Wildflower Graves: A totally gripping mystery thriller (Detective Ellie Reeves Book 2)

by Rita Herron

  Spurred on by fear, she stood, her head rushing with the movement, then turned and fled into the forest, as fast as her feet would carry her. Maybe she’d find help. A hiker. A ranger. A path back to the road. Anything.

  Footsteps echoed behind her. His howl. Bushes being slashed with his knife as he chased her.

  The need to survive overcame her, and she picked up her pace, slogging through the slushy ground and knee-high weeds. Wet moss made her trek slippery, and mosquitos swarmed her face, but she let the sound of the river nearby guide her. Patches of briars and poison ivy clawed at her bare legs, sharp stones jutting between the damp grass.

  Her limbs felt heavy, her body weak from lack of food and water, the earth shifting sideways as a dizzy spell nearly overcame her.

  Clawing at the trees to stay on her feet, she pushed on, weaving between the tall pines towering over her. The sharp brittle pinecones stabbed at her bare feet as she ran, the scent of rain and wet ground cloying.

  “You can run, but you can’t hide.” The voice of the monster who’d taken her drifted through the trees. He was right behind her. Closing in.

  Her feet sank into mud, and tree branches slapped her in the face, but she forged ahead and found a rough trail.

  “You won’t escape.” His voice resounded through the woods again.

  Bile clogged her throat as she followed the overgrown path, suddenly coming to a cliff. The sight of it robbed her breath. The ground dropped hundreds of feet into the icy river below. Jagged rocks and overflowing water awaited her, and the current was so strong she’d probably never survive.

  She turned to run back the other way, but his silhouette appeared in the shadows a few feet away. The blade of his knife blade glimmered as he lunged toward her.

  Glancing at the drop-off again, she gauged the distance, and her chances. Certain death if she jumped and hit the rocks. If that didn’t kill her, the paralyzing temperature of the water would.

  He caught her arm, but she swung her fist up and knocked him backward, turning and throwing herself over the edge. Her scream died in the wind as she plunged into the depths of the raging water below.

  One Hundred Three

  He teetered on the edge of the cliff, enraged that she’d gotten away from him. “No, Cathy! No, no, no, no, no.”

  As her body disappeared below the surface of the raging water, he looked for her to surface. Balling his hands into fists, he banged them against his thighs then ran along the embankment in the direction the current would carry her.

  Wind spun through the trees, shaking them and tossing twigs down into the river, but as far as he could see she didn’t surface. Below there was nothing but murky water. With the steep drop off, she’d probably hit rocks when she landed. The sheer impact of the fall would have likely killed her.

  Sweat soaked his shirt and hair as he continued to follow the current nonetheless. What if she wasn’t dead? What if she survived and told everyone where he’d kept her? What if she could identify him?

  “Cathy!” he bellowed. “You shouldn’t have left me!”

  Jumping over rocks and broken tree limbs, and pushing through the tall briars, he followed the river for miles, chasing the current and stopping every few feet to see if her head appeared or if she washed up.

  But after four heart-pounding miles where he hadn’t seen her surface, he knew she had to be dead. She’d been weak already––he’d made sure of that. There was no way she could have swum underwater that far without him seeing her come up for air. Even if she survived the fall, the raging current would have swept her under. And hypothermia would get her.

  Shaking with rage, he ripped vines from the ground with his bare hands, throwing a clump of them over the edge of the cliff and watching them fall into the rocky water.

  She had just messed up his plans. She thought she was smart, running like that. Thought she’d escaped him.

  But he was smarter.

  He’d covered his tracks. Hidden his face from her.

  And he had another. One who was even more fitting to be Friday’s child than she had been. She’d served her purpose.

  It was time for her to meet her fate.

  One Hundred Four

  Elm Grove

  Finton no longer lived above the funeral home. He owned a house although the outside of it looked as bleak as the funeral home. Made of stacked stone in a dull gray, with overgrown weeds and backed by the woods, it seemed to disappear into the foliage. Kudzu had taken over, snaking up the sides, winding around the railings.

