The Burning Girls

by Rita Herron

Genres: Crime Fiction

Synopsis

The girl was beautiful, even in death. Her skin was translucent beneath the sliver of moonlight peeking through the bare branches of the surrounding pines, and her chestnut hair had tumbled around her pale shoulders. Around her, smoke twisted in the air, curling into the inky sky. The remote town of Crooked Creek has barely recovered from its most recent tragedy when wildfires tear through the mountains. Detective Ellie Reeves is grappling with her own heartbreak––she has just discovered she was adopted and that her childhood was a lie. Under the scorching summer sun, Ellie is called to a river where a body has been found. She spots a lone woman’s shoe caught in a nearby tangle of vines, and a pearl necklace scattered by the water’s edge. The remains are surrounded by a circle of stones, which Ellie is certain means something. Was the victim––whoever she was––caught in the fire or is something more sinister at play? The Fourth of July usually means festivals and fireworks, but when another body turns up the town is left in tatters. A young girl with dark hair lies dead, surrounded by stones, smoke drifting in the air. Thanks to an engraved silver necklace, Ellie identifies the body as eighteen-year-old Katie Lee Curtis, and the diary she finds hidden under the teenager’s mattress could get her close to the killer. With two victims in less than twenty-four hours, it’s clear Ellie’s up against a serial killer, and she vows that no more innocent girls will be sacrificed. For her, every day is a battle to come to terms with her past, but when this case becomes personal, will she win? A totally gripping and utterly addictive page-turner that will have you racing through and reeling at the twists. Perfect for fans of Melinda Leigh, Lisa Regan and Kendra Elliot, it’s best read with the lights on! Readers absolutely love Rita Herron: “ Wow!… I literally haven't been able to put this book down! This has completely gripped me and been utterly impossible to put down.” Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“ Oh my word!… What a great storyteller Rita Herron is! From the fabulous plot which quite frankly had me on the edge of my seat throughout to the amazing character development, I am overwhelmed by this book! It was so good!… Oh my goodness! The twists! They kept coming! The final two though were shockers!… This book is an astoundingly well-written novel! ” NetGalley Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“ Loved this book! Action packed and with so many twists, had me hooked from start to the end!! The ending was amazing!! I cannot wait to read the next book in the series!!!!!! ” Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“ Wow, what a brilliant book… Rollercoaster of emotions… I found it very jumpy in places as I was so engrossed. Don’t read when on your own! ” NetGalley Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“This book was so damn good! I just couldn't put it down until I finished it!… Had me hooked on right from the start… Amazing!! ” Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“ Truly brilliant… Right from the first chapter I was hooked and I needed to keep turning the pages… There were times during the book that I felt I was on edge and my heart was bumping. You know a story is good when you start getting physical reactions.” Chells and Books, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Release date: June 10, 2021

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 350

Sample

Her father would kill her if they found out what had happened.

Isabella had to run away. Save herself. Save them from the shame.

Fear and nausea clawed at her as she threw some clothes in her backpack. She snatched the cash she kept in the shoebox and stuffed it inside the bag, then grabbed her toothbrush and hairbrush and… oh, God, what else did she need?

Panic caused her heart to pound. Summer break had just started. She’d been so excited about starting college last year and returning in the fall. She was the first in her family to do so. But now…

She couldn’t go back. And she couldn’t stay at home. Where could she go? How would she get by?

A noise outside. She looked through the window and spotted headlights down at the holler.

The picture of her mother and her in their matching Christmas pajamas taunted her, and tears stung her eyes. She’d yelled at her mom that she was too old for such silly nonsense. “You’ll always be my little girl,” her mother had said.

The love in her mother’s voice had gotten to her, and she’d caved, putting on the reindeer hat and pjs, even though she’d been frowning in the picture.

Her mother would be devastated when she left…

She’d be even more devastated if she learned the truth.

Eyes clouding over, she jammed the picture in her backpack, then grabbed her pink jacket and tugged it on. Slinging her backpack over her shoulder, she eased open the window and crawled through it. Grabbing hold of the nearest tree branch, she climbed down, just as she had so many times in high school when she’d snuck out to see her friends.

She would miss them, too.

But she had to go.

Tree bark scraped her palms, but she bit back a cry, maneuvered down and dropped to the ground. Nausea twisted her stomach, but she swallowed it. Poised like a cat, she turned and peered through the darkness. Trees rustled in the wind.

