I had asked for a sign and I felt I’d just experienced one. A sense of peace overcame me, and I dried my tears and drove home.
My grandma once told me that seeing a duck at a gravesite was a sign from your loved one that he or she is at peace and they’ve crossed into another realm.
I realized I’d still miss my husband and there was a hole in my heart and life, but he had suffered and this was his way of telling me he was at peace and that he wanted me to find peace as well.
I promised him I’d try…
Kat’s heart ached for the lonely woman who’d written that.
“Twenty more minutes,” the teacher announced.
Kat quickly composed her thoughts and began her paper. But as she did, she decided to visit the graveyard again. Tonight.
Maybe she’d ask her mama if she’d seen any signs from her father that he was at peace. Or if he was still terrorizing the countryside by taking young girls’ lives.
EIGHTY
Tilly had sent her first installment in the Brambletown series to her boss the night before. But nightmares of the morning after her sister’s disappearance kept her awake half the night. The dead girls’ faces stared at her as if asking for help. And the fact that she felt as if Clint Wallace and Ida and Joe had threatened her had caused her to jump at every sound.
Was one of them involved in Ruth’s disappearance?
Although now the police suspected a possible serial killer, she couldn’t imagine Ida or her husband repeatedly murdering teenagers, not when they had a teenage daughter of their own. She’d researched killers before and knew most serial killers were men in their twenties. Ida, Hetty and Joe had all been teenagers when Ruth disappeared.
Although Clint was a teen then, too, he was more likely the possibility. He worked in law enforcement and knew about collecting evidence and how to avoid detection.
Typically, she was a morning person, but after staring at the ceiling all night and hearing sounds outside, she hadn’t fallen asleep until dawn.
But a noise startled her awake and she jerked up and listened. There it was again. The wind shuddered through theeaves of the house, indicating a storm was on the way. She exhaled slowly, deciding her imagination was running wild because of the day before.
And all the ghosts around her, the ones living in her parents’ house, the sad and painful memories. The ghosts in the graveyard. The dead girls’ faces sneaking into her nightmares.
The floor creaked again, and she clutched the sheets in her fist. She hadn’t imagined it. Footsteps echoed on the wood floor in the hall near her door.
Her heart hammered and she glanced around the room for something to use as protection. The room held nothing but some books and her suitcase of clothes. No umbrella or a bat to use as a weapon.
The door shook with the wind. Or was someone trying to open it?
She slipped from bed and grabbed one of her boots. Slowly she tiptoed to the closed door and hid behind it. Seconds later, the knob jiggled and the door slowly screeched open. Breathing echoed in the tense silence. She went still, bracing for a fight, then the floor squeaked again as a foot stepped into the room. Then another.
She waited until the man crossed the door threshold then jumped behind him and raised the heeled boot at his head. He must have sensed her presence because he spun around and before she could fight, he grabbed her and pushed her up against the wall.
She started to scream but he clamped his hand over her mouth and pressed his muscular body against hers, pinning her against the wall. Her scream died in her throat but she raised her leg to knee him in the groin.
“Don’t fight,” he growled.
Fear choked her then she looked into his face. Not Clint. Shock momentarily trapped her in its clutches and she narrowed her eyes.
“It’s me, Tilly,” he murmured. “I’ll let you go if you promise not to scream.”
Terror mixed with confusion.
“Promise,” he said gruffly. “I’m not here to hurt you. I just want to talk.”
Her shoulders slumped although she was still wary.
“You know who I am, don’t you?” he murmured.
Tears burned the backs of her eyelids, and she nodded. Slowly he released her, and she gasped for a breath, then anger hit her as she studied his features. He looked mature now, had gained muscle, his jaw had broadened and was covered in beard stubble. A scar crisscrossed his left cheek and the right corner of his lower lip.
