The Vanishing Girls by Callie Browning (read this if txt) 📕

Holden’s. There was a very good chance that their date had come to an end. They thanked the vendor and left.

Stomachs full, they wondered aloud what had happened as they drove the five minutes to Holden’s house. Just as Eileen pulled the car to a stop, they heard the phone ringing inside his house, breaking the quiet of the night air. He looked at her briefly. She nodded and cut the engine as he rushed inside to answer.

A few minutes later, he walked back down the stairs, loosening his bowtie before he leaned through the car window and said, “The Slasher struck again in St. James. Derricks said that they found something at the scene that they need to investigate further so we can’t go there just yet.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels. “Seems we have some time to kill,” he said.

Eileen sighed. Holden didn’t fool her with his attempt at striking a casual tone. Her fantasy of turning their night into something special was dashed. Not to mention the fact that it would be her first Cane Field murder scene. “We do,” she said with a glum expression.

Holden raised an eyebrow and said, “I haven’t sat in the garden for a long time. How about we do that?”

Eileen followed him down the walkway and through a trellis covered with bright yellow allamanda vines that glowed neon in the moonlight. Beyond the trellis, soft lights flickered inside coral-stone lanterns that trailed the length of the winding flagstone path. At the end of the path was a gazebo surrounded by ferns, red ginger lilies and hundreds of fireflies.

Holden gestured to the wooden bench before sitting on the structure’s wooden floor. Eileen took a deep breath and sat down.

“So…how is your night going?”

Eileen grinned. “It had some fits and starts, but it's gotten better.” She winced and said, “Oh... I forgot to tell Clifford that Dorothy was looking for him.”

“Was she now?” Holden asked with a sly grin.

“What’s so funny?” His smile was contagious and she couldn’t help the giggle that bubbled up as she awaited his response.

“Clifford and Dorothy have a…chequered history.”

“Meaning?”

“They’re casual lovers. Whenever they're bored or attend the same party, they end up in bed.”

“Dorothy and Clifford? Nah…I don’t believe it. Plus, she’s kinda…”

“She’s not conventionally beautiful,” admitted Holden. “She’s got that squarish build and a deep voice, but Clifford has always preferred a more robust lady.”

He wasn’t wrong about that; Eileen had seen the way those other women glommed on to Clifford. But when Eileen tried to imagine tall, slim Clifford in the throes of passion with sturdy Dorothy, she just couldn’t.

Holden laughed. “Stop wrinkling your face like that. ’Every piece of cloth in town got its owner’ as the old people would say. They’ve been knocking around together since they were teenagers and I don't think anyone ever understood their attraction." Holden chuckled. "Do you know how her brother Lloyd found out? One time, he stood on a chair to spy on them through those cross-ventilation squares close to the ceiling. The chair broke and Lloyd fell on a kerosene lamp. He got a cut on his arm and minor burns.”

Eileen grimaced. “That sounds painful. But why didn’t it work out if they were fooling around for so long?”

Holden plucked a piece of spindly grass that waved in the light breeze and spun it between his thumb and forefinger. “Clifford said he loved Dorothy and wanted to marry her. But he had some…difficulties overseas and Dorothy’s father forbade her to marry him.”

“Sounds like one of those old-fashioned novels. That probably explains why she kept watching him all night.”

“It’s true. Unrequited love is one of those stories that you read about and hope never happens to you.”

Eileen’s   heart skipped a beat. She searched her mind for a new topic to discuss, desperate to shift the conversation's course. The last thing she wanted to focus on was heartbreak.

“I love them, you know,” she said pointing to the flecks of light that floated around the ferns just out of her arm’s reach.

“Fireflies?”

“Yes. When I was a little girl, I used to catch them in jars and keep them next to my bed. I’d put tiny flowers at the bottom of the jar and pretend the fireflies were fairies in a magic forest. I liked watching them in their little see-through world.”

Holden twirled his blade of grass again. “They’re amazing insects,” he admitted. He caught Eileen’s eye and said, “Not many creatures can make their own light and shine it on the world. You can’t blame someone for falling in love under those circumstances.”

His voice was low, earnest — the way a man speaks when his words are the only channel his soul can find.

Holden wasn’t like other men who told their imagined war stories so often that you wondered what the truth looked like in its embryonic stage. He was smart, thoughtful, kind, ambitious and probably deserved better than a smart-mouthed wild child like Eileen. Now that Eileen’s ardour had cooled, she realized that this wasn’t a passing fancy for her. She hoped the same was true of him.

Inside the house, the phone rang again. Holden’s frown soured his handsome face. He sighed. “I guess it’s time to go.”

Chapter 18

Revelations

Anna Brown’s dump site had been Holden’s first exposure to the Cane Slasher’s machinations. At the time, Holden assumed it was a lover’s quarrel gone wrong and believed the crime would be solved quickly. Now, a deathly sense of dejá vù overtook him as he watched an almost identical scene unfold in front of him. The police tape, the camera flashes, the young woman's contorted body among a pile of cane trash and withered blossoms were all the same. The only difference was the victim, Donna Green. Bile rose in Holden's throat.

He was a voyeur to this spate of killings, an outsider with a front seat to the carnage wrought by a deeply disturbed person. A few feet away, the young