Brush parted as something—or someone—pushed through it.

Terror seized her, and she glanced at the street and her yard. Deciding it was safer to cut through the woods, that maybe she could make it to the bus stop in town, she darted around the side of the house and sprinted into the thicket of pines and cypresses backing the property.

Not far from Moody Hollow, where vacationers hiked up to the waterfalls, she might even be able to hitch a ride.

Her feet skidded over pine straw and she stumbled over a tree stump, but she raced through the brush, grateful she’d run track last year. Just as she veered onto the trail that would take her to the falls, she heard the sound of footsteps crunching, closing in on her. Suddenly someone jumped from behind a boulder and grabbed her.

She kicked and screamed and tried to bite, but something jammed in her neck, and then she felt her body go numb. Unable to move or fight, she hung limp and terrified as the man dragged her deeper into the forest.

The bones of the body were charred so badly they looked like ashes.

Detective Ellie Reeves had never seen anything like it. Her own family’s house had burned down a few weeks ago, blazing away her childhood room and all her memories. Her parents were starting to sift through the ashes now and rebuild their lives.

But this… this person had died a miserable, painful death.

And the stones… a circle of them stood around the body like a monument. So different from the rocks that had skidded down the hill into the ravine and lay in a natural pile.

These stones resembled giant arrowheads and had been driven into the ground with their tips pointing toward the sky. Her pulse jumped. She was sure she had seen something like this before, but she couldn’t quite place where.

She turned to scan the area, looking for clues to tell the story. Something to identify the body.

There was no ID in sight. No wallet, purse, jacket or backpack. The clothing was scorched, light-gray fibers had caught on a patch of briars.

Pulling her bandana over her nose to stifle the stench, Ellie leaned closer, noting a chain hanging loosely around the brittle ankle bones. Scattered by the water’s edge, she spotted tiny pearls from a necklace. A lone black shoe dangled from a thorn bush, the kind of shoe a woman might wear to an office or to dinner, not to hike in the rocky terrain of the Appalachian Mountains.

“It’s a woman,” Ellie mumbled, half to herself, half to Cord McClain, a ranger who worked Search and Rescue in Bluff County. As a teen, she’d had a crush on the brooding tough guy. Years ago, after a harrowing rescue mission, they’d slept together. Afterwards, he’d been distant and she’d been trying to prove herself as a cop, so romance was not in the picture. Although occasionally she glimpsed a spark of interest in his eyes, and felt it, too.

Recently they’d been thrown together investigating murders on the trail, and she’d hurt him by questioning his involvement in the crimes. One day she hoped to repair the damage. She had no idea if that could ever happen, though.

A squawking bird drew her attention back to the case, and questions rattled through her head. What exactly had happened here? Was the woman out here alone? Had she been meeting someone for a romantic rendezvous?

Ranger Cord McClain wiped sweat from his forehead. The heat was oppressive, magnified ten times by the brush fire that had rippled through the woods earlier in the day.

The third in the last few days. Trouble was they didn’t know if the fires were accidental or if they’d been intentionally set. So far, they had no clear evidence and, with the recent drought, a campfire or a match accidentally dropped could have set the dry brush ablaze.

A frown tugged at Cord’s chiseled face as he shined his flashlight across the blackened ground. “She could have been hiking but got caught out here and didn’t see the fire until it was on her. But what do you make of those stones? It looks like someone arranged them that way.”

“Which means this was no accident,” replied Ellie. “According to folklore, standing stones represent social circles where people gathered to mourn the dead.”

“How do you know all that?” Cord asked.

“My dad used to fill me with stories when we went camping,” Ellie said. “After that, I checked out books on the area and read about the folklore.”

Cord’s voice was gruff. “Bodies are burned during cremation to symbolize that we are nothing, that we’ll be turned to ashes after death.”

Ellie shivered, his comment reminding her of Cord’s troubled past. As a foster kid, he’d grown up above a funeral home. Worse, his foster father had defiled the bodies he was supposed to take care of. That dark time still haunted his eyes and had made him a suspect in the last case she’d worked, where the killer had buried the bodies in a ritualistic pattern. He was cleared, but their relationship was far from repaired.

