Alone (Bone Secrets, #4)(24)

“It says they didn’t figure out who was who until late last night. Were you down there?”

“For a while. It was a nightmare. Lots of parents searching for their kids. Dr. Campbell narrowed it down pretty fast.”

“All this new technology, but teenagers still learn the quickest way to hide crap from their parents.” Jeremy snorted. “Some things never change. And they’re always willing to follow the person who seizes control of their crowd, applying the peer pressure. Usually to their detriment.”

“No word on a cult yet,” she added with a small smile.

“We’ll see,” Jeremy said with all seriousness. “There’s something that tied all these girls together. And something that ties them to those deaths decades ago. Convincing people to kill themselves takes some sort of brainwashing. Cults know how to do that.”

Victoria stiffened. “Who says they killed themselves?”

Jeremy shrugged, rolling his paper into a tight spiral. He tapped his palm with it. “Just speculating. Like they did in the article here.” He didn’t meet her gaze, his eyes focused down their street. “They’ll uncover this mystery. This one and the old one. You’ll help them get to the bottom of it.”

She hated speculation. She understood its use to form theories to help search for motive and answers, but she didn’t care for it being spread around until there was proof. And there was no proof that these girls had taken their own lives. Trinity’s tear-streaked face filled her mind.

She was going to figure out who killed these women. All of them.




Trinity sat in another waiting room. Twenty-four hours before, she’d been in the waiting room at the medical examiner’s office. This one was better. At least now she knew Brooke was alive. Barely.

Trinity’s foster mom, Katy, had disappeared in search of coffee. Trinity thumbed through last week’s People magazine, its cover shredded and wrinkled, her mind retaining nothing. She’d been given one minute to see her friend. Brooke hadn’t opened her eyes. The doctors said they didn’t know if she ever would. She’d gone a long time without oxygen. Her body had been in the process of turning itself off when she’d been found. Trinity had heard them talking about a drug that slowed down everything in her body until it simply stopped.

Had it been like falling asleep? Did Brooke know what she’d done?

The cops had asked her if Brooke was suicidal. And her foster mother had asked. And Brooke’s parents had asked. Didn’t anyone but her know the type of person Brooke was? She’d never do that. She loved her life. She knew she was getting a new pair of UGGs for Christmas; she talked about going to college in California. Brooke had plans for her life.

Dying in the middle of a forest with a bunch of other girls wasn’t one of them. Trinity was positive of that fact.

Brooke’s parents had been in meltdown mode since they’d discovered their daughter was missing. Trinity hadn’t been in the medical examiner’s office when Brooke’s parents had shown up. Thank goodness. Brooke’s mom’s hysterics would have been unbearable. Not that her mom didn’t have good reason to be upset, but seeing her hang on her husband and crying nonstop at the hospital freaked Trinity out.

Brooke’s father escorted her mother everywhere, holding her up like she had legs of Jell-O.

Jeez, get it together, would you?

Instant guilt flooded her. How would you feel if your daughter was dying in the next room? She asked a short prayer for forgiveness. She talked to God occasionally. She figured it didn’t hurt. Better to be safe than sorry, right?

Brooke was an only child. If she died her parents had no one.

Trinity’s chin lifted. She was an only child and had no one. She’d survived.

Her cell phone vibrated in her back pocket. She studied the text on the screen, her chest tightening.

IS B GOING TO BE OK?

She replied: DON’T KNOW.

She waited and waited for his reply but nothing came. She finally slid the phone back in her pocket, feeling let down. Jason had texted her a few times in the month she’d known him. And all those texts had been questions about Brooke. He was good-looking but clearly not interested in her; he’d wanted to know about her friend. Trinity slumped in her chair and flipped the pages of the magazine. The text had sent her heart pounding one minute and dragging the next.

Why was she interested in a guy who was clearly not interested in her?

Katy sighed as she sat in the chair next to Trinity. “Coffee?” She held a little cup out to Trinity, who nodded and took the cup. Katy moved with quick gestures, reminding Trinity of a sharp-eyed bird. A high-energy, petite woman, her dark eyes missed nothing. Besides fostering, she worked with high-risk women, counseling them on how to get out of abusive relationships. More than once she’d had to leave in the middle of the night to respond to a terrified call from a woman. Trinity sipped, silently gagging at the papery chemical taste of the coffee. She didn’t want the coffee; she took it because Katy had been kind enough to think of her. Katy was like that.

Trinity tried to let her know when the small gestures were appreciated.

“Thanks,” she mumbled into her coffee.

“Who was texting you?”

Katy saw things. Things a typical teen hoped a parent wouldn’t notice. And she had no qualms asking about what she’d seen. Katy had learned to be blunt with her fosters and abuse cases.