Like they had planned, the girls stepped back, walking away from Carrie and nonchalantly making their way to the other graves. They split up, each carrying a pen and paper. They examined gravestones, each pretending to be browsing while their friend composed herself. In actuality, the girls were searching, and quickly too. Any child who had died before 2010 and after 2004, they wrote down. First and last name. Death date. Then they moved on.
The cemetery was larger than Jordyn had anticipated, and she worried they wouldn’t have time to cover the whole place. She glanced back at Carrie, who was still tidying up her daughter’s gravesite, wiping small tears from her cheek.
“Guys, come look. I know this woman’s granddaughter. We work together. How funny. I never realized who she was,” Erin called out, startling them all.
Jordyn, feeling slightly annoyed, continued to jot down Cody Arlington’s name. He’d been a year old when he died, probably just learning to walk. There were nine names on her paper so far. Nine. And she hadn’t even covered half of the section she’d picked.
“Jordyn, Carrie, come here. You’ll want to see this one. Look how pretty,” Allie said firmly, joining Erin by the grave. Jordyn huffed, hurrying to their side. The stone read:
Jim Mosely.
He’d died in 1984. Jordyn stared at the stone, wondering what she must be missing.
Before she could say anything, she heard Erin whispering through gritted teeth. “Don’t look. There is someone watching us over behind the trees.”
Jordyn kept her head down, trying not to look, but pulled her eyes up as far into her forehead as possible. The tree line was blurry from this angle.
“Get the last few names from your sections, guys. Write down as little as possible. Don’t linger anywhere for too long. Let’s just hurry up,” Allie whispered.
“Wait,” Jordyn said, her heart beating loudly. “Shouldn’t we just go? What if they realize what we’re doing?”
“We came here for a reason, didn’t we? If we leave now, we’re calling this whole thing quits. For all we know, it’s just someone out in the cemetery. Maybe they’re visiting a grave too.”
“Allie, there are no graves over there. They’re not even moving,” Erin said, her voice shaking.
“Look, all I’m saying is that we can’t come back tomorrow. This has to be done today. We can go home with what names we have or we can look for another ten minutes and then go home. Either way, we’ve already been seen.”
“She’s right,” Jordyn agreed.
“I’ll help.” A voice behind them made them all jump.
“Carrie! Are you okay?” Allie asked as they turned to face her.
“Are any of us?” She shrugged.
The group was silent. Finally, Jordyn stepped away, hurrying to see the last half of the graves in her section. A few times, she caught herself glancing toward the tree line where a dark figure was definitely looming. At about a half mile away, it was impossible to tell who or what it was, but that didn’t stop the sickening feeling growing in her belly.
***
Back at the house the girls laid down their notebooks, numbering the names in reverse order. Several of the names were accompanied by solemn “hmms” and stories of what the three women remembered about the children or their deaths. As they grew closer to the beginning, the memories grew fainter. Finally, they had narrowed it down to just twelve names. They were at the beginning of it all. Jordyn wondered if these children had all been connected. If they were the secret to everything that was happening. Billy Applegate died in November of 2006. Christina Billson in October 2006. Anna Carter, September 2006. Ruth Todd, August 2006. Max Cooper, April 2006. Allen Potter, December 2005. Mary Scottsdale, November 2005. Carly Aken, June 2005. Mason Novak, January 2005. Janice Lynch, December 2004. Alexis Crider, December 2004. Peter Billson, December 2004.
Allie told the group about the first list, the one her daughter had been on. She could remember each death: choking, freezing, concussion from tree fall, and food poisoning. Max Cooper, son of her friend Margo, had been killed by a heart attack after he was locked in the school locker room overnight. Allie suspected there was more to it than that, but there had been no way to prove it. Carrie remembered Allen Porter dying from smoke inhalation after his nursery caught on fire in the middle of the night. Mary Scottsdale was the young girl who had been attacked by a dog. Even though she survived the attack, she later died from blood poisoning due to an infection that didn’t heal right. Carly Aken had drowned in her bathtub after her mother fell asleep. No one could remember Mason Novak, though Erin wondered aloud if he may have been the little boy who had meningitis. Janice Lynch, Alexis Crider, and Peter Billson were all too far back to remember.
