Page 57 of The Graveyard Girls

She studied him for a reaction, maybe a case of nerves to indicate he might have put the body there. His posture was rigid and a vein throbbed in his neck, but she couldn’t decide if it was a sign he was involved, or simply a reaction to another body being found near his town.

The sheriff pulled his phone. “I’ll have my deputies search the area.”

“ERT is on it and so is Ranger McClain, but the more hands-on-deck the better.” She pushed a strand of hair from her cheek. “Thanks to Special Agent Fox, we already have an ID.”

Wallace lifted a brow. “That was fast.”

“Agent Fox was already looking into reports of missing girls and she’s one of them. Her name is Jacey Ward. She was thought to be a runaway.”

Her heart melted as she recalled the pleas of the family for Jacey’s safe return. As soon as they left here, she and Derrickwould have to make the notification. Dread filled her at the thought.

Laney and her crew worked meticulously to remove the girl’s body, preserving evidence as they went. With gloved hands, Ellie bagged the red scarf to send to the lab.

As soon as they’d laid Jacey on the tarp, Laney performed a preliminary exam and pointed out the markings on her neck. “It appears she died of strangulation just like Bonnie Sylvester.” Laney gently brushed dirt from the girl’s face and hair, then lifted her sweater and exposed her torso for a preliminary examination. “See that bruising,” she said as she gestured toward the dark discoloration. “He held her down, either with his knee or possibly his foot.”

An image of the violent scene rolled through Ellie’s mind like a horror show. Poor girl.

“We’ll study it more closely. If it was a shoe, we might get something on her clothing or be able to discern the shoe size.” She lifted Jacey’s hand and studied it, then examined her fingers. “Some bruising on her wrists where he must have grabbed her, and it looks like particulates beneath her fingernails.”

“Maybe she scratched him,” Ellie said, hoping they’d get lucky and find DNA.

Laney carefully scraped beneath Jacey’s nails and bagged the sample, then used tweezers to pluck a fiber caught in the mix and held it up to the light. “This could have come from the killer’s clothing.” She dropped it into an evidence bag as well.

Cord walked toward her holding something in his hand. A scowl deepened his dark brown eyes as he approached, then Ellie saw what he had in his gloved hand. A red boot.

“Found this in the brush. It must have come off when the killer dragged her into the ravine. “

Cord bagged the shoe and placed it with the other evidence bags, while Ellie joined Laney again. “Was there another shoe in the grave or brush anywhere?”

Laney and her assistant both shook their heads. “She was barefoot just like the Sylvester girl.”

The missing red shoes and the red scarf were definitely significant to the unsub. Ellie wanted to know exactly what they meant to him.

Derrick returned, his phone in his hand. He addressed Cord first. “Keep the search teams combing the area for more graves.”

Cord clenched his jaw, looking wary as he glanced up the hill. “Copy that.”

“Ellie, I have the address for the girl’s family,” Derrick said. “We should notify them before this reaches the media.”

“Can you and the ERT team handle it here if we leave, Laney? The local sheriff may want to consult with you.”

“Of course. I’ll arrange the transport to the morgue and update you on the autopsy findings ASAP.”

Ellie and Derrick used the repel line to pull themselves to the top and over the jagged edge of the ridge.

Minutes later, they were in her Jeep heading to Watkinsville to deliver the bad news to the Ward family. “We’re about to turn this day into the worst one of that couple’s life,” she murmured, her heart aching as she steered the vehicle down the graveled drive to the highway.

She only wished she had the answer to the one question they’d want to know—who killed their lovely daughter?

SIXTY-THREE

Briar Ridge Mobile Homes

Kat ushered her friend Carrie Ann into her bedroom and shut the door.

“What’s up?” Carrie Ann asked. “You sounded excited. Do you have a date?”

Kat winced. She wished she’d never told Carrie Ann she had a crush on the soccer team captain. All the girls did and he’d never even looked at her twice, much less talked to her. She lived in a trailer and her mama’s scandal years ago still had tongues wagging. She couldn’t wait till she was old enough to escape this horrible town and her skanky relatives.