Sympathy for Yolette filled Ellie. Gathering her own emotions, she decided to check the girl’s desk. The top drawer held pens, sticky notes and a spiral notebook filled with doodle drawings of animals.
Next, she searched the lower drawers. A few school project papers, mostly graded with As and Bs, although the later dated ones revealed her grades had definitely slipped. That might have been around the time she started drinking.
Ellie accidentally knocked a pen off the top of the desk, and it rolled under the bed. She bent to retrieve it and noticed a small shoebox on the floor. Curious, she pulled it out then thumbed through it.
Inside she found another notepad with pages of thoughts Nina had recorded, each dated.
Her breath caught as she skimmed them.
That Friday night my life changed forever. I hate him so much for what he did to me. I feel like my chest is going to explode sometimes. I can’t sleep for seeing his face. For remembering the way he touched me. The way he held me down… His breath on my cheek. His voice telling me he liked it when I fought.
Except I couldn’t fight because he drugged me.
I want to tell somebody but I’m too ashamed. My mother works hard and my daddy’s been sick for a while, and it would hurt them to know what he did.
So I have to stay quiet. If I tell, he’ll kill me and my family.
SIXTY-FOUR
Dalton
Someone had been watching her when she’d left the meeting tonight. Dana Jo sensed it and had run to her car. Now she was frozen in fear and couldn’t make her foot move to start the engine.
Outside the car, the wind roared. Dry leaves swirled across the street like tumbleweed in a ghost town. Shadows hovered behind the corners of the buildings.
She thought she spotted someone slumped low in the car in the corner. A man? Was he watching her?
For a brief moment, a sliver of a memory flashed back.Bright lights behind her. Blinding her as she drove around the mountain. She had to get home to Lou Lou. As depressed and frightened as she’d been when she’d learned about the pregnancy, she was now terrified of losing that little girl.
Thank God for her mama. She was lucky she’d agreed to help Dana Jo raise her. And she inspired Dana Jo to be a better mama herself. It wasn’t Lou Lou’s fault how she’d been brought into the world. She was just an innocent baby.
The car sped up behind her. Her tires skidded. Then a clunk. One of them was flat.
Fear bolted toward her as she lost control of her car, and it spun around toward the ravine. She braked but her vehicle skidded on the asphalt and she swerved, brakes squealing. She screamed then she was thrown forward and pain tore through her temple as her head hit the steering wheel.
The sound of enginesfiring up cut through the night, jarring Dana Jo back to the present. Bright lights flickered. The parking lot emptying out as everyone from the meeting left.
Dammit, she couldn’t sit here alone. Forcing herself into action, she started the engine, checked over her shoulder and pulled onto the highway.
But the feeling that she was being followed stayed with her. Just like it had that night from her memory.
Except after the attack when she’d woken up in the hospital, her mind was a blank.
“What happened to you, sweetie?” her mother had asked with tears in her eyes.
But she had no answer. Only a dark sense of knowing something really awful had happened had crept over her and her vision had blurred.
Then she’d slid back into the darkness of unconsciousness.
SIXTY-FIVE
Wisteria Lane
Ellie rolled her shoulders, aching from too many late nights, but little Iris couldn’t wait. Now that she might have a lead with the sexual assault theory, she couldn’t go home and crawl into bed with Cord like she wanted.
And she did want that.
But she had to speak with the family of the other victim on her list. Jordan Orwell might be the final piece of the puzzle and reveal something important to break the case.
