ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEEN
Briar Ridge Mobile Homes
Kat had cried her heart out all morning.
Carrie Ann had been her best friend since they were five. She didn’t want to lose her, especially to some monster.
The police hadn’t said exactly what he was doing to the girls he took and killed. But her imagination had gone wild. She never should have left her friend alone in the woods. That was so stupid and selfish.
But she’d been obsessed with her mama’s journal.
She paced her bedroom then stared out the window, swiping at more tears that seemed to fall like rain. Gray clouds filled the sky, blocking out the midday sun. Thunder rumbled in the distance and lightning zigzagged across the treetops.
Fear clawing at her, she thought about the journal again. Maybe there was something in there about what happened to her granddaddy. Something to tell her where he might be or where he might have taken Carrie Ann if he had her.
She blew her nose on a tissue, returned to her bed and opened up her mother’s laptop, then scanned the entries. Shevaguely knew the date her grandaddy was supposed to have run off.
She scrolled the entries in between the time Ruth disappeared and he left and found an entry that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.
Daddy’s been so awful that me and Hetty hide from him. He used to just take out his anger on her but ever since that bitchy Ruth disappeared, he’s flipped a switch and takes his rage out on me, too. At night, he tears through the house roaring like a lion. Yesterday he threw the supper dishes against the wall and broke them and the hamburger stroganoff I made splattered all over the walls. Then he made me scrub it clean with bleach. I thought I was going to pass out from the smell and my fingers are raw.
He’s been diving into the brown whiskey morning, noon and night and twice me and Hetty woke up and he was standing in our room like a zombie, one time with a butcher knife in his hand and the last time with a shovel.
Hetty was so scared she wet herself. I was terrified too and my legs fell beneath me when I tried to get up and run. Daddy screamed at us both, then grabbed Hetty by the hair and dragged her outside. She was screaming and he slapped her, and I wanted to call the police, but Daddy told me I better stay inside or he’d put me in one of the pine boxes he’d been building and he’d leave me there forever.
I hate the dark. And I hate closed in places like elevators, small rooms, caves and the mines all over the mountains. Even when Hetty and I played in the graveyard and she’d climb in one and hide, I couldn’t go in after her. I pictured myself lying there in the hole with the dirt being poured over me, filling my eyes and mouth and nose.
Panic sent me into such a doggone stir that for a minute I thought I was having a heart attack, but fear for Hetty finally overcame the panic, and I managed to crawl frombed and leave the room. I knew if he caught me I’d get it. But when I stepped outside, Hetty’s screams echoed from the woods, and I saw where he was taking her.
No Man’s Land. That’s what the locals called it because no man could survive there.
Poor scrawny Hetty sure couldn’t.
I saw the track marks her feet were leaving as he dragged her, and my temper exploded and I screamed at him to stop. It felt like evil burning inside me, but I had to save Hetty.
She was my cousin. She was my best friend, too. And if he killed her, I’d be left alone with that monster.
Digging my heels in at all the times he’d been mean to me and Hetty, I remembered Daddy’s shed and ran toward it. Inside, he kept gardening and woodworking tools. Machines for the digging process were becoming all the rage, but he still liked to get his hands in the dirt.
My stomach heaved. Then I wrapped my hand around the shovel handle, swung it over my shoulder and chased after Daddy.
ONE HUNDRED NINETEEN
Ellie parked at Ida’s trailer, surveying the property. Ida’s car was in the drive but it was the only one. On the drive, Derrick had researched Joe and learned he drove a delivery truck for a discount store called Ten Below, giving him ease in moving from one city to the next. He had deliveries in the towns where Jacey and Bonnie lived.
“No truck here,” Derrick said. “I’ll call the company and find out his schedule while you talk to Ida.”
Things had been on edge between her and Derrick ever since he’d barged into her home and dragged Cord in for questioning.
Although she had to admit, she couldn’t blame him for doing his job. Damn Cord for shutting down. He had to be protecting someone. That was the only explanation that made sense to her.
But who? Joe? It didn’t make sense. Unless Cord knew him from the foster system. “Did Joe grow up in foster care?” Ellie asked.
Derrick consulted his tablet. “Looks like he lost his mother when he was twelve and moved in with his grandmother in Brambletown. But he did spend a few months in the system while she petitioned for custody.”
Dammit, Cord could have met him during that time. But Cord wasn’t some narcissistic jerk who didn’t care about others. He was especially protective of children and women. Just as he had been with her.
Still, even if he had some misguided loyalty toward Joe, she couldn’t imagine Cord covering for a predator who targeted teenage girls.
