“How can you be sure? You said there’s always one who dies. The other girl, you said.”
“Yeah, well, you never heard about the other girls for a reason. They were never reported missing. They were nobody. Homeless or...just invisible.”
Jo had concluded that it was planned that way. The one who died was always the one no one would miss, no one looked for. Did they take steps to ensure the other girl was always the ultimate victim?
“Why did you stay silent all this time?”
Jo blinked, shaking off the thoughts. She’d wondered when that question would be tossed at her. The edge in his voice told her he was thinking that if she and the others had come clean long ago they wouldn’t be here now. His niece and the other freshman wouldn’t be missing.
Maybe he was right. But things looked different from this side, especially eighteen years ago.
“We were scared. Brainwashed. We did as we were told.”
“But something changed your mind.”
“Ellen, the other girl who was with me, killed herself less than a month ago. She left two little kids and a younger sister behind. It’s enough already. We shouldn’t have waited so long...”
“What about the body of the other girl?”
She shrugged. “Don’t know.” She grabbed her bag and headed for the bathroom. “Good night.”
She closed the door and stared at her reflection in the mirror. If she was lucky he hadn’t heard the lie in her voice. She closed her eyes to block the images that flashed one in front of the other in her mind.
Of course the body wasn’t found—they buried it where no one would ever look.
20
Day Two
Eighteen years ago...
I’m not alone anymore.
Two other girls were here when I woke up. Actually one of them woke me up. She thought I was dead.
One girl’s name is Ellen. She’s a freshman at Georgia College, too. I don’t know her though. She hasn’t stopped crying. She thinks she was raped the same way I was. Like me, she can’t remember anything.
The other girl won’t talk to us. She refuses to tell us her name or where she comes from or anything. She keeps to herself in one corner.
It’s so dark. I wish I could see.
The one named Ellen crawls over to sit by me. “Why are we here?”
I wish I knew. “I guess we’ll find out.”
She whimpers. She’s really scared. I don’t mention it but I am scared shitless myself.
Every minute that passes amps up the anxiety twisting inside me. Okay, so we can sit here and wait to see what happens next or we can do something.
“Tell me what you remember,” I say to Ellen.
“I went to a friend’s birthday party. There were six of us. We’d been to that bar a bunch of times. They serve food, too. Sometimes we’d go and eat there instead of in the cafeteria.”
I wonder if it’s the same club I went to. “I was taken from Grayson’s over in Macon.”
“The Watering Hole outside Milledgeville,” Ellen says. “I don’t understand how this happened. It seemed like a nice place.”
The other girl who wouldn’t tell us her name laughs. “You’re so stupid. Don’t you know that if they want you, they get you no matter where you are?”
Anger stirs in me. “What does that even mean?”
Ellen scoots closer to me.
“It means we’re fucked,” the nameless girl announces. “When they’re done with us, they’ll kill us and no one will ever find the bodies.”
Ellen starts to sob again.
21
Georgia College Student Center
Friday, April 13, 7:15 a.m.
“You do realize this is stalking,” Joanna pointed out.
“Which is why I need you to talk to them.” Tony shrugged. “You’re a reporter. That’s what reporters do, right?”
He’d located—stalked, if you wanted to define his methods that way—Vickie Parton’s roommate, Sadie Hall, and her closest friend, Marla Franks. The two were seated in one of the many study niches in the Student Center, huddled over their notebooks, discarded food wrappers and empty coffee cups scattered over the table.
Joanna folded her arms over her chest. “What would you have me say to them?”
She’d basically avoided participating in any conversation with him since she rolled out of bed. As if she still didn’t want to speak directly to him or didn’t trust him to do it right, she’d even leaned over the console and shouted her order out the window at the drive-through where he’d stopped for breakfast. Beyond that she hadn’t said a word. He’d kept his questions to himself but only for now. At some point he would know whatever it was she was hiding. This morning’s priority was Tiffany. He needed to make some sort of progress on her case. At this point, unless the chief was holding out on him, they still had not one fucking thing. Completely unacceptable.
Annoyed at her lack of cooperation, he offered, “You can start with, was Vickie Parton seeing anyone before she disappeared? According to Phelps, she wasn’t. Had she been ill? Was she on good terms with her family? Was there anything that made those close to her feel she might want to disappear?”
“I’m pretty sure you can rule out that last theory, Agent LeDoux.”
Her sarcasm wasn’t helping his patience this morning. “We both know this but we need to know if they know it. We need their opinions and theories. Did they know Tiffany Durand? Did Vickie and Tiffany have anything in common? Play the part of reporter. Most witnesses get excited by the prospect of having their fifteen minutes of fame.”
“Got it.” She stood. “Then you’ll owe me one.”
“I thought this was a mutually advantageous relationship?”
She didn’t answer, just walked over to the group of freshmen, including Parton’s roommate. If she helped find his niece alive he’d give her anything he possessed the power to give—which wasn’t a hell of a lot at this point. His ex-wife had taken most of his negotiable assets.
Joanna wore dark pants and a lightweight sweater. The blue shade looked good with her olive skin and blond hair. Something had changed in their relationship—if you could even technically call it a relationship. More like an understanding. An understanding he wasn’t entirely convinced he understood. Whatever it was, things had shifted after Conway was found.
He thought of the chief’s call about the single blond hair found at the scene. Finding only a single hair always made Tony suspicious. If two people had rowdy sex the likelihood of shedding only one hair was not exactly overwhelming. It felt more like a piece of planted evidence.
Speaking of blond hair, today he and his pseudo partner would do all within their power to track down Hailey Martin wherever she was hiding. His primary concern was that whoever killed Conway would find Martin before they did. He needed Hailey Martin—Madelyn Houser. If she and Conway had abducted Tiffany and Vickie and stashed them away for some unknown purpose, the stakes went way, way up with Conway’s murder. If Martin ended up dead, they might not be able to find the girls before it was too late.
His cell vibrated and he checked the screen. Angie.
“Hey.” He kept an eye on Joanna as he listened to his sister.
“They’ve moved the press conference up to nine. I need you there, Tony.”
His sister’s voice sounded shaky. Understandable. She was terrified. Her only child was missing and now the powers that be wanted her to go on stage and perform for all the world to see. Plead with some unknown piece of shit for her daughter’s life.
“You don’t need me there. My presence will only distract the focus. We need every reporter in the room as well as every viewer watching focused on you and Mrs. Parton.”
She drew in an unsteady breath. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Angie, you’re the strongest woman I know.” His errant gaze flicked back to the woman chatting with the two college girls. Joanna Guthrie was another strong woman. But she was also keeping secrets. “You can do this. You’ll be strong for Tiffany.”
“In a few hours it’ll be a week—” Ang’s voice cracked “—since anyone saw her. Don’t tell me you’re not worried she isn’t coming back.”