Page 91 of The Graveyard Girls (Detective Ellie Reeves #11)

NINETY

Briar Ridge Mobile Homes

Kat had wanted to meet Carrie Ann after school to read more of the journal together, but she’d told her parents she’d come straight home and her father would kill her if she didn’t.

So she secluded herself in her bedroom to dig deeper into her mother’s past.

Her heart skipped a beat as she opened an entry and saw the first line.

Daddy’s dangerous.

I saw more bruises on Hetty today and know what’s been going on behind closed doors, I see all the little sneaky mean things he says and does. He’s a monster.

Maybe that’s why my mama left years ago.

Tonight, he was in a foul mood, stomping and cussing and drinking.

I was afraid he’d come after Hetty. Sometimes he asks her to help him at the graveyard but when he goes late in the day, he makes me stay home.

I used to think she didn’t mind, but I was stupid.

Hetty doesn’t want to go and she hates Daddy.

But she has no other place to live, no relatives that want her.

Funny how everyone in town thinks he has a good side for taking her in. But Hetty and I know the truth. He got some money for giving her a place to live. Worse, I guess he needed a punching bag and poor skinny, orphan Hetty is perfect for that.

He has run-ins with other people in town all the time.

Last week he pissed off the owner of the hardware store because he didn’t like their prices.

Another time, he yelled at the waitress at the diner and Daisy told him not to come back.

Mr. Huntington, who’d lost his wife, accused Daddy of burying her in the same pine box as someone else.

He even went to the law and had her body exhumed and it turned out he was right.

Course Daddy claimed it was a mistake, but Mr. Huntington insisted Daddy did it to save money and he was probably right.

Daddy’s still mad at the man cause he had to pay a fine, and I’m scared he’ll do something to the old man to get revenge.

I want so bad to tell somebody that he’s hurting Hetty, but I’m afraid of him and if I do, he’ll probably make things worse for Hetty. Everyone in town thinks we’re white trash anyway and whisper about us behind our backs. Mean old gossipy biddies.

This happened earlier tonight right when it got dark:

The back door slammed shut and I ran to the window in my bedroom and peered through the curtains. Daddy had on his old brown coat, a ski cap on his head and he was walking into his shed. He went inside for a minute and when he came out, he was carrying a shovel.

Hetty dragged on her pajamas. “What are you doing, Ida?”

“Daddy’s up to something,” I told Hetty. “He took his shovel from the shed.” He usually dug graves or did maintenance work during the day. At night… well, I don’t know exactly what he does. But at least he didn’t make Hetty go with him.

Curiosity made my skin itch, and I changed into my clothes, then pulled on my thick coat, socks and boots and my hat. “What are you doing?” Hetty whispered as she clutched the bed quilt between her hands.

“To see what he’s doing.”

Hetty pulled the covers over her mouth and face so all I could see in the dark were the whites of her eyes. “Don’t go out there,” Hetty begged.

I walked back to the window. “Stay here. I won’t let him see me.”

My legs trembled though as I crawled through the window and dropped to the frosty ground.

Gray snow clouds hid the moonlight and the starless night made it so dark I could hardly see as I darted from tree to tree following him.

Twice he turned back as if he heard me, but I jumped behind a boulder, holding my breath until he moved on again.

Like a cat, I slithered a few feet behind until finally he stopped beneath a thin pine tree where brush and limbs were piled waist high. My nails dug into tree bark, and I hunched down and watched.

Seconds later, he dragged something heavy wrapped in a blanket from the pile. Tattered plastic stuck out from beneath the corner of the blanket. My pulse jumped and I shoved my fist to my mouth to keep from screaming.

The shovel hit rock as Daddy began to dig. I slunk a little closer then gasped as I saw a pair of red shoes peeking from the end of the blanket.

Daddy pulled one of them off, kissed it and laid it to the side, then rolled the lump into the hole.

My God. Daddy was burying a body. A girl’s. But this one hadn’t come from the morgue or a funeral.