Page 41 of Little Stolen Memories

I threw my hands into the air, saying, “Well, we know now.”

“Let’s concentrate our efforts on the facts. Getting all worked up isn’t going to bring her home safely. Right now, our sole focus is on making a plan and finding her.”

Finding her before it was too late … if it wasn’t already.

Thoughts flashed through my mind …

Cora dead in a ditch somewhere.

Cora being captured and tortured.

No matter what direction my thoughts went in, it wasn’t good.

“I was supposed to be the person she could rely on,” I said. “When she came to see me, she said it was the first time in a long time that she felt like she could see a future for herself, a future where she could put the past behind her.”

“You couldn’t have known the murderer was still out there until you saw the message left at the cabin,” Foley said. “There’s been no other contact since the murders took place.”

Somewhere inside the house, I heard a wailing sound, the sound of a woman in turmoil.

“I imagine Ginger isn’t taking this well,” I said.

Whitlock and Foley exchanged worried glances.

“She is not,” Whitlock said. “I’ve tried to question her about Cora’s comings and goings today, but she’s not interested in talking to us. Your aunt is with her now, and she knows we need our questions answered. We’re hoping she might get somewhere.”

I didn’t blame Ginger for not feeling like talking to the police.

At this point, I was sure she felt let down by all of us.

“Let’s get back to doing what we do best, shall we,” Foley said.

I reached in my pocket, took out my phone, and pulled up a photo. “This is a bit dark, but I thought you’d want a visual of the writing on the wall at the cabin. Guess it’s the same message that was left on Cora’s car.”

I turned my phone around, and Foley and Whitlock bent down to take a closer look. In unison, they repeated the phrase left on Millie’s bedroom wall.

“Yep, same exact words,” Foley said.

“Everything in the cabin looked like it hadn’t been touched in twenty years,” I said. “Except for this writing. It looked fresh, like the message had just been written on the wall.”

“Is there any electricity inside the cabin?”

I shook my head. “We were out there at dusk, and we had to use flashlights to look around.”

“I’ll have Whitlock stop by there tomorrow.”

In the distance, I heard, “Yoohoo, where is everyone?”

Foley rolled his eyes and said, “I don’t think I have it in me to deal with your mother right now.”

“Let me see if I can cut her off at the pass,” I said.

Foley placed a hand on my arm and said, “I appreciate you. More than you know.”

I found Harvey and my mother in the living room, standing beside Giovanni.

“Can someone please tell me what is going on?” my mother huffed. “We’re supposed to be part of this investigation, and no one is telling us anything. Well, that is to say, Whitlock reached out to Harvey to say Cora is missing. What I want to know is, how did this happen?”

My mother wasn’t part of the investigation, no matter how much she wanted to be—a fact I had no intention of arguing with her about now. I didn’t want to discuss what we’d seen at the cabin either, but I assumed she already knew, which meant there wasn’t any way around it. If she didn’t hear it from me, she’d hear it from someone else.

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