Page 104 of The Sleeping Girls

“She beat us here to warn her son we were coming,” Derrick said.

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEEN

BOULDER CREEK

Ellie killed the headlights, pulled between a section of trees and parked, her instincts on alert.

She and Derrick checked their weapons in tandem, then slipped from the Jeep. Slowly, they eased past the bushes and up to the house, scanning the property and then the front windows. The force of the rain rattled the glass, the shutters nearly being ripped from the house, the sound of the storm drowning out their approach.

Derrick motioned that he’d go around back, and Ellie signaled her understanding then inched up the steps. When she reached the porch landing, she spotted Jones pacing the kitchen, his mother slinging her arms out and screaming at him.

Ellie texted Derrick.

Ellie:Mother and son arguing. Going in.

Derrick:Coming in the rear.

Easing closer, she tried the doorknob and the door screeched open. Rain blew in as she tiptoed into the entrance, then she heard a clanging sound.

Not the wind. Jones kicked a chair.

“The police think you killed those girls,” his mother cried. “You have to stop this insanity and talk to them.”

“I’m not talking to the police,” he snarled. “Everyone got what they deserved.”

Was that a confession?

Ellie stepped forward, her hand over her holstered weapon hoping to persuade him to give himself up, not resort to more violence. “Anna Marie was only fifteen,” Ellie said. “She didn’t deserve to die. And Kelsey and Ruby and Bianca are only kids. They should be living their lives like normal teenagers.”

Jones whirled on her, a .38 in his hand. “Anna Marie was going to ruin the family,” he said, his voice shrill. “And those other girls are teases, Satan’s temptation to the boys at school.”

“How was Anna Marie going to ruin the family?” Ellie asked, fishing to see just how much he knew.

“She… she was my half sister,” he wailed. “Everyone at school would know that Anna Marie and I were related.”

His voice broke off and his mother reached toward him. “You knew about her?” she asked, surprise in her tone.

He nodded, his eyes wild with emotions. “I heard you and Dad the night he told you. Heard you arguing and then you were crying.”

“Oh, Artie, I was upset at first,” Mrs. Jones admitted. “But Anna Marie was sick and we agreed your father had to help her if he could.”

Rage and other emotions Ellie couldn’t quite define streaked his face, and the gun wobbled in his shaky hand. “Yeah, and he was going to. He even wanted me to get tested to be a donor.”

Mrs. Jones gasped. “What? He asked you to do that?”

Jones’s head bobbed up and down. “That’s where we were going when we had the accident!”

“What happened then?” Ellie asked.

Jones shifted, running a hand over his eyes now, which looked wet with tears. “I told him no, I wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t.”

“Why not?” Ellie asked.

“Because it was wrong,” he screeched. “Everyone wouldknow.”

“Why would it be so bad if everyone knew you and she were related?” Mrs. Jones asked. “If you were a match and donated to her, you would have been a hero.”

He shook his head wildly. “No, they’d think it was sick, that I was a perv.”

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