shoved off.

Dana stood on the front porch, watching the formidable woman row herself further and further toward the darkness. She’d been welcoming enough when they arrived, answering the obligatory questions George had for her with the ease of someone well practiced in atoning for the sins of their ancestors.

From what Dana gleaned, Abigale Goode had been ten at the time the Harvest Girls went missing.

She’d also lived on the other side of the country, residing in Oregon with her mother, Alice, who’d since passed after a prolonged battle with breast cancer.

Her mother’s death prompted Abigale to move to Louisiana and take up residence at the family property she’d inherited from her great aunt and grandmother, Marta and Tisha Goode.

By all estimations, the twin sisters would be in their seventies if still alive.

“Mama never talked much about this place. Made me curious. I know it’s not much, and I know what people think of my family name ‘round here. But this is the only connection to ‘em I got left,” Abigale said, answering Dana’s unspoken question as to why a seemingly capable young woman who’d been raised in modern society would choose this life.

“Wish I could help y’all more, but ya got my statements already. Nuthin’s changed. Never met Marta or Tisha, Mama’s dead, I keep to myself. Ain’t more to it. If ya wanna look around, be my guest, but I prefer not to subject myself to that kind of negativity.”

George had thanked Abigale for her time, promising they wouldn’t be there long. They were just following procedure in light of new evidence.

When they were finally alone, George walked into the house, but Dana remained on the porch. She paused, letting her fingers trace the letters carved into the pecky cypress next to the door. Goode.

“What is it?” George asked, coming back to the entrance.

“Nothing … just … their last name. It can’t be a coincidence.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I have a theory about coincidences. They don’t exist.”

“Okay, but what’s coincidental about Goode?”

“Surely you know the significance of that name in the occult community.”

George smirked. “I think you might have the wrong idea of what kinda company I keep.”

Dana sighed, stifling her comments about the loss of history in this generation. “The Goodes, traditionally spelled without the ‘e’ on the end, are one of the most famous witch families in history.”

“Okay,” George drawled again without understanding.

Exasperated, Dana searched for a way to relay the sentiment in terms he would understand. “The Goodes are to elemental witchcraft, what Marie Laveau is to Voodoo.”

George’s eyes widened with understanding. “I’ve never heard that.”

“I don’t suppose you would’ve unless you’d devoted your career to occult studies.”

“Well, then I’m glad to have you on my team, considering you wrote the book on this sorta thing.”

“If you’re referring to my manuscript, Our Beginning: A History of Earth Magic , then yes, I did write the book on it. But it doesn’t seem to be making an impact if the most influential families in occult history are fading into obscurity.”

George shook his head again, that good-natured grin lighting his face. “You’re something else, Gray.”

“I know most people think magic is baseless hokey trickery, but if you dig deep enough, you’ll uncover layers of truth. All the fairytales, urban legends, ghost stories … they came from solid origins.”

“I agree.”

“You do?”

“Of course. You can’t grow up in Nawlins without a healthy dose of belief in such things. In my lifetime, I’ve seen things I can’t explain. But people disappearing into thin air ain’t one of them. There’s always an explanation. Nine out of ten times, they mean to disappear.”

“And the tenth time?” Dana asked.

“Someone made them.”

“Is that what you think happened here, with the Goode sisters and the Harvest Girls?”

“I don’t know what to think. The Harvest Girls were before my time with the NOPD, but from what I know of it now, it sounds like the sisters had a reason to run.”

“I don’t know,” Dana argued. “From what you told me, the evidence was circumstantial.”

“It was, but they still ran. That’s a pretty loud admission of guilt, if you ask me. ”

“There’s lots of reasons innocent people run.”

“Like?” he pressed.

“Self-preservation, fear of persecution, racial bias.”

George crossed his arms, looking annoyed now. “Dana, I’m a black man in law enforcement in the South. I’m familiar with the history of social injustice here.”

“And are you familiar with the number of people falsely accused of witchcraft and killed for it? 60,000 people between the 15th and 18th centuries. That’s 60,000 innocent souls executed for their beliefs.”

George let out a low whistle at the staggering number.

“Exactly,” Dana agreed. “Now imagine you were raised with a keen understanding of this history. Then found yourself accused of the Harvest Girl crimes. That’d be enough incentive to get me to run.”

“I’m not excusing atrocities of the past, but some of these alleged ‘witches,’” he said using air quotes, “were poisoning their spouses, selling false cures, and the likes.”

“Maybe, but you have to understand what women endured back then. They were barely considered human, they had no rights, were abused, traded, and bred like livestock. They fought back the only way they knew how.”

“That was a long time ago. We have laws to protect people in those situations now.”

“You know that’s not always effective.”

“Of course I do, but I also know we can’t have people going around practicing human sacrifice and calling it magic. It’s murder, plain and simple.”

“Is it murder if the bodies are never found?” she argued.

George exhaled. “Technically, no. But we’re talking about a twenty-year-old cold case. If these women haven’t been found by now, the simplest solution is they’re no longer walking this earth.”

Dana tapped her finger to her chin as she surveyed the scenery.

The cabin was small, boiling down to a single room with a woodburning stove and front porch.

Presently, a table with two chairs, a freestanding kitchen sink, and a twin bed on a wrought iron frame inhabited the space.

From the crime scene photographs George shared with her on the drive over, the furnishings had been added after the women vanished.

Another addition Dana couldn’t ignore was the small Voodoo altar in the left corner.