“Does anyone else think it’s odd that these three happened all at once?” Erin asked, staring at the list.
The group looked closer. Janice Lynch, December 17, 2004. Alexis Crider, December 12, 2004. Peter Billson, December 10, 2004.
“You’re right,” Jordyn agreed. “All of the other deaths are at least a month apart. Even now, they’re paced. These three are all, what, less than two weeks apart? What could that mean?”
“Maybe they were sloppy at first,” Carrie said, “or maybe they were really angry.”
“Now, wait just a minute,” Allie said, “we don’t even remember these deaths. Who’s to say they’re even involved at all?”
Carrie nodded. “You could be right. Let’s not jump to any conclusions. I do think those are all worth looking into though.”
“Question.” Erin raised her finger. “Where are the little girls who fell off of the rocks at the beach?”
Jordyn looked up at her. No one else spoke.
“You guys remember, right? The two twin girls. They were around fourteen at the time. It ended up making national news. They were from here. I remember going to their funeral when I was young.”
Carrie sucked in a breath. “Wait, do you mean Emily and Elicia? Oh, I can’t think of their last name.” She looked at Allie, who shrugged. “Tourists found their bodies just below the rocks. They were missing for weeks.”
“The Thompsons,” Jordyn said suddenly.
The group looked at her in shock.
She frowned. “What? It made national news! I remember hearing about it. I was in college at the time. I wanted to go away for the summer with one of my friends, but my mom threw a fit about it. She told me I’d end up just like those girls, said someone would hurt me too. I spent that whole summer mad at my parents, and so mad at those girls.” She felt embarrassed to admit it now.
“The Thompsons, yes. She’s right,” Erin said. “Their names aren’t on here, but they had to have died around this time. I was only ten or eleven at the most when it happened.”
“I vaguely remember that story, but the Thompson name used to be huge in Bates. I’ll bet they’re buried at the mausoleum,” Allie said.
“Mausoleum? You mean there are more graves that we didn’t check?” Jordyn asked.
“We couldn’t exactly go into the mausoleum, now could we? That wouldn’t raise any suspicion, especially with McCreepy watching us. Besides that, half of the children are probably buried on their own private cemeteries that we have no access to anyway. Some aren’t buried here. Some aren’t even buried at all. We probably only have half of the kids who died during that time,” Allie replied.
Jordyn sighed. “Okay, but even if we figure out which child was killed first, what does that prove? What if there’s no rhyme or reason to any of the deaths?”
“No. Of course there’s a reason. There has to be. Someone, something, has to be behind all of this and if we can pinpoint where it all started, figure out what happened, maybe it’ll show us who’s behind it as well. Surely there were investigations in the beginning. Real ones, I mean. We can figure out what is happening.” Carrie stopped.
“And then what?” Erin asked the question that was obviously running through all of their minds. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, Ca
rrie, I’m totally with you guys. I agree that they need to be stopped, no matter the cost, but how exactly are we going to stop them? Honestly, I mean, say we catch this person or this group. Say we do figure out who’s doing all of this. What are we going to do about it? Confront them? Take it to the police? The paper?” She looked around, but no one seemed to have an answer. “I mean, I just want to know what our plan is exactly, because I’m sorry, but we seem a little like we’re in over our heads.”
“If we have evidence,” Jordyn said, “surely the police will listen to us.”
The group fidgeted with their hands, each avoiding eye contact with the others.
“Let’s just take it one step at a time,” Allie said finally. “The most important thing is that we all stay safe.”
As Allie spoke, Jordyn’s phone chimed. She pulled it out of her jacket pocket quickly. The screen lit up, alerting her of a text message. The sender showed only: Blocked. Her eyes grew wide with fear.
“What is it?” Carrie asked.
