by Rita Herron
Deputy Landrum looked up from his desk. “Are you sure you should be here instead of the hospital?”
Ellie battled guilt. “Right now, Shondra needs me more. I can do something for her––but I can’t help my mother right now.” She licked her dry lips. “There’s something I want you to do.”
He murmured agreement. “What is it?”
“Both Dr. Whitefeather and the therapist at the mental hospital suggested the killer might have worked in the medical field or a funeral home. I want you to look into those, any that are close by, and any medical personnel or funeral directors who’ve had complaints filed against them. Also compare those names to anyone connected to the Ole Glory Church. Even one of the body movers who transports bodies to the funeral home.” She rubbed her forehead.
“Still working on getting a complete list of the parishioners and staff of Ole Glory,” he replied. “Apparently, someone recently broke into their office and stole files, but the historian of the church is trying to compile a list from memory.”
That could take time. Time they didn’t have.
A text dinged on Ellie’s phone, and she opened it, her heart pummeling her chest when she saw what it was.
Dear God. It was a video of a young dark-haired woman somewhere in the woods, tied up in the midst of a cluster of weeping willow trees. Spidery moss hung to the ground, the willows’ limbs bowed with the weight. Terror filled the woman’s eyes and her cheeks were stained with tears.
“Please don’t kill me,” the woman cried, her voice jagged with desperation. “Please, I don’t want to die.”
Ellie gasped as the camera showed a man’s hand gripping a knife, glinting. “Thursday’s child has far to go,” the masked man sang creepily. “Too far to go for redemption.”
“Someone help me!” the woman screamed.
He swung the knife down in one quick motion, slashing the woman’s throat.
Blood spattered across the ground and dripped down her neck, staining the grave of wildflowers.
Seventy-Nine
Weeping Willow Holler
Ellie replayed the woman’s death in her mind as Cord led her toward Weeping Willow Holler. She’d recognized the place the moment she’d seen the video and had called Cord immediately.
Before she left, tips from the public had started coming in about Vinny, and Derrick had gotten word that a man fitting his description had been spotted at a property near a small country store. He had gone to check it out.
Meanwhile, Paulson had been ruled out as the Weekday Killer. Evidence proved he’d set the fire at her parents’ house, but he had alibis for the other murders.
Although Ellie was relieved Shondra hadn’t been in the video, watching another young woman die at the hands of this monster had torn her up inside. How many other innocent victims would die under her watch?
Derrick’s team was analyzing the video to see if it was real time, and nausea rolled through Ellie at the thought.
Dusk had set in, casting the forest in gloom as the moss from the weeping willows draped the ground and formed a circle near the creek bed. They passed a group of hikers setting up camp, and Ellie paused to ask them if they’d seen anyone suspicious, but no one had.
Ellie, the ERT, ME and recovery team followed Cord as he led them deeper into the woods. Other than the frogs croaking and crickets chirping, it was so quiet Ellie could hear her own breath puffing out and Cord’s soft footfalls in front of her.
“Do you recognize the woman in the video?” Cord asked as he maneuvered across a rocky section of the creek.
“No,” Ellie said, uncomfortable discussing the details of the case with Cord. Once she’d trusted him completely and as a teenager had a crush on the enigmatic man. Later, they’d slept together, but when she’d tried to get him to open up about his past, everything came to an abrupt halt.
The mental health counselor’s comment about the killer’s professional affiliation with a mortician nagged at her. She considered asking Cord about his foster father now, but their friendship was tenuous enough already.
“Why is he contacting you?” Cord asked.
“In case you haven’t noticed, my parents and I have been in the spotlight lately. It’s possible he’s doing this to hurt me or show my incompetence because he believes I failed to protect those children. That he’s a family member, father or brother maybe, of the Ghost victims.”
“What about the man who set your parents’ place on fire?”
“He’s doesn’t fit the profile and has alibis,” Ellie said, knowing they had to move on. Then she explained about Vinny Holcomb.
Cord paused and looked down at her, his smoky eyes intense. “You think he’s coming for you, Ellie?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “If he does, maybe I can put an end to this nightmare.”
At his penetrating stare, Ellie felt guilty for questioning his past. But she pushed it aside and forged on. She had to explore every single lead, and she had to focus.
Except the image of her mother dying in the hospital bed kept playing through Ellie’s mind as she crossed the rugged terrain, slashing at brush and bramble. The thorny bushes reminded her of the vines wrapped around the women’s throats and the sins they represented.
Mentally she reviewed the case. Victim one, fair of face, found at the Reflection Pond, was vain and made her money off hocking shoddy beauty products. She’d deceived her clients, caused them physical and emotional suffering and then paid them off, leaving her own family member in pain. Victim two, full of grace, found at Ole Glory, had fallen from grace by selling her body for money. Victim three, Wednesday’s child, full of woe, was found at Teardrop Falls and they were still waiting on information about her. But according to his pattern, she must have lacked sorrow.
With night falling, the dark shadows of the forest felt eerie now, making her skin prickle with unease.
The tops of the trees grazed each other as they rose toward the sky above, casting the mountain in an ominous gloom, the sky growing even more gray as they descended into Weeping Willow Holler.
