Page 120

ONE HUNDRED NINETEEN

Ellie and Derrick found a deputy outside Barbara’s hospital room looking bored. “Has anyone come around wanting to see the woman inside?” Ellie asked

“Just the Stuarts. They had some heated words and then I heard crying and they left. Other than that, just the doctor.”

Derrick showed the deputy a photo of Nathan Huller. “Have you seen this man? He could have been disguised as a doctor or even a tech?”

The deputy studied the picture. “Don’t recognize him.”

“If you do see him, alert us and don’t let him past you. He’s a person of interest in our investigation.”

The deputy straightened and nodded.

Ellie knocked on the door then pushed it open. “Barbara?”

Barbara was talking to the nurse. “You have to let me leave,” she said, her tone desperate. “I have to find Mazie and Ivy.”

“Ma’am, you have a concussion,” the nurse said. “The doctor wants you to stay overnight for observation.”

Ellie walked toward the bed and Barbara looked up at her, her expression tortured.

“We need to speak to the patient,” Derrick told the nurse.

The nurse gave Barbara a stern look. “I’ll be back. Now stay in bed and get some rest.”

“How can I rest knowing the girls are still missing?” Barbara cried.

Sympathy softened the nurse’s expression as she left the room.

“Did you find them?” Barbara asked, her voice laced with panic.

“Not yet,” Ellie said. “But we have a lead. That’s the reason we’re here. The lab tested fingerprints and DNA at Claire’s house and the counselor’s office and we got a hit.”

“Who do they belong to?”

“A man named Nathan Huller.”

Barbara clenched the edge of the hospital blanket between her hands. “Who?”

“Nathan Jeb Huller,” Ellie said. “He’s the custodian at the school where you teach.”

“Oh, you mean Jeb?” Barbara wrinkled her brow. “Are you sure?”

“Forensics don’t lie,” Derrick said.

Confusion wrinkled her brow. “But why would he hurt Claire or the girls?”

“That’s what we were hoping you could tell us. Did you ever date him? Or did he ask you out and you rejected him?”

“No,” Barbara said. “He’s always quiet, wears headphones and keeps his head down. He’s never said more than two or three words to me.”

“So you didn’t discuss anything personal about your family or friends?”

“No, and he’s never talked to me about his personal life either,” Barbara said. “Most of the time it’s like he isn’t even there.”

“And he knew nothing about your relationship with the other women?”

Barbara pressed a hand to her chest as if it was hard to breathe. “No, this doesn’t make any sense.”

Ellie’s mind raced. “This is what we know about him so far. He was abandoned by his mother then his father remarried when Jeb was four to a woman with a fifteen-year-old daughter. They lived in a small house outside Gatlinburg. But shortly after their marriage, his father and new wife were killed in a car accident and Jeb was sent to live with an uncle.”

Barbara’s face paled. “What was the name of the woman his father married?”

“Grace Huckleberry.”

“Oh, my God,” Barbara gasped. “Grace Huckleberry was my mother.”