She pulled at her T-shirt, desperate for relief from the heat and the suffocating air.

Instead, a breeze stirred the sickening scent of burned flesh and bone, and her stomach roiled.

Reining in her repulsion, she scanned the area again. It was odd for females to hike alone, but it happened. God knows she’d gone off into the wilds of the mountains by herself when she’d needed space and time alone to think.

“Looks like she was by herself,” she said. “But why? The news and park service have issued warnings for people to stay away until we get a handle on these brush fires.” With the steep cliffs, wild animals, and endless miles of forest, hiking alone was dangerous at any time. But especially now. The fires were robbing the precious land of its beautiful greenery, killing forest animals and destroying the natural order on the Appalachian Trail.

As the fires raged, the local prayer group known as the Porch Sitters met daily, sending pleas up to the heavens for much-needed rain and the safety of the firefighters and park rangers who protected the land. They also prayed for the adventure seekers who tackled the treacherous 2,200-mile trail that started in Georgia and stretched all the way to Maine.

But until today, the fires hadn’t taken a life.

Voices echoed, and she glanced up to see the medical examiner, Dr. Laney Whitefeather, pushing through the mass of pines and oaks, the crime scene investigators close behind.

“God,” Laney said as soon as she spotted the burned body.

The CSI team paused, expressions pained as they absorbed the gruesome image.

Laney recovered first. “Who found her?” she asked.

“Firefighters,” Cord responded. “They were trying to extinguish the blaze and called it in.” He gestured toward a tall, broad-shouldered man in a firefighter’s uniform combing the area.

“That the arson investigator?”

Cord nodded. “A newbie to Bluff County Fire Department. Name’s Max Weatherby. He’s looking for signs it was a campfire that got out of hand, and for the point of origin.”

Ellie nodded. The blaze had cut a path through the woods about six feet wide, destroying the dense weeds and eating at the trees, the dry land prime for spreading it. She studied the spot where the woman’s body lay for indications that the fire began there, but with nothing but ashes and charred debris, the expert would have to make a call on that. But if the fire had been set intentionally, the point of origin could be some distance away. In that case, there would have been smoke, heat and flames shooting into the sky, so why hadn’t the woman seen it and gotten out of there? Because she’d been killed first? The stones pointed to that theory.

Ellie rubbed her chin. “Who reported the fire?”

Cord shrugged. “Another ranger.”

“I guess you can’t tell cause of death or time yet?” Ellie said to the ME.

Laney rolled her eyes. “You know I can’t. I’ll have to request an expert forensic anthropologist on this one. Bones aren’t my specialty. With the body being burned so severely, we’ll have to rely on PMCT for identification and to determine what caused death.”

“PMCT?” Cord asked.

“Postmortem computed tomography,” Ellie explained.

“Exactly,” Laney confirmed. “It’s complicated, but analyzes toxicology, looks for traumatic fractures, surgical dissection of foreign bodies and state of carbonization.”

“You’re way over my head. Can you do that?” Ellie asked.

“The specialist will handle it.”

Ellie’s stomach clenched again as the hollow eye sockets of the woman’s face stared at her.

Bone-tired, Ellie wanted a hot shower and a chilled vodka. The stench of smoke, her own sweat, and burned flesh clung to her every pore. Laney had finally been able to transport the bones to the morgue, but the forensic specialist wouldn’t be in until tomorrow. Analysis of the soil and burned brush would also confirm if an accelerant had been used. The team had not found any sign that the victim had been camping. No gear, no food, no supplies. If there had been evidence of another party there, the fire had probably destroyed it. The only item of interest found by the arson investigator was a discarded lighter a few hundred feet from the woman’s body, which was also sent to the lab.

Before she went home, Ellie wanted to check on Deputy Shondra Eastwood. Just six weeks ago, Ellie’s friend had been abducted by the Weekday Killer, a serial killer who’d targeted women in the area because of a vendetta against Ellie. Years back, when she was at the police academy, she’d reported him for sexual harassment. Her claims had started a wave of others and he’d been dismissed from the academy. Then his wife left him, and he’d lost her and his daughter in a tragic accident. An accident he blamed on Ellie. That rage had transferred to his victims.

Shondra had barely escaped alive.