She clicked “Open” with shaking hands and read:
Want to know the truth? Leave now. Don’t say a word to anyone. I’ll let you in on my little secret.
“Oh, nothing.” She smiled up at Carrie. “I just didn’t realize how late it was. Almost four. I’ve got to get home.”
“Oh, okay.” The women agreed, each checking their own phones. Carrie stood to hug Jordyn goodbye. Allie and Erin grabbed their jackets, throwing them over their shoulders as well.
“Okay, so what’s the plan with this? Should we meet again next week? Or tomorrow?” Erin asked.
“Let’s just give it some time. Everyone try to find out what you can, however you can, without raising suspicion. Be careful. If we need to talk, we’ll meet again,” Jordyn said, already at the door. “It was good to see you all.”
“You too.” They said goodbye to her, each with a suspicious look on their face.
She raced to her car, looking around for her suspicious contact. She saw no one. One thing was for sure though, someone had been following them today, watching them. Someone had known where she was and what she was doing, what she wanted. Someone who had an answer, maybe. Possibly the same someone who had warned her to stop asking questions. Her phone chimed again. She opened the text message immediately.
Tonight. Midnight. 167 Old Mill Road. Meet me at the crossroads, alone. Bring a cigarette.
Chapter Ten
As she walked in her house, her head still raging with questions, her mother jogged into the living room, holding Ollie high above her head. He was giggling.
“Look, Ollie Ollie, Mommy’s home. Just in time for your explosive diaper. Isn’t that fun?” she teased, handing over the baby and rushing out the door without a word to her daughter.
Jordyn grasped Ollie, his laughter subsiding. “Well, hello, sweet boy. Did you make a mess for Grandma?”
She carried him into the laundry room, peeling off his clothes and placing a blanket on top of the washing machine. She laid him on it, grabbing his diaper and wipes from a shelf.
Kate entered the room, still dressed in her pajamas. “Why are you changing your child on a washing machine?”
“Would you rather I change him on the kitchen table?”
“Don’t they make beds for that?”
“Yes, but this works just as well. It’s better than him pooping all over the carpet anyway.”
Her sister rolled her eyes and groaned but remained in the room. The two women had never been very close, but it was their parents’ love for Connor and hatred for all of Kate’s boyfriends that had driven the largest wedge between them. Jordyn realized that because of that, Kate must have a grudge against her son too. Could her own sister be that cruel?
“Did you want to change him?” Jordyn asked, offering up the clean diaper. “I’ve already done the worst part.”
“Sure, I guess.” Kate said. She took the diaper from her sister and laid it underneath his clean bottom.
Ollie twisted, pulling his legs from her grasp. “Hold still,” Kate said firmly, taking hold of his legs again. He looked up at her in delight, kicking his feet into the air.
“How do you make him stop?” Kate asked, flinching and scowling as he kicked with joy.
“You don’t. You just have to move faster than he does.” She put her arms over Ollie, holding him in place so her sister could fix his diaper.
“There,” she said when she was finished. Jordyn picked him up, pulling his clean pants over his diaper.
“Would you hold him while I start laundry?” She held him out to Kate, who took him awkwardly. She held him with stiff arms, staring at her sister with a worried expression.
Jordyn threw his soiled clothes into the Maytag and dumped in the soap. She threw a few other items into the bin as the water filled, closed the lid, and turned back around.
“Kate?” she called. Her sister and Ollie were gone.
She shut the light off in the laundry room and rushed down the hall toward the den. “Kate!”
“We’re in here. Calm down,” Kate said, stepping into her view from the kitchen.
“You can’t just disappear like that,” Jordyn said, trying to calm herself down.
“What are you talking about? I’d hardly call that disappearing. I walked from one room to the other. I didn’t send up a smoke screen. You on drugs or something, Jordyn? You sure are jumpy lately.” She handed Ollie over.
“I am not jumpy,” she said defiantly.
Behind them, the den door shut, causing Jordyn to jump, further proving Kate’s point.
“I’m not on drugs,” she whispered hatefully, turning to face their mother as she made her way into the kitchen.
