Hush Little Girl

of a lot,” he said. “None of the Harper’s Peak staff or the guests we interviewed saw a damn thing. We found nothing on the CCTV footage from any of the buildings or parking lots. None of the staff recalled ever seeing Holly before, and we think with her white eyelashes, anyone would have remembered her. We believe she must have been brought onto the grounds through the woods. Search teams didn’t find anything. There were a couple of paths that led away from Harper’s Peak through the woods, but none of them led to the Mitchell household. If she was brought in a car, whoever did it managed not to get captured on camera or be seen by the staff or guests. The last time anyone was at the church was the evening before, around seven p.m., when Tom Booth went to the church to open it and get it ready for today’s ceremony. We know from the autopsy that she died today, though, so the killer left her there sometime this morning or early afternoon.”
Gretchen said, “We’ve gotten a warrant for Lorelei’s cell phone records. If we can get those, maybe we can see who she last called or texted.”
Mettner sighed. “Unfortunately, those are going to take almost a week to come back. Three days at the most, the carrier said.”
Noah said, “The DNA under Holly’s nails will take even longer than that to come back. Weeks, maybe even months.”
“Then we need to work with what we know until we get them,” Josie said. “What else have you got?”
Mettner said, “The ERT wasn’t able to get any prints from Holly’s body or that creepy pinecone thing that was left with her.”
Gretchen said, “Chan couldn’t get prints from the other stick man that was left at the Mitchell house.”
Mettner lifted his chin in Josie’s direction. “Any idea what the meaning is behind those?”
Josie stopped scrolling through the search results on her computer concerning Lorelei Mitchell and met Mettner’s eyes. “Clearly they’re dolls of some sort. Emily said that they mean ‘he’s sorry’, so my guess is that the killer made one for Holly as a symbol of his remorse, and that the one he left at the house was intended for Emily.”
“But he didn’t kill Emily,” Noah said.
“No, but he killed her family. Plus, Emily obviously knows who this person is, even though she won’t tell us.”
Mettner sighed and swiped a hand down his face. “You’re telling me we could go get this killer now if this kid would just tell us who he is?”
“It’s not that simple, Mett,” Noah said.
“It sounds like it is,” Mettner shot back. “I know she’s been traumatized, and she is afraid, but if the case is that easy to crack, someone should be over at the hospital right now trying to get this information out of her.”
Josie said, “The social worker is there with her now. The attending physician ordered a psych consult. A psychologist might have better luck coaxing the information out of her. I know it’s frustrating, Mett, but going after an eight-year-old girl who just lost everyone she loved in a brutal double murder is not going to help things. We need to work with what we’ve got.”
“Which is nothing,” Mettner said, tossing his phone onto the desk. Amber sidled over and put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. A shudder ran through him. “Seeing that poor girl. It got to me.”
Sometimes Josie forgot that Mett didn’t have as many years on the job as the rest of them—or as many heartbreaking cases under his belt.
Gretchen said, “It gets to all of us, Mett. If it didn’t, I’d be worried about you.”
From lowered lashes, he looked at each one of them. “You never show it.”
Josie said, “I’ve been known to lose my shit now and then.”
Mettner scoffed. “Please. You never lose your shit.”
“Not true,” Gretchen said. “The boss cried up a tree during the floods last year.”
Mettner raised a skeptical brow at Gretchen.
“It’s true,” Josie confirmed. “I’ll say this, though: a tree is a pretty good place to come undone. No one can really see you.”
The room erupted into laughter. Even Chitwood gave a less severe frown.
Gretchen got the conversation back on track. “All right. Let’s talk about what we have, because we have a few things to run with. We got prints from the house, for one thing. We were able to match Lorelei’s, Holly’s, and Emily’s. We’ve got four other sets of prints that are unidentified.”
The Chief said, “Any of them turn up in AFIS?”
The Automated Fingerprint Identification System only held records of fingerprints from people who had either been arrested or convicted of a crime.
Gretchen held her pen straight in the air. “As a matter of fact, yes. One of the sets belongs to Reed Bryan, age fifty-eight. He was arrested and charged with aggravated assault nine years ago. Looks like a domestic issue. Wife dropped the charges.”
“Really?” said Noah. “Where does Reed live?”
“He’s got a farm south of Denton, but he also owns Bryan’s Farm Fresh Produce which has a market about three miles away from Lorelei’s house.”
“I know that place,” Josie said. “You have to pass it to get to both Lorelei’s house and to Harper’s Peak.”
Chitwood said, “How many prints did they find in the house from this guy?”
Gretchen flipped a page in her notebook. “Two sets. One on the front door and one on the doorway into the kitchen. Nothing upstairs.”
“But not the truck,” Chitwood said.
“No, sir. The only clear prints we got from the truck were from Lorelei and her kids. Chan couldn’t get anything from the other set—the handprints—because of the smeared blood.”
“It’s after midnight now. Let’s leave it till the morning then. If he was the killer, I’d expect his prints to be all over the place. First thing tomorrow, someone’s got to talk to him. What else did Chan get from the house, Palmer?”
Gretchen looked at her notes again. “First, let’s start inside the house. Lorelei