Page 25 of The Sleeping Girls

“No, no, that’s not the way it happened.” Mitch blinked, knotting and unknotting his hands.

“Then fill me in,” Ellie said sternly.

Mitch heaved a breath. “Some of the other guys texted last night. They thought that pact… that it was funny and… well, yeah, they kind of bragged that they’d be the one to break it.” His breathing grew labored. “I told Kelsey that I wasn’t part of it, that that’s not why I asked her to the dance. But she was so upset… she screamed that she couldn’t face going back to school again, that her parents would be ashamed and that she was afraid it would mess with her getting a scholarship.” His voice cracked. “I told her it would all blow over but then… another picture was posted on social media.”

“Let me see it,” Ellie said.

He handed her his cell and her pulse hammered. The photo showed Kelsey, Ruby and June in their underwear. It looked as if it had been taken in the gym locker room at school but she couldn’t tell for certain.

“Did they pose for this?” Ellie asked Mitch.

He shook his head. “No. That was another reason Kelsey was so upset.”

Now she understood why Ruby had looked so wary.

Mitch gulped. “She ran into the woods. I followed her, but she told me to go away. I told her it was no big deal, but she… she said her life was over, that her dad would kill her.”

“Was Kelsey frightened of her father?”

“I don’t know. I never met her parents. But she said that they were adamant that she was too young to date. She was so hysterical it scared me. When she reached a drop-off, she threatened to jump if I came closer.”

“So you left her?” Ellie asked.

“I didn’t know what else to do.” He heaved a breath. “I figured she’d calm down and go home.”

“But she didn’t.” Ellie crossed to the window, uneasy over Mitch’s account of the night before. Teenagers could be dramatic, but still, it was hard to believe Kelsey would commit suicide over a prank.

She stepped aside and quickly called Cord’s number. A second later, he answered and she relayed Mitch’s statement. “Expand the search in the woods behind Kelsey’s house, Cord.”

A sick fear rippled through Ellie. They might be looking for a body.

TWENTY-FIVE

WHISPERING PINES

At Ellie’s request, Cord and the team divided into search grids to cover more territory.

He kept thinking about what Ellie had said about Kelsey and her friends being bullied. He knew how that felt. He’d been an outcast at school. Called horrific names because he’d lived above a mortuary. Some kids had even been scared of him.

They should have been. He was an angry, messed-up teenager.

But he’d gotten his revenge in the end. He didn’t regret it either. His bastard foster father had deserved worse. But at least now he was six feet under and couldn’t hurt anyone else.

He shoved his memories to the back of his mind.

The woods were deep and wide, trees standing so close together their limbs touched in places, blocking out light. Shadows flickered through the haze of gray. With the dark clouds hovering above, the forest seemed ominous. The wind whipped through the trees, cracking limbs and twigs and hurling them to the ground.

Cord wove around a thicket of briars and passed clumps of wild mushrooms. The wet earth sucked at his boots, making the ground soggy and slippery. He shined his flashlight across thebrush near where he’d found Kelsey’s phone, looking for a path of crushed weeds or footsteps to indicate the direction Kelsey had gone.

He knew the area, recognized the plants and wildlife, the fork in the trail that led to Blackwater Creek, an area known for the black tarry sludge that pulled your feet under like quicksand. A mile into his trek, he spotted a downed log near Pine Ridge. Brush had been crushed and as he peered closer, he spotted what looked like a handprint. He knelt to examine it and realized there were two partial handprints, as if someone had tripped over the log and fallen.

A few feet away, he noticed a trail of broken twigs and spotted blood on the side of a tall pine.

His instincts roared to life and he snapped a photo of it. Ellie would want a sample for forensics. He continued to follow the crushed weeds and found himself at the edge of the drop-off. Using his binoculars, he looked down below, spanning the terrain for Kelsey.

He didn’t see her or a body anywhere. But to the right of where he stood by the boulder, he spotted a tennis shoe, a female shoe.

There was also more blood.

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