The Hunted Girls by Jenna Kernan (best book club books for discussion txt) 📕

The article highlighted her role in the capture of the Copycat Killer, her mother’s horrific crimes and even gave a summary of the conviction of her murderous grandfather.

Alone at the kitchen dinette, Nadine studied the newspaper article on her laptop in their new residence. Both Tina and Juliette were out jogging, so she had a few moments’ peace before heading up to Lawtey to visit Arlo.

Nadine had not planned to visit him this weekend, but their recent phone conversation had changed her mind.

She had nearly completed reading and her second cup of coffee when there was a hammering on the front door. Muffin, who, she had not realized, was in the room, shot off the adjacent chair and darted out, and she followed.

Demko pounded down the hall in his gym shorts.

“Don’t answer that!” He hurried past her to the foyer. At the entry, he pushed Molly away with his leg and held his pistol behind his back as he opened the door.

She had expected reporters, but it was Mrs. Rupp, dressed in jean shorts and a floral top. Without her hat and sunglasses, Nadine noted, her face showed a deep tan that made her sun-damaged skin look weathered as old wood.

She gripped the Saturday paper in her hand.

“I had no idea you were FBI or what you all were tied up in. Had I known, I never would have sublet this place.”

“Sorry you’re unhappy,” said Demko. He stepped out onto the stoop. “But I believe you signed the agreement.”

“I want you out. The lot of you.” She aimed the paper at Nadine, who now stood in the doorway.

Across the cul-de-sac, beyond the parked cars, a man paused to watch the scene as his Jack Russell terrier sniffed at a mailbox. Nadine glanced back to Demko.

“Unfortunately, we have a legally binding contract,” said Demko.

“We’ll see about that. I’m calling my lawyer.”

“You do that. Have a nice day.”

Rupp was not finished, but Demko motioned Nadine inside and then closed and locked the door.

Demko turned to her. “She’s going to call the newspapers. Guaranteed.”

“They’ll come here. Camp out front. And if they know where I am, so will he.” Her words sounded frantic, disjointed. Nadine clutched her empty coffee mug feeling the tears welling up. “The case has stalled and we haven’t found Linda Tolan. By now, she’s probably dead.”

“Come here,” he ordered.

She did and he folded her into his strong arms. Molly jumped up, trying to lick Nadine’s face.

Nadine was still crying when her phone began ringing.

“They got my number,” she said, drawing back, certain it was a reporter. But a check showed it was Skogen. She took the call. “What’s up?”

“I wanted to alert you that the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office has informed me that your brother, Arlo Howler, helped his officers identify the possible search location of two missing persons in a cold case. He pinpointed a search area within the National Forest.”

“What? When?”

“Yesterday afternoon sometime. A search is under way. I’m just learning about this.”

Nadine flipped the call to speaker so Demko could hear.

“So my brother was out of prison yesterday?”

“Yes.”

Nadine pressed her free hand flat against her chest, feeling the drumbeat of her heart. “I spoke to him at noon on Saturday. He didn’t mention anything.”

“Because they wouldn’t have given a prisoner advanced notice.”

That did make sense.

“But why wasn’t I told?”

“No alert to family, either. I only found out because Special Agent Coleman spotted them setting up a search and rescue operation. She called me and they just got back to us.”

Nadine groaned and Demko stepped up beside her, cupping the phone, and her hand, in his.

“They found something. Sheriff’s office is calling in anthropologists from the museum up in Tampa. He is requesting that your ME come out. But they can’t reach her by phone.”

“She’s running.”

“Okay. Have her call me.”

“Are you going?” she asked.

“Me? Why? It’s unrelated. Graves are over two decades old.”

Skogen ended their conversation. Then Nadine thumped to her seat at the dinette. Her stomach twisted tight as a boa constrictor.

“I think they just found my father.”

Juliette told Nadine that the grave site was near the St. Johns River outside DeLand. Closest access road was County Road 42. Arlo had identified a primitive camping area in the Ocala Forest called River Forest. She knew the place instantly and the connection between this location and a double murder sent every hair follicle of her body lifting.

Her mother used to take them there to fish and one of her victims had been found in the river here.

Arleen sometimes drove them along a remote access road paralleling the river’s course. Nadine recalled the hiss of the sand spraying the wheel wells as her mother took the rutted road at high speed and in high spirits. The reason for her gaiety now made Nadine’s skin prickle.

The site just off the road was close to their trailer in DeLand, remote enough to be quiet, but public enough to draw the sort of folks that liked to avoid paying for camping and enjoyed illegally hunting alligators at night. Nadine knew that anything dropped in that murky water rotted or was eaten in short order.

“Truck was red-tagged on Route 42, here,” said Demko, pointing at the map on satellite view.

Nadine zoomed in on the donuts. The evidence was still there, a brilliant white sand oxbow cut into the emerald green foliage. “Is this where you’re heading?” she asked Juliette.

“They just said they’d meet me where River Forest Boulevard crosses the electric lines.”

Nadine pointed. “The turnoff is back here. If you get to the power lines, you missed it. Look on the left. The whole thing is unpaved.”

“If you know the route, maybe I’ll follow you,” said Juliette.

Nadine and Demko rode together and Juliette shadowed in her Subaru wagon. The ease with which Nadine found the utility trail was disquieting. At 10:40 a.m., they pulled up behind a sheriff’s vehicle and two from the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Juliette found a sheriff’s deputy, who agreed to escort them. Deadman’s Circle looked