Nessa shivered. “You said someone saw her? Who was it?”
“Someone out fishing on the beach. They said they saw Mandy walking past all alone, wearing a fancy outfit. She didn’t even have a suitcase. And no one gets dressed up to run away.”
“Why do you think she was out by Danskammer Beach?” Nessa asked.
“No clue,” Jordan said. “But it was sometime in April, so she definitely wasn’t out for a swim.”
“What did Mandy Welsh look like?” Nessa felt dread rising inside her.
“White girl with red hair and freckles. When we were little, she looked just like that girl from the books.”
“Anne of Green Gables!” Breanna called out in the background.
“Hold on a minute, baby—” Nessa got up and cracked open the laptop she’d left sitting on the kitchen counter. She typed in the girl’s name. The first image that popped up was a missing person poster. Nessa’s heart sank. “I saw her ghost today, too,” she said. “She was standing on the beach not far from where we found the other girl.”
For a moment, all Nessa could hear was Jordan’s breathing. “Oh my God. Does that mean Mandy’s dead?” Jordan finally asked.
“I think so,” Nessa said. “I didn’t find her body. It must be somewhere out in the ocean.”
“Mom.” Jordan was using her no-nonsense voice. “This isn’t what Great-grandma used to do—finding women whose husbands beat them to death. There’s more than one dead girl this time. This sounds like a serial killer. You’re out of your league. Did you tell the police you saw a redhead, too?”
“What was I supposed to say without a body to back me up? What do you think they’d do if I told them I see dead people?”
“Mom. Someone killed two girls.”
Nessa didn’t have the heart to tell her there had been a third girl on the beach.
“Franklin Rees is the detective on the case,” she said. “I’ll give him a call.”
“Franklin Rees?” Jordan repeated cautiously. “The guy who found Daddy? He’s the detective on the case?”
“Yeah,” Nessa said with a sigh. “He works out here now.”
“You’re joking.” Jordan sounded frightened. “Mama, this is getting way too weird.” She put the phone down. “Remember Franklin Rees?” she asked her sister. “Mama says he works for Mattauk PD.”
Breanna grabbed the phone away. “Is he still handsome?” she wanted to know.
“Oh, Lord, Breanna, you too?” Her mother sighed.
“Sounds like he’s still handsome,” Breanna informed her sister as she handed the phone back.
Jordan wasn’t amused. “I don’t care if he’s Idris damned Elba. Just promise me you’ll tell him about Mandy Welsh.”
“I promise,” Nessa said with a groan.
She downed a second glass of wine before she looked up Franklin’s number. She’d hoped the alcohol would relax her. Instead, her heart pounded faster.
“Nessa,” Franklin said when he answered. “We go years without talking, now I get to hear your voice twice in one day. Everything okay?”
“I’ve had two glasses of wine and I’m a little bit tipsy,” Nessa confessed. She wasn’t sure what was happening to her. First she’d taken up cursing, and now she’d started drinking alone. There was no telling what she’d end up doing next.
“I’ve found a few bodies in my day,” he responded. “Sometimes a drink or two is the only thing that helps.”
Nessa’s spine stiffened. She hadn’t meant to get personal. “What’s the latest on my girl?” she asked.
Franklin sighed. “Fentanyl overdose,” he said. “There were signs she’d had intercourse shortly before she died. Odds are, she was a sex worker who took one pill too many while she was out with a client. When she died, he didn’t know what to do, so he dumped her body on the side of the road. It happens around here—a lot more often than any of us like to think.”
“How often?” Nessa asked.
“A few times a year,” Franklin said.
“In Mattauk?”
“The general vicinity.”
The statistic was hard to swallow. “Then why haven’t I heard about it?” Nessa demanded.
“Because the deaths of drug-addicted sex workers rarely make the news,” Franklin said. “That’s not how I’d like it, but that’s how it is. You’re a nurse, Nessa. You know I’m right.”
She did. Nurses know better than anyone just how dark the world gets. “Okay, but that’s not what happened to my girl,” Nessa said. “She was clean.”
“The test showed high levels of fentanyl in her system.”
“Then someone drugged her,” Nessa shot back.
Franklin stayed quiet for a beat too long. “You want to tell me how you could know that, Nessa?”
She came right out with it. “I saw her.”
“You saw her?”
Nessa had planned to tell him everything, but at the last moment, she lost her nerve. She’d held on to her secrets for thirty-five years. She wasn’t ready to reveal them all at once. “I saw her in a dream,” Nessa lied. “That’s how I knew where to look for the body. She’s been calling to me. She’s been waiting for me to find her.”
This time, the pause that followed was so long, Nessa felt the need to fill in the silence.
“The girl I saw looked seventeen or eighteen but could have been younger. She died wearing a pale blue dress and black heels, and she had a little quilted black leather handbag. Her hair was in twists and it looked like it had just been done. She was dressed like she was on her way to a party.”
“There was a bag like the one you described underneath the body,” Franklin said. “It was empty but the label said ‘Ofelia.’ That mean anything to you?”
“Ofelia? Never heard of it.”
“Me neither. But according to Google, it’s a popular Caribbean retail chain. We’re checking the files for missing girls who might have family there. Right now, it’s our best lead, unless you can give me something else.”
She could. “The girl wasn’t alone in my dream. There was another young woman down there—a Mattauk girl who disappeared two years ago. Whoever killed her must have dumped her body in the ocean. She was my daughters’ age. They went to the same school. I believe her name was Mandy Welsh.”
“You’re telling me that in your dream, this girl Mandy Welsh was dead too? Are you sure, Nessa?”
“No, I’m not sure!” Nessa snipped. “I’m new to all of this. All I’m asking is that you go take a look. Will you do that or not?”
She expected pushback, but he offered none. “I will,” he said.
“Good,” Nessa huffed. The combination of wine and emotion was making her head swim. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to get off the phone and go to bed.”
“Thank you,” Franklin said. “Thank you for trusting me with your dream.”
She paused, taken aback by his words. “You’re welcome,” she said, though she didn’t feel like she deserved his thanks. She should have told him more. “Don’t make me regret it.”
An hour later, she passed out with her head on the dining-room table and the empty wine bottle in front of her.
Hurling Begonias