The lush, overgrown greenery of the holler surrounded by the dripping weeping willows was an area of natural beauty. According to locals, people traveled here to mourn lost ones. Legend claimed their tears dampened the earth and made the weeping willows grow. Tonight Ellie swore she heard a mournful wail of sorrow permeating the air. The team with her remained silent, as if in reverence to the dead woman they were searching for.
“Thursday’s child has far to go,” Ellie said, thinking out loud. “So why leave her body here?”
Cord wiped perspiration from his forehead, and she noticed scars on his thumbs and a long scratch on his forearm. “Symbolically, the brown of the tree trunk stands for strength, and green leaves symbolize life. The weeping willow is the only tree that can bend like this without snapping,” he continued in a low monotone. “It’s supposed to signify being adaptive, as one survives challenges.”
“We need to learn more about this woman to see how the rhyme fits her,” Ellie said with a sigh.
The call of a bird of prey in the night sky added to the dread in Ellie’s stomach as they broke into the clearing and she spotted the woman’s body.
Grief for the woman struck her. A simple gold bracelet circled her wrists, shoes a plain black. Again, she was dressed in funeral attire, this time wearing a brown dress. But unique to this victim, he’d placed a copy of the Ten Commandments between her hands.
Which commandment had she broken?
Wildflowers covered the ground below her and a single daffodil had been placed in her light brown hair. Blood dried on her throat, and the bramble he’d wrapped around her neck was tied in a knot. Her eyes were so wide open that it looked as if she was silently begging for help.
“She didn’t deserve this,” Laney said quietly.
Ellie studied the victim for a moment. She was slender, her face oval-shaped, eyes a dark brown, darker than her hair.
As Laney bega
n her initial assessment, Ellie leaned closer to photograph the bruises on the woman’s arms. A darker, deeper one circled her neck. The impression was so grisly that once again she was struck by the fact that the killer might have been into S and M… or… what if the collar was actually a dog collar? What if the killer raised and trained—or abused—animals?
Laney pointed to the woman’s fingernails, which were painted a shocking pink but were jagged on the ends. “Acrylic nails. Looks like he ripped some of them off. Her fingers are dark with blood.”
“He’s escalating. Growing more cruel. Time of death?”
“She’s not in full rigor yet,” Laney said. “So I’d say two to four hours at the most.”
Dammit. They were close again.
As she looked around the scene, wondering how recently he had been here, something caught her eye in a patch of weeds nearby. Walking over to look at it, with gloved hands and a pair of tweezers, she plucked it from the grass. It was a small piece of a fingernail, painted hot pink. Either it had broken off in the struggle or the unsub had dropped it after he’d clipped the woman’s nails.
Hope flared in her. If she’d scratched him, maybe they could get DNA.
Eighty
North Georgia
“This is Cara Soronto, your local meteorologist with an update of the storm system traveling through the southeast. Tornados have been spotted in Alabama and Tennessee with wind gusts of up to a hundred fifteen miles per hour. Thunderstorms are rolling through North Georgia and conditions in the next two days could be ripe for tornadoes in the mountain region. Stay tuned to your local news and weather station for updates.”
Ignoring the wicked-looking clouds gathering above, Derrick flipped off the radio, pulling his gun as he scanned the property north of Crooked Creek where Vinny had apparently been spotted. The clerk of the nearby country store had said the building he’d seen the man near contained abandoned chicken houses. The area was isolated, with tumbledown houses set miles apart, and many appeared to be abandoned.
Meanwhile, Sheriff Waters was going through the list of family members who’d lost children in the Ghost case, checking their whereabouts and alibis.
Looking around, Derrick didn’t spot any cars but saw an ATV parked to one side of the outbuilding. He remembered then that Hiram had used a similar vehicle to escape through the woods. Could it have been the same vehicle that had sped away the other day?
Slowly, Derrick crept through the property, shining his flashlight across the wild bushes and weeds choking the nearby farmhouse. Peeling paint and loose shutters gave it a run-down appearance and the sound of dogs barking echoed from a nearby barn. The outbuilding might be derelict, but the property wasn’t totally abandoned.
He inched up to the house and climbed the side steps to the porch, staying alert. The place sounded quiet, lights off, and looked deserted, but he eased to the door and carefully twisted the knob. A quick turn and the door opened with a groan. Derrick slipped inside, moving as quietly as possible, listening for sounds of Holcomb or a hostage in the place.
There was an old mattress where it appeared someone had been recently sleeping, and discarded food containers littered the room.
With the house empty, he headed back outside. Holding his gun at the ready, he crossed the yard to the barn. A rattling sound shattered the silence, followed by barking, and the noise grew louder as he approached. Pausing to peer through the cracks, he spotted several cages holding pitbulls. The animals were barking, howling and banging at the cages to get out.
Stepping inside, his senses were alert for Vinny, but the animals were the only creatures to be seen. A deep rage set in as he shined his light on the cages and realized that the animals had clearly been abused. Whips hung on a ladder propped against the wall, and the animals cowered as he approached. Their coats were missing patches of hair, burn marks and bruises marring their skin.
