Hush Little Girl by Lisa Regan (first e reader .txt) 📗

Noah must have sensed Josie’s thoughts. He said, “This isn’t good.” He opened the passenger’s side door. “You go with Gretchen. I’ll run interference.”

Gretchen hung up and got into the car as Noah jogged over to Trinity and Drake. Josie watched him put his hands up and block her way as she tried to step around him. Drake circled her and stood shoulder to shoulder with Noah, keeping her at bay.

As they pulled away from Griffin Hall and down the long, winding drive that led from Harper’s Peak to the road at the base of the mountain, Gretchen said, “You two aren’t getting married today, are you?”

“No,” Josie said.

Gretchen sighed. “No one is going to be happy about this, you know.”

“We know,” said Josie. “Make a left.”

Gretchen turned left onto the road. “When I say no one is going to be happy about this, I mean your families are going to be pissed. You know that, right?”

Josie said, “Would you want the memory of your wedding day to be one in which a child was murdered at the venue?”

“Good point,” said Gretchen. She held up her phone. “Take it. Hummel texted me a photo of that… thing Holly was holding.”

Josie grabbed the phone and swiped until she found the text message from Hummel. The item looked like a doll that a very young child might make. A pinecone made up the body. Two acorns had been affixed to it to look like bulging eyes. Tiny twigs had been tucked into the folds of the pinecone to make a nose, mouth, and then arms and legs. Had it not been found on the body of a dead girl, it might be comical. Instead, it only roiled the acid in Josie’s stomach. It didn’t look like anything a twelve-year-old girl would make or have with her. Obviously, whoever had staged her body on the overlook had purposely left it with her, but who had made it? Why had they left it?

“Creepy, right?” Gretchen said.

Josie leaned forward and dropped the phone onto the front seat. “Yeah,” she said. “It’s up here on the left.”

Gretchen slowed the vehicle. “What’s up here on the left? There’s nothing out here.”

“There is,” Josie insisted. “Pull onto the shoulder. Over there.”

Gretchen stopped the car in the middle of the deserted road. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Just pull over!” Josie exclaimed.

With a shake of her head, Gretchen pulled the car onto the grassy shoulder of the road. Josie leaned forward between the seats again and pointed toward their left. “There,” she said. “There are two sycamore trees, about a car’s length apart. Pull through those trees and you’ll see a driveway.”

Gretchen did as Josie asked and maneuvered her vehicle between the two trees. Ahead, two metal posts came into view. A chain ran from one to the other and hanging from it was a sign that read: “No Trespassing.”

Gretchen said, “These people live here? This is how you get to their house?”

Josie said, “Lorelei said she liked her privacy.”

At the time, Josie had found it a little bit odd, but she certainly hadn’t thought there was anything sinister behind Lorelei’s insistence on privacy. She was a woman living alone with two young girls.

Gretchen stared ahead at the chain. “She liked her privacy, or she was hiding from something? Or someone?”

Josie saw a barely perceptible shiver ripple through Gretchen’s frame. She knew a thing or two about hiding from dangerous people.

“I’m not sure now,” Josie admitted. “Nothing seemed amiss when I was here. Lorelei just said she liked to live ‘off the grid’ as much as possible.”

“Like a doomsday prepper?” Gretchen asked.

“No, not like that,” Josie said. “She wasn’t building a bunker or anything. It was more like she grew a lot of her own food. There’s a big garden and greenhouse behind the house. You’ll see. She told me she homeschooled her kids. Also she said she didn’t allow electronics in the house.”

“No electronics. Even television?”

“Not till they got older, she said. She had a laptop, but the girls weren’t allowed access to it. I was able to get cell service when she brought me here. I think because it’s close to Harper’s Peak.”

“I would say that whole set-up sounds weird, but that’s how I grew up. Not the homeschooling, but the lack of technology. I mean, we had TV and landlines, but that was it.”

The longer they spoke, the greater the uneasiness building in Josie’s stomach grew. Had Holly snuck out of the house? If so, why? Had she gone to meet someone? How many people did she have access to while she was being homeschooled? Did Lorelei even know she was gone? Josie said, “You want me to get the chain?”

Gretchen raised a brow. “In that dress? No. Hang on.”

She got out and unhooked the chain, setting it to one side so that their vehicle could pass.

“The house is about a quarter mile up this drive,” Josie said once Gretchen was back in the car. The drive was merely two ruts in the mud made by the wheels of Lorelei Mitchell’s pickup truck. The house came into view. It was a charming, two-story stone home with a peaked roof made of red tin and a spacious front porch. A small wooden log normally used for garden edging had been sunk into the ground to mark the separation of the dirt driveway and the front yard. Paving stones led the way to the porch steps. Gretchen parked beside the truck and turned the engine off. “Seeing as you’re dressed like that, why don’t I try the door and you wait here,” she told Josie.

“Sure,” Josie said.

Gretchen gave her a dubious look but got out and headed toward Lorelei’s front door. Josie wriggled out of the back seat and stood next to the car. Her white heels sank into the dirt. She took a deep breath, adjusting her dress. It was nearing late afternoon, and the sun shone brightly through the trees overhead. A heady