“Jordyn, where are the groceries?” her mother asked, out of breath.
Crap. The groceries. She had completely forgotten about her excuse to leave this morning.
“Groceries?” she asked.
“See. Drugs,” Kate said softly, shrugging and continuing to make a sandwich.
Their mother glanced at Kate, then back to Jordyn. “Yes. Groceries. You left this morning for groceries. You were gone for seven hours and you came back with nothing. What on earth did you do?”
“Oh.” Jordyn tried to look like realization struck her. She tapped her forehead with her palm. “Yeah. My friend, Carrie, actually called me. I forgot all about the groceries. She’s been having a really rough time since she lost her daughter a few months ago. She didn’t want to go to the cemetery alone.”
Her mother pressed her lips together, wrinkling her forehead. “Poor thing, that’s just awful.”
“How did she die?” Kate asked, her mouth half full.
“Allergy.” Jordyn turned around to face her sister. “She had an allergic reaction at school. She was only four. Carrie’s having a really rough time with it.”
“Oh, goodness. I can’t imagine what she’s going through,” her mother said, clutching her chest.
Jordyn nodded. “Yeah. Her older daughter passed away last year, I believe, Rebecca. It’s been a tough time.”
“How in the world is she still standing?” her mother asked, awe in her voice.
“She’s strong, I guess. A lot stronger than I’d be. There’s a lot of loss in Bates,” Jordyn said honestly, tiptoeing over her words carefully.
Her mother’s hand grazed her open mouth before she spoke again. “Okay, don’t take this the wrong way, I know you want to be her friend, Jor, but maybe it’s better that you are around,” she paused, scanning her daughter’s face, “happier circumstances for a while.”
Jordyn stared at her. “What do you mean?”
Sarah looked down at her nails, as if checking for chipped polish. “I just mean that after you just had a baby, maybe it’s better that you aren’t filling your life full of sadness right now. Your heart is in the right place, baby, but new mothers are very vulnerable to that. Lord knows after I had you and your sister, I was a mess. Cried over spilled milk, literally.” She smiled
halfheartedly. “I just wonder if maybe it’s time for you to take a step back. If you’ve become so obsessed with loss that you feel like there’s an abundance of it, maybe it would help you. Space, I mean.” There was that word again. Obsessed. It stung her. Suddenly it hit her, the real reason her parents were visiting.
“Mom, where is this coming from?” Jordyn gritted her teeth.
“I worry about you, Jordyn. I want to make sure that you’re healthy and happy. You know, postpartum depression is very real, and it’s very scary. I just want you to feel like you can talk to me.”
“Did Connor call you?” Jordyn snapped, anger welling up in her.
“Sweetheart.” Her mother sighed. “He’s worried about you. We all are. He says you obsess over every death that happens here, that you’re stressed out and exhausted. And, baby, you have every right to be. We just thought we could help you.” Her mother reached toward her, pulling a red tendril of hair away from her face and brushing it aside. Kate walked out of the room without a word.
Jordyn’s jaw tensed. “I cannot believe this. I cannot believe that you’re siding with him.”
“There are no sides in this, Jordyn. Can’t you see we’re all on your side? We just want what’s best for you.” Sarah pursed her lips.
“Mom, I’m fine,” she stressed the words. “I’ve told Connor that I’m fine. I’m not depressed. I’m not crazy. I’m making friends here, helping people.”
“So you didn’t drag Ollie into a grocery store in the middle of the night to prove to Connor that there was some sort of hit list posted in the store?” The wrinkles in her mother’s forehead grew more pronounced as she spoke.
Jordyn was still, her pulse quickening. “It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t the middle of the night. It was hardly even dark. And it was Connor’s idea in the first place!”
She disregarded Jordyn’s comments altogether. “He says you hardly sleep anymore, because you’re always up looking on the computer or watching the news, waiting for another child to die. That isn’t healthy, Jordyn.”
The List (The Carolina Killer Files Book 2) Page 9