Page 103 of The Sleeping Girls

She still didn’t know who he was. If he let her live, she couldn’t identify him. But that would be risky.

You’ve come too far to stop now.

She groaned and screamed as he hauled her down the steps toward the basement. This time, there would be no way out for her. She was already weak and tired and probably dehydrated. He could even leave her here and she’d die on her own and no one would ever find her. Then her body would lie in the place he and Anna Marie had used as their secret meeting spot.

Her sobs echoed off the concrete as he pulled her by her legs and they made it to the landing. The muscles in his arms bunched and strained as he hauled her down the hallway by her feet. The walls were dank and wet from where the rainwater wasseeping in. The creek was predicted to flood and would soon drown her.

She groaned again as he shoved her into a corner and tied her to a pole.

His cell phone buzzed as he made it back up the steps. His mother. Gritting his teeth, he ran out to his car, ignoring her. He’d finish here then be back at home within the hour. Then he’d call her.

Pulse hammering, he ran outside to get Bianca from the trunk of his car.

He had no qualms about that girl dying.

ONE HUNDRED SIXTEEN

BOULDER CREEK

“Are you thinking the same thing I’m thinking?” Ellie asked as she entered Arthur Jones’s address into her GPS. They’d already called the high school and he’d left for the day.

“That it’s too coincidental that Artie was in the car with his father when he was on his way to get tested as a donor match for his illegitimate daughter? And that now he teaches high school at the same school where three of our missing girls are enrolled?”

Ellie nodded, switching on her wipers again as another cloud opened up.

“Some teachers confiscate their students’ phones when they enter the classroom,” Derrick said. “Jones had access to the girls’ cell phones and could easily have gotten their parents’ phone numbers.”

Suddenly, the wind gusts picked up, ripped a thin pine from the damp ground and hurled it across the road. She hit the brakes and skidded, steering to the right to avoid the tree then screeched to a stop behind the eighteen-wheeler in front of her who lost control on the wet pavement. He swerved, brakes squealing as he jack-knifed, blocking her way.

Derrick grabbed his rain jacket and flashlight, jumped out and went to check on the driver.

Ellie flipped on her emergency flashers to warn approaching cars and turned her Jeep the opposite direction on the narrow road, knowing she’d have to find an alternative route to Jones’s house.

Grabbing her phone from her belt, she called 9-1-1 for assistance.

“9-1-1, how can I help you?”

“This is Detective Ellie Reeves of the Crooked Creek Police Department. Accident on Deer Crest Road just south of Red Clay Mountain High near Boulder Creek. Request ambulance, tow truck and assistance.”

In her headlights, she saw Derrick climbing onto the driver’s side to open his door. She held her breath, praying it wasn’t a fatality as the dispatch operator did her job. Rain began to pummel the windshield as Derrick pulled the driver through the window. They dropped to the ground and Derrick helped the man toward the bridge overhang.

Five minutes later, sirens wailed and the rescue teams appeared and took over.

Derrick ran back to the Jeep and jumped inside, water dripping from his soaked hair and jacket. “Driver’s okay,” he said. “Just banged up from the impact.”

“We have to find an alternative route to Artie Jones’s house,” Ellie said, referring to her GPS for guidance.

She flipped on the radio for the news in case they detailed other areas that might cause potential traffic problems and heard there were downed trees everywhere. The weather report burst in, “This is Cara Soronto, your local meteorologist with a dismal report, folks. A heavy storm system is blowing in from the south and moving up the eastern coast of Georgia all the way north to Chattanooga. At this point, we’re already inchesabove the average rainfall for this time of year and are expecting six more inches in the next twenty-four hours. There are flood warnings all over the state, including Crooked Creek, Stony Gap, Red River Rock and Red Clay Mountain. A wind and rain advisory is in effect, and we’re cautioning everyone to please stay off the roads. There have been several reported accidents, including two fatalities.”

The meteorologist paused for a beat and Ellie clenched the steering wheel as she pulled past the ambulance and tow truck and headed northeast toward the alternative route the GPS suggested.

“With the heavy accumulation of rain, grounds are saturated, trees are falling and there is a chance of a mudslide on Red Clay Mountain,” Cara continued. “The mudslide five years ago destroyed half of the area and took over twenty lives. Again, folks, please stay home and be safe.”

She signed off and Ellie cursed at the moonless night sky. An occasional streak of lightning lit the asphalt. The alternative route was all side roads, narrow and winding through the mountain. With visibility so poor, she had to drive at a snail’s pace. Between the accident and weather, it took over an hour for them to reach the turnoff for the back road onto the street leading to Artie Jones’s house.

Her headlights fought to add light through the downpour, but she plowed up the hill to an older ranch that was shrouded in trees.

“Good grief,” she muttered. “That’s Judy Jones’s car.”

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