It was identical to the one in George’s mother’s house, right down to the serpent-carved pillar.

If he noticed the connection, he didn’t let on.

Not even when Dana moved closer to examine the still smoldering bundle of sage.

“Abigale wasn’t kidding about keeping negativity at bay. ”

George shrugged, like ritualistic sage smudging was as ordinary as burning a candle.

Dana tabled her opinions on the cleansing ritual when she spotted markings on the bare wooden wall at the back of the cabin. She read the four names that had been carved there. They were faded now, but still legible.

Cara.

Amber.

Elizabeth.

Sloane.

“It would’ve been cramped with six women here,” she observed.

George nodded. “Probably why the plan wasn’t to keep ‘em here long.”

Dana let her eyes land on the seven hashmarks carved into the wall. An involuntary shiver overtook her as her mind was dragged back to her last case.

Seven must sleep for all the rise.

Dana closed her eyes and inhaled through her nose, forcing herself back to the present.

“You okay?” George asked, coming to stand next to her.

“Yeah,” Dana lied, focusing her attention on her surroundings again. “According to Sloane Bridges, the girl who escaped, she carved the marks to keep track of the days, right?”

“Yeah,” George confirmed.

Seven days out here in the bayou … Dana’s heart skittered at the th ought. If the girls had truly been abducted with malicious intent, they must’ve been terrified.

“Did Sloane ever say there was any element of sexual assault?” Dana asked.

“No,” George replied. “Sexual assault evidence kits were standard protocol at the time. The report’s in her file. No evidence of assault or foreign DNA.”

“But DNA from the three missing girls was found here at the cabin?”

“Yes, along with personal effects from each of the girls.” George consulted the digital case file on his phone, scrolling until he found the appropriate section. “Cara Andrew’s backpack, Amber Montgomery’s bracelet, and Elizabeth Barton’s shoes.”

“Nothing of Sloane’s?”

George shook his head. “Why? You working a theory?”

“I don’t know yet. It just seems strangely convenient there was a single personal item from each girl. Just enough to prove they were here. But nothing else. And nothing of Sloane’s.”

“Maybe she took her things with her?”

“Collecting my belongings wouldn’t exactly be my first priority if I was running for my life. Was she ever questioned about any missing items?”

“Yeah. All right here in the report, though it’s not much help.

Poor girl was so disoriented there’s quite a few holes and inconsistencies in her story.

Only thing she made clear was that the Goode sisters abducted her and her friends, held them against their will while ranting about elemental sacrifice to appease the Gods.

” George scrolled to another part of the report and read a line out loud from the victim statement report.

“We begged them. We didn’t want to die, but they kept saying it over and over.

It was time to cleanse. Our blood or the flood. Our blood or the flood.”

Dana looked at George, uneasiness surrounding her in the stillness of the bayou. She spoke, giving voice to what slumbered in the silence between them. “Katrina.”

George’s face hardened. “Thirteen days after Sloane Bridges was found, Hurricane Katrina decimated our city. If there was ever more evidence of what happened to the Harvest Girls, and the Goode sisters, it was washed away. After that, people ‘round here didn’t have the luxury to chase ghosts.”

“What about Abigale’s mother?”

“Alice? She was in Oregon when the girls were abducted. File says she left Louisiana when she was sixteen.”

“Sixteen? The same age as the Harvest Girls.”

“Also the same age she got her driver’s license,” George argued.

“Okay, but why Oregon? It’s about as far away from New Orleans as you can get without leaving the country.”

George shrugged. “Can ya blame her? I wouldn’t want to live out here if I didn’t have to.”

“I don’t know,” Dana replied. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

She couldn’t put her finger on it. She wasn’t sure if the Harvest Girls case had anything to do with the current murders, but she didn’t like the niggling feeling in the back of her mind.

She couldn’t shake the notion that she was looking at different parts of the same equation.

Right now, she couldn’t make them add up, but with the right clues, they would.

She just hadn’t found them yet.

“Maybe,” George replied. “Either way, this feels like a dead end. I don’t see anything to connect this case to our ongoing one.”

“I don’t see how we don’t connect them,” Dana argued.

“All the victims are women, white, and met their demise in some sort of ritualistic, sacrificial way. They’re decades apart, but like Dr. Landry said, this might be a big city, but it operates like a small town.

Someone knows something. We just need to knock on the right door. ”

George didn’t look convinced. “Sometimes it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, but it’s a goose.”

“What?”

“I’m just saying, if you zoom out too far, you can’t see what’s right in front of you.”

“Which is?”

“The Harvest Girls case has been cold for twenty years. I’d rather focus on something that doesn’t come with two decades of urban legends. We have three fresh victims. I’m putting my manpower toward them.”

Dana shook her head. Was she really in the middle of the Louisiana bayou arguing the existence of witchcraft with a cop whose mother was a Voodoo priestess?

If anyone should understand how practical magic was in this day and age it was George.

“People flock to New Orleans because of its connection to the occult world. Ignore it and you ignore facts that could help you solve these murders.”

“I’m not ignoring anything,” George assured her. “I’m just focusing on the tangible facts. There aren’t any for the Harvest Girls. So, for now, they’ll have to stay ghosts.”

Dana sighed. “We should go back. I don’t want to be out here when the sun goes down.”

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark,” George teased.

“The dark? No. But alligators and swamp spiders are a different story.”