Page 14 of The Graveyard Girls (Detective Ellie Reeves #11)
THIRTEEN
Pine Hill
Tension knotted every cell in Tilly Higgins’ body as she crossed the railway tracks that took her onto the road leading to her childhood home. Whereas the land looked desolate and dry at the cemetery, in fall and spring foliage was abundant and colorful in the community where she’d grown up.
The kids at high school had joked about which side of the tracks you lived on.
The difference was obvious; the middle class thrived, their houses double-storied Colonials and timeless ranches that were well kept, the properties boasting lush green grass and flowers in the spring.
Of course, now in the heart of winter, leaves had fallen and the bare limbs swayed in the wind.
Night had descended and traffic was minimal as she veered up the two-lane road that led through a tree-lined street.
Her family’s house still sat at the end on two acres with a private circular drive and gated property.
Her father had once suggested selling it, but her mother insisted on keeping the house in case Ruth returned home.
Her reasoning: How would Ruth reach them if they were gone and the house belonged to someone else?
She’d even insisted on keeping the landline with the same number in case Ruth called.
Painful memories flooded Tilly as she parked in the drive. The house looked empty and quiet, even sadder than it had when she’d left. For a moment, she considered driving to a hotel, but she might find something inside to help unravel the mystery, so she parked.
She’d been young and traumatized by Ruth’s disappearance, her parents’ anguish and grief, the suspicions surrounding them, and then the horrible rift between her brother and her father.
It had started long before her birthday dinner though.
Hayden had argued with their father over everything.
By fourteen, he’d started sneaking beer and hanging out with the wrong crowd.
His grades had dropped and when their father suggested college to him, Hayden had shouted he wasn’t going.
Ruth seemed to enjoy watching Hayden get into trouble and egged him on.
The night she disappeared he’d stormed out after the dinner and hadn’t come home till late.
The next morning their father grilled him over where he’d been, but Hayden just shrugged and said he was with his friends.
But he had that sneaky look in his eyes that Tilly noticed when he was lying. His story kept changing, too.
When she’d confronted him, he’d exploded, yelled at her to leave him alone and put his fist through the door.
And her father… his eyes were bloodshot, his temper more on edge than she’d ever seen.
After that, she’d steered clear of her brother and her parents. All that mattered to her parents was Ruth anyway.
They hadn’t once called or visited when she was in college.
Get off your pity pot, girl. Go inside and face the music.
She stared at the window to Ruth’s bedroom, and for a second thought she saw the shadow of her sister’s heart-shaped face looking at her. Her eyes that had once been bright and blue now looked dull and seemed to be begging for peace.
Inhaling a deep breath, Tilly tugged her jacket hood over her head, grabbed her purse, computer bag and suitcase and hurried to the front door. She inserted her key in the lock and jiggled it, grateful it hadn’t been changed. Again, in case Ruth came home.
The door squeaked open, a cold emptiness enveloping her. She flipped on the foyer light and scanned the entryway into the living room and kitchen. Everything was just as she remembered. A shiver ripped though her, and her chest squeezed.
The family portrait still hung on the wall in the hall. Ruth’s smiling face stared back. Yet she also saw the mischief in her sister’s eyes. Her parents thought Ruth was a perfect angel. Until she’d rebelled herself. Even then they’d defended her.
But Ruth had another side. Her parents conveniently glossed over that and wouldn’t tolerate a disparaging word against their oldest daughter.
A hollow loneliness permeated the air as Tilly closed the front door and locked it. Her footsteps echoed in the silence as she rushed to adjust the thermostat. A second later, the furnace rumbled to life although it would take hours to heat the house to a comfortable temperature.
Shoulders hunched from the cold, she took a quick sweep of the downstairs.
Dust motes fluttered in the frigid air and a musty odor served as a reminder that the house had been closed-up and uninhabited for a while.
Although she suspected her father occasionally came back to check on the house, probably looking for signs Ruth had been back.
Returning to the foyer, she hauled her luggage up the stairs.
Tilly’s bedroom door stood ajar, and she rolled her bag inside. Nothing had been touched in here. Dust coated her wooden dresser, and her Jenny Lind bed was still covered in the same purple comforter she’d chosen when she was ten.
Notepads and spiral notebooks were stacked on her desk where she’d done her homework and dabbled in writing. At one point her English lit teacher asked them to keep a shadow journal and she’d enjoyed recording her thoughts and the observations of classmates.
Maybe there was something in there that might offer a lead. Someone, maybe one of the other students, had to have known something.
The Bramble sisters definitely had a grudge against Ruth and vice versa. Hetty was quiet and withdrawn and looked like a vampire with her choppy short black hair and pale skin. Her clothes were often dirty and stank of fertilizer and potting soil, her fingernails permanently stained and black.
Tilly felt sorry for her and Ida. Not only did Ida have a pronounced limp and a gap between her two front teeth, but she struggled in school and couldn’t outrun the gossip about her father’s drunken escapades.
Ruth nicknamed Hetty and Ida the Graveyard Girls and the name stuck.
Trembling at the memory of the knock-down-drag-out fight between the Bramble girls and Ruth at the DQ, she walked to Ruth’s room.
A hollow emptiness swelled inside. Ruth’s queen bed was neatly made with a satin white comforter and her big stuffed teddy bear lay against the pillow.
One of her teenage boy band posters hung on the wall then her gaze was drawn to a photograph of Clint and Ruth, then one of Ruth in her cheerleading outfit.
On a small white board above the desk, her parents had listed their cell phone numbers.
No dust motes in this room. In fact, it looked pristine.
The police had turned it inside out searching for clues as to what happened to Ruth, but there were no signs of that now.
She knew her parents had moved further north of Brambletown to a nice area called Finch Gardens but had never visited them. Did they pay someone to come in and clean Ruth’s room regularly?
She closed her eyes to stem the tears threatening, and when she opened them, in her mind she could still see her teenage sister plopped on the bed on her phone, twirling the end of her cornsilk-blond hair around one finger as she giggled and flirted with Clint Wallace before she’d disappeared.
Where are you, Ruth? What happened that night?
The image faded and the news report taunted her. Are you the girl the police found in the graveyard?