Someone was training them to be fighting dogs. It was a common problem in rural areas, where illegal dog fighting was on the rise.
“Don’t worry, guys, I’ll be back for you,” he said quietly to the barking and growling dogs, who were clearly terrified.
Next, he moved to the chicken house, looking through one of the low windows with his light. At first glance the interior appeared empty, the light illuminating the metal coops.
A sick feeling knotted his stomach as he entered the space. He expected more dogs, but there was another, larger cage in the corner.
Although it was empty, he spotted blood on the door and crouching, he examined it. At first glance, he assumed it was animal blood, and a dog collar and chain lay inside the cage.
But his pulse jumped. Strands of long, wavy, blonde hair were caught in the metal. Human hair.
Eighty-One
Bluff County Hospital
The sight of another dead woman on the trail and seeing Vinny’s mother brutally murdered was too much to handle in one day. With no word from her father, after Ellie had returned wearily from the trail and phoned her captain to update him, she stopped by the hospital and went straight to the Cardiac Critical Care unit.
Nurses’ voices, rolling medicine carts and endless machines beeping added to Ellie’s frayed nerves. When the ICU nurse buzzed her in, she found her father slumped in the chair by her mother’s side, his head lolled back, mouth slack with sleep.
Tiptoeing over to her mother’s bed, Ellie stared at the heart monitor and oxygen tubes, feeling helpless. When she was four, she had chicken pox, and she remembered Vera rubbing lotion on her arms and legs to keep her from scratching, then sitting and reading stories to her for hours to distract her. At eight, she’d had a bike wreck and had busted her knee. Her father carried her around when it hurt too badly to walk and had tacked a map on the wall so they could plan their next trip when she got better. But here she was, powerless to do anything to help.
A tear escaped her eye and she brushed it away, lifting her mother’s hand in her own. Vera’s fingers felt unnaturally cold, her complexion milky white, her normally coiffured hair mussed messily on the pillow. A strand of gray peeked through the brown, a sign the always-pristine Vera had missed her standing hair appointment at the Beauty Barn.
The image of Ellie’s childhood home being swept away in a blaze, flames engulfing so many memories, taunted her. She didn’t know if her parents could salvage anything from that fire.
Or if they could salvage their family if Vera survived.
Eighty-Two
Somewhere on the AT
She didn’t want to do it anymore. Could not live with the guilt. She’d traded her own soul to the devil, and watched the other women die.
He’d said to beg. And she had. Oh, how she’d begged. She’d begged for her life, begged to be spared, begged to survive.
She had to save herself. No one was coming for her. No one cared. They probably didn’t even know she was missing.
What was her life worth now? If she ever escaped, she’d carry the spine-chilling screams of the other women with her. She’d see their faces, hear their pleas to live, bear the smell of their blood. She would never sleep again.
Closing her eyes, she vowed to fight back this time.
Footsteps pounded above. She was in the locked room, the one that no one knew about.
The one that had, when she made her grave mistake, intrigued her.
Until she’d seen what was inside.
When she’d tried to run, he’d dragged her to the chicken house, where she’d lived alone in the cage and he’d beaten her down. Then he’d brought her here.
He didn’t let the others out until it was time for their death. Until he was ready to execute them.
But she had other uses.
The door screeched open, a splinter of light worming its way down the steps. In the other room, she heard Shondra banging against the cage. Oh, god, what he’d done to her…
And the other woman… what was her name?
She didn’t know. He called her Cathy. H
e called them all Cathy.
She had no idea who Cathy was, what Cathy had done to him, or why he hated her so much. But the name Cathy tore through the air every day, labeling the women with their fates.
Bracing herself to fight him this time, she straightened inside her cage and balled her hands into fists. His feet shuffled across the floor, then he shined a light into her eyes, blinding her.
“Come on, Cathy. I need you.”
She bit her tongue so hard she tasted blood as he yanked her from the cage, dragging her up the steps. The house was so dark she couldn’t see a thing, then he pulled on the choker around her neck. Pain shot through her as he hauled her into another dark room.
Summoning every last vestige of strength she possessed, she lashed out and pushed at him. His hands quickly circled her throat and he wrenched her head back.
“You don’t want to fight me, Cathy,” he hissed.
“You’re a monster,” she cried as she lifted a knee and jabbed him in the groin. He bellowed, releasing her slightly as he reeled with pain, then she grabbed the heavy chain and swung it up, hoping to connect with his face.
It hit him in the chest, and she tried with all her might to crawl away. But he lunged on top of her and pinned her down, his hands tightening around her throat again.
“You’ll pay for that.”
A sob tore from her as he yanked a needle from his pocket and jabbed it in her neck. Seconds later, the scream in her throat died as her body went numb.
Eighty-Three
Crooked Creek
It was the middle of the night by the time Ellie made it home.
Rain had set in, forcing her to crawl around the mountain roads. She’d had to maneuver around a vehicle that had stalled in the road.
Derrick had left a message that he’d uncovered evidence that might pertain to the case. Already they’d found a woman’s hair and blood that appeared to be human. Hopefully they’d find some forensics to lead to the killer and pinpoint if it was Vinny. A local rescue shelter had also picked up the abused animals.
