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He hauled her unconscious body across the grounds to their meeting place. He was prepared for the celebration.
Tonight, the moon would be full, heightening the apprehension in the air and his anticipation.
They’d chosen this place ten years ago because it was abandoned and secluded. Though it was supposed to be a healing place, plenty had died within the walls and ghosts haunted it.
Nobody knew it still existed.
He’d get her ready, then he’d wait for the brothers to join him.
ONE HUNDRED ELEVEN
CROOKED CREEK
Fear for Lorna Bea tied Ellie’s stomach into a thousand knots as she drove toward Crooked Creek.
Who exactly was this man and how had he raised a daughter? Did he know she was missing? Was he responsible?
Had he killed his own mother and then left with Lorna Bea?
No… Cade said there was another man who’d broken in. A man in a mask.
Maybe he was the man Betsy had mentioned she and Lorna Bea had seen the night she chased the kitty into the woods. A kitty that could have been planted there to lure her away from her parents…
Ellie pressed her hand to her racing heart.
This man could be connected to Dwight Jones… could be the one he was worried might be endangering his daughter.
If Dwight was in fact Frank Wahlburg, the evidence inside that safe could prove they’d worked together. Her mind spun with it all.
Although it was late, the glow of the moon looked almost eerie as it streaked through the tree branches overhanging the lake.
Cord had search teams combing the woods now. The grandmother’s body would be autopsied and with a smidgen of luck, they might find DNA, but Ellie doubted it. That would be far too simple for this mind-reeling case.
She and Derrick left the ERT collecting the souvenirs in Jones’ safe and processing the crime scene, but she’d brought the notebook she’d found hidden in Lorna Bea’s room to examine it.
“I need to call Lindsey,” Derrick said as Ellie dropped him at his cabin. “And I’m going to dig deeper into all our persons of interest. See what each of them has been doing the last ten years.”
Ellie nodded, knowing they both needed sleep and a shower. She had a feeling her dreams would be tormented with the pieces of the puzzle she hadn’t yet managed to click into place.
They said good night, and she wound through town to her bungalow, eyeing her property as she always did before parking and going inside. Grateful for the light she kept burning on her front porch and the golden moon illuminating her yard, she swung into the driveway, and got out.
Once inside, she did a quick search of her house, poured herself a vodka and carried it to the den. She settled on the couch and thumbed through Lorna Bea’s notebook.
As she skimmed the entries, chill bumps cascaded up her spine:
All I want is to have a nice house, a home. Friends. And to go to a regular school.
Butmy life is lived in boxes. The boxes we move every time we change towns.
“You can only take what you can fit in the box,” Daddy says. But even then he looks at what I pack and removes anything too personal. No phone or computer. No souvenirs of where we’ve been. No notes or postcards or pen pal letters with friends.
Not that I have any friends. Daddy says I can’t talk to anybody. That people are dangerous. We have to stay inside. Stay on the run. That there are bad people out there. That they might get me.
But he won’t tell me who they are. Or why they’d want to hurt me.
My box is the only thing I have. Sometimes we don’t stay in one place long enough for me to unpack it.
He has boxes, too. Boxes that hold secrets. He takes a smaller metal box with him when he goes places. He never tells me where he goes or who he sees or what he does. Or what’s inside the box.
