Page 22 of The Graveyard Girls

“Mr. Black,” she said. “I identified the remains you discovered in the woods.”

An odd look washed over his face, one Ellie couldn’t quite read.

Ellie flashed the picture. “Her name is Bonnie Sylvester. She was thirteen years old. Do you recognize her?”

Black leaned forward and studied the photograph with an intensity that almost unnerved Ellie. When he righted himself, he ran a finger over the scar on his forehead, then shook his head no.

A tense second passed, then Ellie thanked him. “If you remember seeing her somewhere, please call me.”

“Of course,” he said matter-of-factly.

The door to the diner opened and the bell tinkled. A family of four entered, then a woman in her thirties with a bedraggled, low ponytail and a flannel shirt dusted with flour. She made a beeline toward the girls, rubbing at her leg, drawing attention to her limp. Wincing in pain, she stopped at the bar and addressed the black-haired teen, her voice sharp.

“Kat, you have to come home now.”

Kat rolled her eyes on a sigh. “But Mom, Carrie Ann and I were hanging out.”

“I’m not going to argue with you, girl. Get your butt up and let’s go or else.”

Ellie’s brows shot up. What did she meanor else?

Kat slammed her backpack on the bar then tossed it over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. “I told you she’d freak out, Carrie Ann. She’s soweird.” Pouting, the girl dragged her feet and shuffled behind her mother out the door.

The other teen frowned. “Call you, later, Kat. Let me know when you get out of house jail.”

Ellie bit back a laugh at the girls’ dramatics, then crossed to the bar to Daisy again. “That was Ida, wasn’t it, Daisy?”

“Sure was.” A frown tugged at Daisy’s lips. “That woman’s always been hell on wheels and got some kind of temper.” She mopped her forehead with a napkin, dabbing at the sweat beading above her brows. “And her daughter’s just like her.”

TWENTY-THREE

Tilly Higgins pulled her Braves baseball hat lower over her forehead to shield her face as she watched Ida Bramble storm in and make a scene with her daughter at the counter.

Tilly remembered high school. Ida had been pregnant when Ruth disappeared, but no one knew it at the time. She married Joe shortly before the baby came.

After the scandal that summer and the suspicions cast on her father, Earl, Tilly would have expected Ida to flee town like she did. But she supposed her roots ran deep in the heart of this dreadful town.

The daughter, a pale girl with hair the color of soot and a short skirt that rode up her butt, stomped behind her mother, as rebellious as Ida and Hetty had been. Tilly almost laughed at the irony.Karma’s a bitch, Ida. You reap what you sow.

Except Tilly hadn’t been one of the mean girls and look how her teenage years had gone.

All because Ruth had been a mischievous flirty girl who the boys all wanted and female classmates envied.

Not Tilly. She’d been the mealy, mousy, invisible little sister who no one ever noticed and probably didn’t remember.

She buried her nose in her phone as the detective continued combing the room asking questions about the murder case she’d come to investigate. She’d heard they’d IDed the girl in the grave.

It wasn’t her sister.

A mixture of relief and sadness filled her. The fact that it wasn’t Ruth meant there was a slim possibility her sister was still alive. Although Tilly had lost real hope of that years ago. The disappointment each time a report surfaced of the discovery of an unidentified dead girl was too much to handle. Over and over her parents had their hopes raised, only to have them brutally crushed.

She still wanted answers though. Tomorrow she’d start digging around, pushing people to talk. She’d already obtained a copy of the police report from the original investigation.

She pulled it from her briefcase and skimmed through it one more time. There had to have been something the cops had missed. Someone they hadn’t even looked at as a suspect or dismissed too quickly.

Either that, or someone in town knew who’d taken Ruth and was covering for them.

TWENTY-FOUR