Page 42 of The Ice Sisters

“Be careful there, that floor’s slippery.”

“Thanks,” Ellie said as she glanced at the man. He was probably thirty, young for a man working as a custodian, with choppy brown hair, a scruffy face and eyes a little too close together. A darkness permeated them that told her he’d had a rough life and she spotted a long scar on his right forearm.

“Hey, you that detective from the TV, aren’t you?” he asked.

Ellie nodded and noted his nametag read Jeb. “Did you know Barbara Thacker?”

His eyes cut back to the mop in his hands. “Yeah, I mean she worked here. Real good with the kids. Kept her classroom the cleanest of anyone here.”

Ellie smiled at his comment. “Did you ever notice her acting strangely? Like she was nervous about something?”

His bushy eyebrows formed a unibrow as he squinted at her. “Naw. Although she seemed fidgety and jumpy. Kept checking her phone and looking around as she went to her car.”

Ellie made a mental note to have Derrick examine her phone records.

“Did you ask her about it?”

He made a sarcastic sound. “Listen, lady, I’m the custodian around here. Nobody talks to me.” He glanced back down the hall. “Now I gotta get back to work. Gotta clean the gym floors when the kids ain’t here.”

Ellie nodded and hurried back outside to her Jeep.

Daylight was already fading and with the shorter winter days, the skies were so dark it felt like nighttime.

Frustration knotted her stomach. Another day that had gone by with no answers as to the girls’ names or who killed them.

Barbara’s computer and planning book lay on her seat, mocking her. Wind beat at the Jeep as she started the engine and headed back toward Crooked Creek. She phoned Derrick then relayed her conversation with Barbara’s coworkers.

“I’ll take a look at Barbara’s phone records,” Derrick agreed.

“Check Barbara’s computer and planning book for any mention of her friends outside work. Maybe they know where Barb is.”

And her connection to the twins.

FORTY-EIGHT

KNOTTY PINE HILL

Claire was so exhausted she closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep on the cold basement floor where he’d brought her, to forget what her life had become. But sorrow overcame her and she pressed her hand over her heart. She was never going to see her precious daughters again. Never get to see them run and play, go to high school prom, get married.

She was their mother. She was supposed to love and protect them.

She’d failed.

The memory of holding them in her arms for the first time returned, and she wrapped her arms around herself and was thrust back to that day.

She and her husband Joel had tried so hard to have a child. Had dreamed about it from the moment they’d said I do. He’d been so charming back then. Had won her over with nice romantic dinners and flowers and gifts and surprises. The fact that he wanted a family had sealed the deal.

They would have everything together. A nice cozy house. The pitter patter of little feet and laughter and holidays together.

She’d lost her parents in a home invasion a long time ago when she was little and had been raised by an aunt who diedwhen she was eighteen. Joel had been her soft shoulder to cry on.

Even during their struggles to get pregnant, he’d been a rock.

The labor had started a week early. She’d panicked, but he’d held her hand and assured her everything would be fine. He’d raced her to the hospital, all the time praising her for giving him not one, but two babies to love and carry on his name.

Labor had been long and intense and Heidi had been breech, forcing her to have a C-section. She touched the scar on her abdomen with a smile. It had been worth it.

The twins were born and she and Joel dove into parenthood with as much excitement as kids in a candy shop.

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