Guilt for her friend’s torture kept Ellie awake at night. Ever since she was a child, she’d struggled to sleep, but now night was even more her enemy. Sometimes she didn’t sleep for days on end and could barely function. Other times she slept fitfully, her nightmares filled with the horrors of her past, the cases that haunted her.

Work was her salvation. Having a new case to focus on, horrifying as it was, would stop her from spiraling.

Parking her Jeep at Shondra’s apartment, Ellie killed the engine, then glanced at her own reflection in the mirror. God, she looked ragged. Her ash-blond hair was a mess, soot stained her cheeks and dark circles rimmed her blue eyes. Licking her fingers, she wiped away the dirt and redid her ponytail, but she couldn’t do anything about the permanent shadows under her eyes.

Just as she felt helpless to erase Shondra’s. For a moment, she sat staring at the cinder-block building. Ever since the attack, Shondra had shut down and hadn’t wanted to see her.

Who could blame her? The monster who’d abducted her had done so to get revenge on Ellie.

Sucking in a breath to steady her nerves, she climbed out and walked up the sidewalk. The recent tornado had completely destroyed Shondra’s mobile home, so she was staying here instead. But the brutal weather had also wreaked havoc on this property. Although the concrete building was still standing, the sidewalk needed patching, the building painting, and Ellie smelled the acrid scent of pot as she made it to Shondra’s door. Hopefully this ramshackle place was just temporary and her friend could find a more suitable home soon. That’s if she didn’t leave altogether––Shondra had mentioned that she wasn’t sure she’d be staying in Bluff County.

Ellie understood the need to run and start over. She’d felt that way a few weeks ago herself. But her ties to Crooked Creek ran deep, and she’d finally decided she couldn’t run far enough to escape her past. She had to stay and face it.

A quick knock, then she called Shondra’s name. Seconds ticked by. She knocked again. “Shondra, please open up. I need to see you.” The image of the woman’s blackened bones taunted her. “Please, let me in,” Ellie said. “I’m worried about you.”

Shuffling could finally be heard, and the door creaked open. Shondra’s face, pale and gaunt, appeared. The bruising and swelling from the beatings she’d taken were fading, but Ellie knew that the emotional scars were still raw. “Ellie, go home. It’s late and I’m tired.”

“I know, but… I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Shondra’s curly black hair was pulled back with a clip, her eyes almost as hollow as the sockets of the dead woman. “Go away.”

“I’m not leaving without making sure you’re all right.”

Tears blurred Shondra’s eyes, and she released a wary sigh, before opening the door and motioning for Ellie to come in. Except for a few boxes in the corner of the kitchen, the apartment was bare. She’d lost most of her belongings during the twister.

And more of herself during the kidnapping.

“I’m sorry,” Ellie said, her heart churning. “I know it was my fault Burton took you. I don’t know how else to say I’m sorry or how to make things right.”

“You can’t make it right,” Shondra said, her voice low and defeated. “Nothing will ever be right again.”

“Burton is dead,” Ellie said, with conviction. “That’s a start. He can’t hurt you anymore. And I’m sorry he came after you because of me.” She’d said it again. She’d say it a hundred times more if it helped.

Shondra’s face crumpled. “I don’t blame you, Ellie,” she said, her voice cracking. “I’m a cop, supposed to catch a killer, not be a victim.”

Ellie guided Shondra to the faded green couch, the only piece of furniture in the tiny, threadbare living room.

“Listen to me, you’re a good cop,” Ellie said. “Burton was cunning, smart, devious. He used everyone in his path and would have found a way to get what he wanted.”

“I tried to be so strong when he had me,” Shondra whispered, swiping at tears. “But since then, I… just fell apart.”

“You are strong, Shondra, but it takes time to process trauma. You will get through this.”

Shondra twirled the end of her hair between her fingers.

“This is about Melissa, isn’t it?” Ellie said softly. It had turned out that Shondra’s ex-girlfriend had been involved in the Weekday Killer case, helping him lure his victims. “You love her and you feel betrayed that she helped Burton.”

Emotions streaked Shondra’s face, and her chin quivered. “I do. But I realize she was victimized too. We all were.”

“Maybe talking to her would help.”

Shondra pushed to her feet, angry lines slashing her eyes. “You’ve seen her, haven’t you?”

“I had to, for the case. And… for you.”

“Go, Ellie. I’m done talking right now.”

