Page 47 of The Graveyard Girls

Forgetting had never worked though, only stirred up more anxiety that left her sweating and dizzy with nerves. Once she’d even blacked out for a few minutes, only she’d been awake. They called it disassociation.

It wasn’t the first time she’d done that either.

She’d been afraid to tell the doctor, afraid he’d send her to the nut house. So she’d googled her symptoms and read about it. People disassociated from things that triggered trauma and were difficult to face. It was a little like amnesia only when she returned to reality, everything came rushing back like a thousand needles stabbing at her skull.

Sometimes the memories wiped her out to the point she had to go to bed for a day or two.

She couldn’t let it happen right now. Not until she saw exactly what Cord McClain was up to.

Brush crackled and snapped below her feet, but she plowed her way deeper into the woods. By now she knew the line between the toxic and non-toxic land and wouldn’t cross it. She wound to the right between a series of bare trees, then looked all around her, feeling lost and terrified, her rising anxiety starting to make her shake.

She stepped over rocks and maneuvered around a boulder then sidestepped a weedy patch filled with poison ivy. A half mile in and she recognized the vegetation and the narrow path leading into a thickly wooded stretch that made it hard to see more than a foot in front of her.

Suddenly a twig snapped behind her, and someone grabbed her and pulled her behind the tree. She started to scream, but a gloved hand pressed over her mouth. Her pulse pounded then a deep voice spoke into her ear.

“I’m going to let you go, but don’t scream.”

Hetty hadn’t heard that voice in years, and she’d never thought she would again. But she recognized it. Cord McClain.

Emotions swirled through her. Now he was working with the police.

She gave a little nod then sucked in air when he released her.

“What are you doing out here?” Cord asked.

She hugged her arms around herself, trembling. “What areyoudoing out here?”

His eyes narrowed to slits. “My job, looking for more dead bodies.”

“You think there’re more girls?” Hetty said in a raw whisper.

He shrugged. “It’s possible.”

“What about what happened?—”

“I know what I have to do,” he said through clenched teeth. “Now get out of here.”

The warning in his eyes sent her breathing into spasms and she turned and ran back through the woods to the safety of the graveyard.

FIFTY-THREE

Brambletown Police Department

In order to speed up the investigation, Ellie and Derrick decided to divide up.

She called ahead to verify that Sheriff Wallace was in his office so she could question him, and Derrick drove her Jeep to visit Clint’s father, Chester, who’d handled Ruth’s case.

Ellie found Clint Wallace in his office studying something on his computer.

“Thanks for seeing me,” Ellie said.

“Did I have a choice?”

Why some smalltown sheriffs resented working with outside law enforcement baffled her. Two heads were always better than one.

“Did you see the press conference about the other girls’ murders?”

“I did. I was making notes on the information you shared.” He leaned back in his chair, and she sank into the one facing his desk.