  Derrick had called to request warrants for Finton’s home and computer while Ellie drove, his address easy enough to find. He’d also downloaded a photograph from the funeral home’s website. In the picture, Roy Finton was dressed in a gray pinstriped suit with his hair clipped short and a sympathetic smile on his face. On the surface he looked like a nice, empathetic undertaker—With our loving hands, your loved ones will rest in peace.

  But if what Cord said was true, it was all a lie.

  “I don’t see any cars,” Derrick said as she parked.

  “No lights on inside either. If he’s not at the funeral home or here, where is he?”

  “Who knows? The man might have a life. A girlfriend.”

  “No one in their right mind would want to be with a creep like him,” said Ellie, with a shudder.

  “That’s assuming McClain is telling the truth.”

  Ellie threw a glare at him, then opened her car door and climbed out. He followed, examining the property for any signs Finton was around. An outbuilding sat to the side of the house, but it was dark and windowless.

  Braced for an attack, they drew their weapons and eased up the drive. A stray cat loped across the front yard, then darted into the woods, and wind tore through the ancient trees, slamming a shutter on the house back and forth.

  Cobwebs clung to the window to the side of the porch and Ellie noted rotting window casings that looked termite-infested. She reached the door and knocked, while Derrick continued to scope out the property. Set apart from other houses by at least a couple of miles, it would be easy for Finton to hide here or hold a victim without anyone being aware. If she screamed, the sound would dissolve into the wind and trees.

  Ellie knocked again. There was no answer, so she jiggled the door. Locked. Derrick used his lock-picking tool and opened the heavy wooden door. The interior was an inky black, an odd odor permeating the air.

  Freezing for a second, the darkness closed around Ellie and choked the air from her lungs. Dammit, she was working hard to overcome her fear, but sometimes it snuck out and curled around her like a snake winding its way around her throat.

  “Roy Finton, this is the FBI!” Derrick shouted as she entered the space.

  The sound of a clock ticking somewhere echoed as the wind wailed, gaining in intensity.

  No one appeared to be inside.

  Using his flashlight to illuminate the interior, Derrick cast a beam across the cement floor. A shiver rippled through Ellie as cold air wafted around her. The mausoleum-like house was like a refrigerator, carrying the scent of death and a deep kind of evil she’d never felt before.

  Satisfied no one was inside, Derrick flipped on a light in the hall as they crossed through the entryway to the living area. More cement floors, and a black leather chair and stone countertop sat in an empty, plain kitchen.

  Ellie forced herself to go to the refrigerator, half expecting to find jars of blood inside, but it was almost bare. A few condiments, sandwich meat and a leftover slice of pizza.

  The desk in the corner held stacks of papers and bills. No typewriter to make the notes. No daffodils anywhere.

  They moved down the hall to a bedroom. A king-sized oak bed was draped in a black comforter and the closet revealed pairs of jeans and work shirts, boots covered in mud, and an army-green duffel bag.

  Ellie tugged on gloves and inspected the inside of the bag. There was some dried blood inside, but no knives or evidence he’d used th
e bag to carry wildflowers or bramble. In the outside pocket she found a suture kit that he could have used to sew the victims’ mouths shut.

  Derrick snapped close-ups of the mud on the boots. “We’ll send these to the lab and have them tested to see if the soil matches our crime scenes.”

  Ellie checked the dresser drawers for photographs of the victims but found none. But her stomach knotted as she discovered bags of women’s underwear, all lacy and risqué, along with makeup and tubes of lipstick in varied shades, from hot pink to coral to red.

  Derrick’s brow climbed his forehead as he lifted a sheer black thong. “Doesn’t match the underwear on the vics.”

  “I know, but he could dress them in this for play, then change when he disposed of the bodies.”

  Ellie gestured to the caddy of lipsticks.

