Page 31 of The Graveyard Girls (Detective Ellie Reeves #11)

THIRTY

Pigeon Road

Although the Wileys were gone, Ellie called a team to process the house. “I want prints, DNA, anything else you can find. Look for signs of an altercation and blood. Also look for notes, bills, something that might indicate where they were going.”

She called Deputy Landrum and filled him in. “Start searching for an address where the Wileys may have gone. They’d probably be renting and staying off the radar.”

“Do you have an idea when they left?”

Ellie scratched her head as Cord ducked outside to look around the property. “No. Could have been shortly after the foster kids were removed from the home. Check DMV records and see what kind of vehicle they drove, then issue a BOLO for the car and an APB for the couple.”

“Copy that.”

She thanked him, then ended the call and walked outside to find Cord. He was standing at the edge of the woods, looking through the trees with a scowl. Her boots crunched gravel as she closed the distance between them. When he turned to face her, he was holding something in his gloved hand.

“I found this lying in the grass by the pond.”

Ellie’s pulse jumped. The letter B dangled from a silver chain. Was it Bonnie’s?

“Bag it and we’ll see if it has Bonnie’s prints on it. And if we’re lucky, maybe the killer’s.”

“Copy that,” he said gruffly. “We should drag the pond.”

“But we have Bonnie’s body,” Ellie said.

Cord gritted his teeth. “I know. But other kids lived here, too…”

Ellie rocked back on her heels, her suspicions roused. Damn. He was right.

“I’ll call and set it up.”

If she found out the Wileys had killed Bonnie or hurt another child, she’d hunt them down and cage them like dogs.