A social worker is what Zoey had explained on the drive out to the trailer. Zoey shifted in her seat now, a reminder that she was there at all. Lucy had almost forgotten.
“The basic details,” Zoey chimed in.
“Look, I’ve been tracking the deaths for years,” Peggy said. “That’s what I was saying. I’m not a social worker for them—they’re outside my county. But I’m part of the team that’s going after those dang shield laws. And so . . .”
“You know who’s died when other people don’t,” Lucy finished. And, Christ, wasn’t that lucky? Lucy cut her eyes to Zoey. Not just lucky. She owed Zoey a beer after this was all over.
“Right, I know everyone who’s died,” Peggy repeated. “Plenty of kids have died. Plenty of babies, a few teenagers, too. A couple of adults, and some older folks. But Alessandra Shaw? Here’s the thing. Technically, she didn’t die.”
“She went missing,” Lucy murmured, knowing this was important but not quite sure why yet. Because looking at the picture of the pretty, bright-eyed girl staring up at her, she was as sure as she could be without a medical examiner that Alessandra Shaw was the body that had been found in the riverbank this afternoon.
“If she’d died of natural causes, why not just bury her in that cemetery of theirs?” Peggy asked, though it was hypothetical.
Clean kills. The verse cut into flesh. Lucy wondered if they’d find markings on the other bodies. The wounds would be gone, but if the cut was deep enough, its traces would be left on the bone.
Alessandra Shaw. Molly Thomas.
And then the world tilted just right, her memories aligning. There was smooth wood beneath her fingers. Initials carved into a post.
Molly sat there at the post, touching those letters enough that the oils from her hands turned roughness into an almost-glossy finish.
AS. Alessandra Shaw.
“You said ‘them.’” It was the one thing Lucy could hold on to. The rest of her thoughts slipped through her grasp, gauzy and teasing and so, so important.
Peggy once again reached down, rifling through her files. She pulled two out, handed one over. It was of a young girl, Chloe Sanger. She seemed to be about the general age and build of the second body in the woods.
Again there was a date of disappearance at the top, rather than a time of death. “Missing, right? Not dead.”
Peggy made a low humming sound in agreement. “That one was hushed up pretty well. I’m not actually sure how long she was gone before Hicks even got wind of it.”
Lucy eyed the third file. Did it fit the stats of the third body they’d found in the woods?
A part of her continued to wonder if Peggy was the brand of serial killer who liked in on the investigations, the kind who liked to play with the very cops who were on the hunt. The files could easily be her souvenirs, her interest real, but for reasons different from the one she was giving.
Lucy took the third file anyway.
The details didn’t line up with the third victim from the woods.
Lucy thought back to all that earth, shrouded so carefully by the trees; she thought back to the certainty that there were probably more bodies beneath their feet.
“Gabriel Turner,” Peggy said, when Lucy remained quiet. Lucy couldn’t decide if she hoped he would be found next or hoped he wouldn’t. Missing meant he might still be alive, but missing also meant there wasn’t closure.
“He was Church?” Lucy asked, though the answer seemed obvious.
Peggy just nodded, a jerk of her chin. “He’s one of the first ones I noticed. Maybe ten years ago. Back then, it was harder to keep track of which ones had died and which ones had gone missing.”
“Josiah made that better?” Lucy asked.
Peggy tried to hide her flinch at the name, but Lucy saw it. “I suppose he has.”
“Not a fan of the pastor?”
“On the contrary,” Peggy drawled, a slight hint of a smile at her lips. “We’re good friends despite our disagreements.”
Zoey nodded in her peripheral as if to confirm what Peggy was saying. But why the reaction then?
“Has he ever talked about any of these missing children?” Lucy asked.
“Some,” Peggy said, her voice almost considering. “He’s even been known to dedicate a sermon to one or two of them. But for some there are other explanations.”
“Like Alessandra and Molly. They ran away,” Lucy said.
“He treats those like—” Peggy paused, her hand stilling on the dog’s head. “The unfortunate reality of living in a world full of temptation.”
“You haven’t raised your suspicions with him then?” Lucy pressed. How could the pastor not know that children were disappearing under his watch? If a social worker who didn’t even live in the community had gathered this much information, if the sheriff was always sniffing around, the pastor had to be aware of what people thought.
Peggy bit her lip and then sighed. “You have to understand. Josiah is used to playing defense all the time. He doesn’t . . . It doesn’t even sink in that these are real people sometimes. He’s just trying to keep the Church alive.”
Right. But how far would he go to do that?
As if reading the question on her face, Peggy’s expression went tight. “There’s more.”
Three more files were pushed into Lucy’s hands in the next second, and she paged through them. This was almost more helpful than any list the coroner could have come up with. Those children were the ones who’d been accounted for, after all.
“They say ‘missing,’” Lucy murmured. It was important, that word. That one word. Missing. She looked up. “Not ‘dead.’”
Peggy was watching her, stroking the terrier’s little head. Waiting.
“Not ‘dead,’” Lucy repeated, something clicking into place. “Because you know everyone who has officially died.”
“Ah,” Peggy smiled, a small twisted thing. “I think you may finally be getting somewhere.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
SHERIFF WYATT HICKS
Three days earlier
People thought Wyatt Hicks would buy land out by the mountains. They looked at him, saw something in him, and thought, That one doesn’t want civilization.
People were wrong.
Growing up, he’d had enough isolation to last him a lifetime. His mother’s favorite go-to punishment had been locking them in that dreaded crawl space in the attic. She’d sat outside and recited Bible verses, sang hymns, chanted psalms. He hated to admit it, even now, but the times that had been best were when Rachel or Cora were being punished as well. At least then he’d had a sweaty palm to grasp in the unending dark.
He wondered about Molly Thomas. Wondered if the dark had consumed her, wondered if the ground had swallowed her instead.
But despite the fact that he’d been all too familiar with isolation, it had been what he’d known. It hadn’t felt safe, not ever that. Just familiar. So Hicks had thought he was supposed to buy land by the mountains. He’d lived in that one-room cabin for two months and had counted each hour and each second that he stared at the wooden walls, a gnawing ache feasting on the fragile places inside him. It reminded him of the crawl space, the one their mother had locked them in whenever they’d been bad.