Page 27 of The Graveyard Girls

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.

THIRTY-ONE

Somewhere on the AT

His palms grew damp, his breathing erratic with excitement as he placed the red sandal on the shelf with his other trophies. All the pretty red shoes… all the pretty girls who wore them.

Red, the school colors. Red, like roses.

Red, the color of blood streaming onto the floor like a river…

He kissed his finger then gently traced it over each shoe as he counted them, whispering the name of each girl they belonged to.

The young faces and bodies, teasing and tempting… Their images flooded his mind, the sound of their screams taunting him, their bodies going limp as they gasped for their last breath.

He moved along the row until he ended at the first shoe he’d brought here and ran his hand over the stiletto heel.

Slowly the memories thrust him back in time. To the cold musty closet where he’d spent most of his childhood nights.

Darkness surrounded him in the tiny closed-in space where his mama had locked him. “Don’t come out or you’ll get it.” The sound of the lock clicking screamed in his ears. The light from the keyhole faded as panic engulfed him. The furnace clankedsomewhere in the silence. But the heat didn’t seem to reach the closet and made it feel like an icy cave. He slid back against the wall and felt the heel of one of his mama’s shoes stab him in the back.

Shivering, he yanked her wool coat from the hanger above and buried himself in it then wrapped her red scarf around his neck. It stank of sweat, cigarettes and stale whiskey. Threadbare, the coat hardly warmed him, but for a while he covered his head with it, hoping to drown out the sounds outside the room.

Footsteps clattered. Glasses clinked and rattled. The stereo erupted with the whine of some country two-step song. Clack, clack, clack. Boots pounding the wood floor in time with the twangy sound.

Then a shriek. Something shattered onto the floor. Dishes breaking. His mother’s groan.

Terrified, he uncovered his head, crawled to the door and peeked through the keyhole.