Page 105 of The Graveyard Girls

“Was she with you and those other kids?”

Kat dug her fingers in the covers on her bed.

“Was she, Kat?”

Tears burned the back of Kat’s throat. There was no use lying. If Carrie Ann was in trouble, she had to talk. “Yes. But… she was freaked out and didn’t go with us into the w… woods. When… we got back to the campfire she’d… already left.”

Terror gripped Kat. Had that monster murdering teenage girls taken her?

She clutched her stomach. She was going to hurl.

“Lord have mercy,” her mama muttered as she pressed her phone back to her ear. “Kat says Carrie Ann was with her and some other kids at the graveyard.” Mama thrust the phone toward Kat. “Talk to her and tell her what you told me.”

The furious look her mama sent Kat could melt butter. Kat’s hand trembled as she took the phone. “Hello.”

“Where’s Carrie Ann?”

Kat pinched the bridge of her nose to stem the tears. “I… don’t know. I thought she went straight home last night.”

“What do you mean?”

Some of us went to the graveyard to hang out, then into the woods. But Carrie Ann didn’t want to go in the woods, and when we got back to the camp she was gone.”

“What time was that?” Carrie Ann’s mother said.

“Around eleven,” Kat answered.

“How could you guys be so stupid and go up there with a killer on the loose?” Carrie Ann’s mama screamed.

Kat burst into tears and her mama took the phone. “It was stupid and the police were here during the night but they didn’t mention Carrie Ann. I’ll deal with Kat. Now hang up now, Phyllis, and call the police.”

A minute later, her mama stomped out. Kat buried her head in her pillow, terror seizing her. She never should have left Carrie Ann at the camp alone.

If something bad happened to her best friend, it was all her fault.

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEEN

Crooked Creek

At seven-fifteen, Ellie jerked awake, her anxiety already rising to a fever pitch. Today hopefully they’d find the ID of the dead man in No Man’s Land and get results for DNA on the scarves and shoes.

Then they’d be one step closer to identifying the teenage killer.

She rubbed her eyes and pushed her tangled hair from her face, then glanced up to see Cord standing at the window staring out. He was so still and somber, his body wracked with tension, that her breath stalled in her chest.

She swallowed hard, the sense that something was really wrong making her heart stutter.

Then he turned to her and she saw pain and… what looked like fear in his deep brown eyes. She’d never seen Cord look afraid before. What the hell was going on?

“I need to tell you something,” he said in a deep gravelly voice.

Ellie was not a crier. But tears blurred her vision and she was too choked up to speak so she simply waited.

Tension simmered in the silence.

The doorbell rang, the sound cutting through the air like a gong. She and Cord froze, locking gazes.

The bell rang again.