  “We need to compare the red lipstick here to the blood-red colour the killer uses.” A shiver rippled through her as she spotted combs, brushes, and hair spray. “These brushes should have DNA.” If the hair collected matched the victims, they’d have Finton.

  Where the hell was the man? Was he out on the trail with his next victim, posing her body right now?

  Derrick gestured toward a small bookshelf, making a low sound of disgust as he lifted one of the titles. A book on necrophilia. “There are others along similar lines: Dressing the Dead, Hairstyles for the Viewing, Makeup to Make Her Pretty, Preserving the Dead,” Derrick muttered. “Ancient Burial Rituals.”

  Spotting a laptop, Ellie crossed to it, booted it up, and began to scroll through his browsing history. “Good god,” she whispered as she found chat rooms where he’d communicated with others whose proclivities included necrophilia.

  Cord was right.

  “He’s a sick perv,” Ellie said, her skin crawling as she skimmed several posts. “Just the kind of man who’d leave women posed the way we found the Weekday victims.”

  “Let’s search that shed outside,” Derrick said.

  Dread clawed at Ellie, but she led the way.

  Outside, thunder rumbled, the wind bowing trees, leaves flying across the yard. Crossing to the shed, they found it chained with a padlock. Ellie retrieved an ax from the trunk of her Jeep, using it to hack the padlock open.

  Shining her flashlight into the dark space, her stomach rose to her throat. A steel table sat in the middle of the wide-open room, a silver-gray coffin against the back wall.

  On the opposite wall hung pictures of dead, naked women with Finton touching and kissing their pale, lifeless bodies.

  Sickened, she had to look away for a second. But the coffin drew her. If Finton was the killer, then Shondra might be in there.

  Shaking with the memory of being locked in the casket, she held her breath as she reached to open it.

  One Hundred Five

  “Thank you, God.” Ellie sagged as they saw that the casket was empty. Knowing she must be reliving the trauma of being locked inside one herself, Derrick caught her arm to steady her.

  So McClain hadn’t lied about Roy Finton being a sick son of a bitch.

  Ellie mopped sweat from her forehead, her breathing erratic, and closed her eyes.

  “Are you okay?” Derrick asked.

  She shook her head, surprising him, then spoke in a brittle tone. “Even if Shondra is still alive and we find her, there’s no telling what he did with her all this time.”

  “She’s tough, Ellie, just like you are,” Derrick murmured. “And you’ll be there for her.”

  “Like I was when he took her?”

  He squeezed her shoulder. “You had no idea he would target her.”

  “Like you had no idea a predator would take Kim,” Ellie said softly.

  Their gazes locked, bonded for a moment by their shared memories, their guilt.

  “We have to find Finton.” Pulling away from her, Derrick moved to the wall and studied the photographs. All women, twenties to thirties. Pretty, busty and blonde.

  But none were of the Weekday Killer victims.

  Finton seemed to have a type, unlike the killer. Then again, these could have been women he’d mistreated but hadn’t murdered. Perhaps he even chose the opposite type, and that was part of his pathology—he killed women who didn’t fit the image of the ones that aroused him.

  Ellie released a long sigh. “I wonder if the families know what he’s up to.”

  “Two complaints were filed, but somehow the charges were dropped,” Derrick said. “But he’s not getting off this time.”

  “Or going back to his business,” Ellie said, her voice determined as she grabbed her phone.

  She called a crime scene team, alerting Bryce and her captain that Finton still had to be found and brought in.

  “Get his picture and issue an all-points bulletin on his car,” she told the sheriff. “I’m sure Angelica Gomez will be glad to run with the story.”

  Derrick’s mind raced with questions as she hung up.

  “Finton fits the profile,” Ellie said.

  “Then why didn’t he keep the pictures of the victims? And why contact you personally?” Derrick asked. Something still wasn’t adding up.

  “Because he hated Cord and wanted to frame him. Maybe he saw me in the news with Cord when we rescued Hiram’s victims. At one point Angelica even called Cord a hero,” Ellie said. “That could have triggered his rage.”

