Hazel looked in the closet and shook her head at herself, seeing nothing unusual. Remembering the detective’s request, she gathered Iris’s toothbrush and hairbrush, then picked up her soft fleece blanket and the teddy bear the little girl cherished.
Tears burned the backs of her eyelids, and she closed her eyes, remembering the day Iris was born. Such a happy occasion.
It had almost erased the memory of the day her own child was born and had been ripped from her arms and carted away.
She choked back a sob, then exhaled and carried the items to the kitchen and stowed them in a plastic bag to give to the detective.
Satisfied no one had been in Minnie’s room, she put on a pot of hot water for tea, then shuffled to her bedroom.
The bed was still made with the quilt she’d sewed during her early years of therapy, a Dresden plate design in yellow and white as a reminder that the sun would once again shine down on her. One of the pillows looked off, a little to the center. She studied it because she was meticulous about making her bed the minute her feet hit the floor in the mornings. But perhaps she’d been so worried about Minnie, she hadn’t been as attentive asusual. And once she and Clara had seen the news about Minnie, they’d raced from the house to talk to the detective.
She checked her closet. Nothing looked as if it had been touched.
Next she examined her dresser drawers. Hmm. Her clothes were still neatly in place.
The small vanity holding what little cosmetics she owned was tidy. Her cold cream, facewash, toothbrush and paste were all just as she’d left them. She turned to the linen closet and noted the towels and linens were folded as she’d stored them.
The memory board where she kept photos of all the girls who’d come through Sanctuary House was intact. The success stories warmed her heart.
So far, Minnie had been one of them. Now someone had taken her life.
Goosebumps tingled up her spine, and she opened her keepsake box. When the girls joined her program, she required each girl to write directives listing who they wanted to care for their child in the event something happened to them. She never opened them unless given permission. When the girls moved on, they took the directives with them along with her contact information in case they ever needed her.
Clara’s and Rayna’s were inside the box and unopened.
Her stomach twisted. But Minnie’s was gone.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Dalton, Georgia
Eighteen-year-old Dana Jo Glasser shivered as she watched the nightly news recap. Images of Midnight Ridge flashed across the screen, the story about a teenage girl named Minnie being murdered sending a chill through her.
The misty fog painted the mountain in ghostly images that reminded her of the monsters that plagued her at night.
Shadows hung in every corner of her room, made worse in her mind by the scary Halloween décor all over town that she’d seen today as people prepared for the holiday. Skeletons, zombies, ghosts, black widow spiders, bats, Frankensteins, werewolves and vampires.
Others celebrated the Day of the Dead, holding special ceremonies in the mountains.
And now a young girl about her age had died at Midnight Ridge.
The wind battered her bedroom window, a tree branch slamming against it. Thunder boomed outside, threatening rain and reminding her of lying on the wet muddy ground in thewoods where the search and rescue team had found her that horrible day.
She glanced down at the scar on her right arm and her crooked pinky finger that had been broken, then tugged the long sleeves of her T-shirt over her hands. She’d been found in the same area where Minnie Benton had died.
Every day since had been a nightmare. Although police ruled her disappearance as an abduction, they’d never found the person who’d attacked her. She was terrified he’d come back for her.
She didn’t remember what had happened during the time she was abducted either. Sometimes she thought that was a blessing. Other times a curse.
At the hospital, doctors told her she’d been dehydrated, freezing and unconscious. She’d sustained multiple injuries, including a severe concussion that had stolen her memory and left her with blinding headaches that, at times, forced her to go to bed for at least twenty-four hours. Sometimes the migraines lasted for days.
Even when they passed, frustration lingered like a heavy dark cloud after a storm, refusing to allow in the light.
A sharp pain ripped through her temple, and she hurried to the bathroom to retrieve one of the pills the doctor had prescribed for the severe headaches that came on as quickly as lightning.
The pill bottle rattled as she uncapped it, the sound nerve-wracking like a hammer pounding nails into her skull. With a groan, she plucked two tablets from it and tossed them down. Tremors started deep within her and her hand shook as she filled a glass with water, yet she was trembling so hard she spilled half of the glass down her hand and arm. Through blurred vision, she watched it trickle into the sink, the sound a reminder of the water running down the side of the mountain. Inthe mirror, her eyes looked gaunt and red-rimmed, and the aura had already begun, creating a fog of blinking lights, making her head spin and nausea climb her throat.
Gripping the wall, she staggered back to her bedroom and collapsed onto the bed.
