The Girl in the Woods

by Chris Culver

  For the moment, I had time to relax on my front porch. It was six in the evening, and I held a glass of vodka in my hand and an empty salad bowl in my lap. Roger had died a week ago. I missed him, but the sting of his death had passed. I hadn’t gotten over losing him, but I would in time. Until I did, he had left me with wonderful memories.

  As I sat and watched the sun sink lower in the early evening skyline, a black pickup appeared on the horizon. I thought nothing of it until it slowed and then pulled into my driveway. Trisha and Harry sat in the front seats.

  I stood as they opened their doors.

  “Hey, guys,” I said, smiling. “If you had called ahead, I would have ordered pizza.”

  “That’s all right,” said Harry, walking to the porch. He put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “How are you holding up?”

  “My new boss is an asshole, but I’m good.”

  “You mean that?” asked Trisha.

  I considered her for a moment and then nodded. “Life isn’t perfect, but there’s always room for hope if you look hard enough. So yeah. I mean that.”

  She smiled and said she was glad. Trisha hadn’t visited since I killed Logan Reid, but this was Harry’s third trip. His first visit had gone poorly because I had been mad at him for quitting, but his second had been better.

  Harry had taught me how to be a detective. He had been my partner, and it had felt like a betrayal when he had quit. That was my problem, though. He had done the right thing for himself and his family. I’d be a terrible friend if I couldn’t accept that.

  “You mind if we come inside?” he asked.

  “Not at all,” I said, nodding and holding open the screen door. My house was hot, but it was clean and comfortable. Harry picked up a coffee mug from my coffee table to clear it and then looked at Trisha. That was when I noticed she held a rolled piece of paper under her arm. She put it on the table and unfurled a detailed road map of Missouri and the surrounding states.

  “Trisha and I have been working on something,” said Harry. “You promise to keep this quiet?”

  “Sure,” I said, furrowing my brow. “What’s going on?”

  Trisha pulled a black marker from her purse and then focused on the map before drawing a large dot over St. Augustine.

  “You’re working a missing-person case still, right?” she asked. I nodded.

  “Paige Maxwell and Jude Lewis,” I said. “They were teenagers.”

  “And they disappeared from St. Augustine on March 13, correct?”

  She looked up, and I shrugged and then nodded.

  “That sounds right,” I said.

  “We haven’t found them yet, but we have found their car. They’re presumed dead,” said Harry, taking a notepad from his pocket. He flipped through a couple of pages before focusing on me. “Since my retirement, I’ve had a little more free time than usual. Trisha and I have been researching similar disappearances, and we’ve found something disturbing.

  “On May 13 of last year, Olivia King and John Rodgers were reported missing from Hannibal, Illinois,” he said. “Both went to the same high school. They were a couple, so their parents thought they had run away so they could be together. Despite a manhunt, neither was seen again.”

  I nodded, and Trisha marked the town on the map with a dot.

  “On July 15 of last year, Tayla Walker and her boyfriend, Matthew Bridges, disappeared from Kennett, Missouri,” said Harry, reading from his notepad. “Both were seventeen, they were dating, and they attended the same high school.

  “On September 14, Amy Hoffman and her boyfriend, James Tyler, were reported missing from Decatur, Illinois. Amy was eighteen, and James was seventeen. Both, again, attended the same high school. Again, they were dating.

  “On November 15, Jordan Fitzgerald and Simon Fisher were abducted from Mountain Grove, Missouri. As before, both were dating, and they attended the same high school.

  “On January 13 of this year, Nicole Moore and her boyfriend, Andrew White, were abducted from Sturgis, Kentucky. Both were seventeen.”

  As Harry read, Trisha marked off the locations. My stomach churned. When they finished, I slowly looked up at them both.

  “These kids are all still missing?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” said Harry. “Here’s what we know: The victims are all roughly the same age; in every case, the missing persons were dating; they disappeared in two-month intervals; and they all disappeared after withdrawing money from the bank to make it look as if they had run away. There’s something else, though, too.”

  Harry looked at Trisha, who hesitated before connecting the dots on her map in a near perfect circle around St. Augustine.

  “Whatever’s going on, we’re right in the middle of this,” said Harry. “These kids and these locations weren’t chosen at random.”

  I nodded, although I barely heard him. My heart pounded in my chest as I focused on the picture before me.

  “Give me those dates and locations again.”

  Harry read them out. Hannibal, Illinois, the site of the first disappearance, was to the north of St. Augustine, while Kennett, Missouri, the site of the second abduction, was to the south. Decatur, Illinois, was to the northeast, and Mountain Grove, Missouri, was to the southwest. Finally, Sturgis, Kentucky, was to the southeast.

  I connected the dots in that order and took a step back. None of us said anything, but Harry covered his face.

  “Shit,” he said, his voice low. “It’s not a circle.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s a pentagram, and we’re right in the middle.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Trisha.

  I shook my head. “I have no idea, but I don’t think it’s good.”

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  The Girl in the Woods

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  Did you like The Girl in the Woods? Then you’re going to love The Boys in the Church!

  They made their choice years ago. They buried the truth… amongst other things. But evil only begets evil. The monster they created is here, and he’s on the hunt…

  Detective Mary Joe Court’s home is her sanctuary. It’s the one place she can let her guard down and be herself. And her home has one rule: No murder allowed. That means no pictures from murder scenes, no interview notes, no files, no death in her home. For years, that rule has worked out well.

  But now death is knocking on her door.

  A serial killer the local news has dubbed the Apostate has already taken twelve young people. To stop him, Joe must dig deep into her town’s sordid and forgotten past. But even that might not be enough. Because the Apostate intends to uncover the truth and bury everyone who hurt him.

  And Joe stands right in his way.

  The Boys in the Church is the third thrilling novel in New York Times’ bestselling author Chris Culver’s Joe Court series. If you like James Patterson, David Baldacci, or Karin Slaughter, you’ll love this series.

  Check it out on Kobo!

  Stay in touch with Chris

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  About the Author

  Chris Culver is the New York Times bestselling author of the Ash Rashid series and other novels. After graduate school, Chris taught courses in ethics and comparative religion at a small liberal arts university in southern Arkansas. While there and when he really should have been grading exams, he wrote The Abbey, which spent sixteen weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list and introduced the world to Detective Ash Rashid.

  Chris has been a storyteller since he was a kid, but he decided to write crime fiction after picking up a dog-eared, coffee-stained paperback copy of Mickey Spillane’s I, the Jury in a library book sale. Many years later, his wife, despite considerable effort, still can’t stop him from bringing more orphan books home. He lives with his family near St. Louis.