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There was something in Gracie’s expression that said she had a theory she wasn’t telling us, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. A police cover-up in Coldlake Falls seemed far-fetched to me, the product of a teenager watching too much TV. Detective Quentin was odd and unsettling, but he had shown up in the middle of the night, determined to catch a murderer. He wouldn’t be breathing down our necks so hard if he already knew who it was.
“I’m not sure you’d become normal all that easily, case or no case,” Eddie said.
“I agree,” Gracie said. She smiled. “What’s normal, anyway? You two came into town and picked up a murder victim. Now you’re still here, trying to solve it. I don’t think normal is on your menu.”
Eddie shifted in his seat but said nothing. Even from that small movement, I knew he was amused.
Holding Beatrice’s gaze, I lifted up the page I had been reading. “This says that the Lost Girl was wearing a T-shirt with the tag ripped out,” I said.
“Yeah,” Gracie said. “The tag at the back of her neck.”
“Did any of the others have that?”
She shrugged. “Not that I know of.”
“How far apart were the murders?” Eddie was digging through the pile of files.
“Here.” Beatrice flipped through her spiral notebook, then showed him her handwritten list. “The Lost Girl was 1976, and she was the only unidentified one. Tom Monahan was killed in 1982. Stephanie Wolfe was killed in 1989—she’s the only Black victim. Carter Friesen was killed in 1991, then Katharine O’Connor in 1993, and Rhonda Jean Breckwith two days ago.”
“Nineteen years,” Eddie said.
If Max Shandler was twenty-eight, he would have been nine when the Lost Girl was killed.
Eddie flipped through the notebook, scanning the modes of death. “Beaten with something curved, possibly a tire iron. Stabbed with something resembling an ice pick. Beaten on the back of the head with something large and blunt, possibly a branch or rock.” He flipped the page. “If a man is out hunting, why doesn’t he just bring rope and a gun? And for that matter, a garbage bag?”
We all pondered that. “A gun is loud,” I offered.
Eddie didn’t blink. “So are screams. These methods of death are messy, slow if it isn’t done right. The victim can scream and try to run, maybe get away. The reports don’t say anything about restraint marks, so he didn’t tie them up, which means they could fight him. It could take minutes for the victim to die, even longer. Every minute is a chance he’ll be seen and caught.” He scratched his jaw. “A gun, yeah, it’s loud, but it’s fast. Atticus Line is a remote area. You take one shot, two if you want to be sure, and you drive off. People think someone is hunting or scaring a stray dog off their property. Before anyone can check out the sound, you’re long gone.”
His voice was so flat. This was the Eddie who had been overseas, who wasn’t the same as the man who crooked his knees behind mine in bed every night.
Gracie spoke up. “Maybe he likes it. Making them suffer, making it hard. Maybe that’s part of the fun.”
“He had lots of time,” Eddie said. “He killed them, and no one came. No one even found the bodies for a while. But they all had their clothes on. He could have abducted them, could have done a lot of bad things to them, but he didn’t.” He ran his finger down the writing in the notebook. “The death was the point. Just the death.”
Something was niggling at me, trying to rise to the surface at the back of my brain. I turned to the Snell sisters. “Have you two heard rumors of the Lost Girl haunting Atticus Line?”
Beatrice rolled her eyes. “Everyone has heard those stories. They’re so old.”
“Don’t let her see you, or you’re next!” Gracie’s eyes went wide and she waggled her fingers.
“So you don’t believe it?” I asked.
“In ghosts? Of course not. Those are just legends.”
So they could believe in the LAPD framing O. J., but not in old-fashioned ghosts. “Have either of you ever been out on that road at night?” I asked.
The girls laughed, as if I’d said something funny. “For real?” Beatrice said.
Gracie shook her head. “Of course I’ve never gone out there at night. I’d like to live to see nineteen. Or at least until I’m old enough to get out of here. It isn’t ghosts I’m afraid of, though. Why not just stick a thumb out? What a great way to get murdered.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
After the night with the spaghetti and meatballs, Eddie and I weren’t exactly dating. It was something simpler and yet more complicated than that. I had roomed with plenty of people who had been in half-assed relationships, who agonized over unreturned phone calls, confusing gifts of concert tickets (What does it mean if he invites me to see the Smashing Pumpkins with him?), and who made a mixtape for who. I’d seen a dozen dramatic breakups and a few engagements, which were also destined for eventual dramatic breakups. None of that described Eddie and me.
We spent a lot of time together. He helped me get my car fixed. I went with him to run his errands, because even his errands were interesting to me. We watched TV and he rubbed my feet—he was insanely good at it—and we talked about everything and nothing. I never, even once, wondered why he didn’t call me back.
Was that dating? It didn’t seem like it to me. Instead, under the quiet exterior of our time together, it felt like I was being pulled open, the threads of me unraveling as every part of my life came apart at the seams. I didn’t recognize this life. I had run for so long since California, been so many women. I had never let a man help me fix my car or rub my feet. These things were momentous to me.