“Shondra, please—”

“I asked you to go.”

Tears burned Ellie’s eyes, but she blinked them back.

“Think about it,” Ellie said as she turned and walked toward the door, but she was only met with her friend’s resounding silence.

Ten minutes later, Ellie parked in front of her bungalow. The mountains rose behind it, steep and strong in their glory, the colors of summer flowers and greenery a reprieve from the long winter months.

Having grown up in these parts, she’d hiked the AT—the Appalachian Trail—for as long as she could remember. But the mountains weren’t the safe place they used to be. A series of serial killer cases had left behind clouds of lingering fear, neighbors looking at one another with suspicion. Her father, Randall, had been disgraced since his retirement as sheriff, and Ellie was doing her best to prove herself to the small community. The negative press surrounding her and the revelation that Randall had withheld important information about a murder had taken its toll on all of them. She and her father had both received hate mail and the town had protested when the prosecutor dropped the charges against her father due to lack of evidence.

She’d thought once the Weekday Killer was caught, the residents would settle down, but this blasted heatwave seemed to be making everyone restless. Now the Fourth of July was upon them, too, with tourists flocking to town.

As Ellie entered her house, soft moonlight slanted its way through the blinds in the living room, the wood floor creaking beneath her boots as she crossed to the kitchen.

Still shaken by the image of those charred bones, she flipped on every light in the house. She’d made great strides in conquering her fear of the dark and enclosed spaces but needed to manage triggers in times of stress.

Body wound tight with tension, she poured herself a shot of Kettle One and inhaled the crisp citrus scent, swirling it around in her glass before she took a long slow sip. It wasn’t enough to settle her mind though.

Exhausted, she walked to the bedroom, removed her gun and stored it in her nightstand. She turned on the shower and left the water to heat up, then peeled off her sweat-drenched, smoky clothes. The hot water felt heavenly as she stepped beneath the spray, desperate to cleanse her skin of the acrid odor of death. By the time she got out, her captain had called, saying he’d received the update she’d sent him, and they’d talk in the morning.

Even freshly showered, her skin still felt clammy from the heat, and she checked the dial on her air conditioner. It made an odd clicking sound, the air in the house stifling, the old unit working furiously to cool the interior and failing. She found a fan in the closet, set it up to face her bed, and flipped it on.

The humming helped to drown out her thoughts, yet her gaze fell on the phone number beside her bed.

That number held the key to her past. For years, Ellie’s parents had kept her adoption secret, never telling her that she used to be a little girl called Mae. The night before her adopted mother Vera went in for open heart surgery, she’d given Ellie the name of the social worker who’d handled her adoption.

Ellie had been debating what to do with the information ever since.

Nerves drew her belly into a knot. Punching her pillow, she climbed beneath the sheets. But as she closed her eyes, voices whispered inside her head.

Where do you belong? Do you have any real family?

With trembling fingers, she dialed the number.

The phone rang and rang then went to voicemail, so she left a message. If the woman didn’t return her call in the morning, she’d go by her office.

But despite her determination, she couldn’t help asking, if her biological mother hadn’t wanted her when she was born, why would she want her in her life now?

Eighteen-year-old Katie Lee Curtis slung her backpack over her shoulder as she jogged toward the park. Tears blurred her vision. All she’d ever wanted to do was make her parents proud. Make her mama smile. Make her daddy love her.

But for some reason she didn’t understand, he didn’t. And she’d realized tonight that he never would. It was getting harder and harder to take.

He was nicer to her brother Marty, but he shut down when he looked at her, as if the sight of her disgusted him.

Tonight, she’d run to her room, but she heard her parents fighting again, her daddy telling her mother to pray for forgiveness. To keep her mouth shut and a tight rein on their daughter. She didn’t stay to hear the rest.

A noise behind her startled her, and she ducked behind a bush, peering around her to see if she was being followed. Two joggers ran past, their feet pounding the trail leading through the park.

Katie Lee waited until they disappeared between the rows of pines then veered toward the river where she planned to meet Will. If her daddy found out she was out here, he’d kill her.

But she needed a friend, and she and Will had bonded at the church.

Night settled over the land, making the trees look like monsters with arms reaching out to grab her. Her breathing puffed out as she ran faster, twigs cracking behind her.

She froze, eyes searching the woods, but the trees were so. . .