  Derrick conceded with a shrug, but he still wasn’t convinced. “McClain directed us to Finton. Have you considered that he may be framing Finton to save his own ass?”

  “No.” Ellie’s face blanched. “Cord may be troubled, but he’s not a killer.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  She turned away, her mouth tightening into an angry scowl. “Like you said, let’s just follow the evidence.”

  “What if the evidence proves it’s McClain? Or what if he and Finton have stayed in touch and they’re committing the crimes together? Each one could be pointing evidence at the other to confuse the police.”

  The sound of the forensics van rumbled outside, and he tore his eyes away from a stricken-looking Ellie to greet the team at the door. The shock on the techs’ faces said they were just as disgusted by Finton’s activities as he and Ellie were.

  Suddenly Ellie looked down at her phone, pivoting towards him.

  “We have to go. A Jane Doe was brought to Bluff County Hospital. Possible victim of the Weekday Killer.”

  One Hundred Six

  Bluff County Hospital

  Dark clouds rolled across the sky, obliterating the stars, and the wind gusts ferociously picked up as Ellie parked at the Bluff County Hospital. A piece of trash tumbled across the parking lot, the wind slapping at the overhead power lines.

  “Why do they think she might be one of our vics?” Derrick asked.

  “They aren’t sure.” Ellie re-read the text. “But according to the doctor, she has bruises consistent with being restrained and held captive.”

  Pulling up her hood, she climbed from her vehicle, hoping the twisters that had been barreling through the south didn’t decide to sweep through the mountains here. Some were so strong they took out entire neighborhoods and dropped trees like they were matchsticks.

  They rushed to the nurses’ station, and Derrick explained who they’d come to visit. Hurrying to the second floor where the woman had been admitted, they spoke with the attending doctor. “Do you have an ID yet?” Ellie asked.

  “No, but we immediately contacted the authorities and they’re circulating her picture to see if anyone comes forward to identify her. We’ve also collected blood samples and DNA.”

  “Thank you for being on top of the situation. What can you tell us about her condition?” Derrick asked.

  The doctor frowned. “Judging from the bruising on her wrists and ankles and the whip marks on her back, she was physically restrained and abused. She was unconscious when she was brought in. Her nails were torn, and the scrapes on her body indicated she’d fought through the woods to escape. Bug
bites, bruising and scratches are consistent with the fact that she was found by the river. She was soaking wet when she was found. With no ID and judging from her condition, I had to report her.” The doctor fiddled with her stethoscope. “The deputy I spoke with thinks she might be one of the Weekday Killer’s victims. Is that right?’

  “That’s what we’re here to find out,” Ellie said. “Can we see her now?”

  The doctor nodded. “This way. But don’t expect her to talk. She’s been severely traumatized, is suffering from hypothermia and had water in her lungs.”

  Walking over to the bed, Ellie looked down at the pale brunette. Bruises marked her neck, hands and arms, and a thick purple mark roped around her neck, consistent with the other victims. An IV dripped fluids into her, and oxygen tubes fed air to her.

  “How serious is her condition?” Ellie asked. The poor woman looked as if she’d been through hell.

  “The hiker who found her said she’d either fallen or jumped over a hundred feet into the river. She hit rocks when she landed, sustained multiple injuries and a concussion. We’re checking for other internal injuries. At this point, all we can do is run tests and wait.”

  One Hundred Seven

  While Ellie waited for the young woman, praying for her to wake up, she made a trip to her mother’s room––relieved that she could at least check in while she was here. She hesitated at the door, her gut churning as her mother struggled to breathe.

  “She needs the surgery,” her father said. “I’m waiting on her to wake up to tell her.”

  Ellie blinked away tears. “Let me know if she comes to. They brought in a woman who might be a victim of our killer. She’s unconscious but hopefully can tell us something when she regains consciousness.”

  “Be careful, El,” her father said.

  “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself,” she replied, her voice thick with emotion as she tore herself away from the room.