Page 89 of The Ice Sisters

Ellie’s pulse jumped. “Thanks. We have to look back at Modelle. He hated Barb for reporting him to DFACS and was arrested because of it.”

A second later, Loretta and Michael knocked on the room and entered. Tensions ran high as they exchanged looks then Loretta hurried to Barbara’s bedside.

Michael’s jaw was clenched, arms folded, posture rigid.

“How could you help him, Barb?” Loretta cried.

“I wasn’t helping him,” Barb argued. “I was trying to save Ivy and Mazie. I wanted to warn you and thought the police might catch him in town.”

“But he got away with her,” Loretta choked out.

“I know,” Barbara cried, “I’m so sorry…”

Tears streamed down both women’s faces.

Michael cleared his throat, pain and rage hardening his tone. “If you’d come forward sooner and I’d known, I could have protected Ivy and she’d still be with us.”

Guilt and anguish lined Loretta’s face as she crumpled into the chair, and Barbara spoke through a sob. “We just wanted to protect our families.”

Instead, their silence might have gotten them killed.

ONE HUNDRED NINE

OPOSSUM TRAIL FARM

Cord’s phone dinged with a text from Ellie:

Ivy Stuart was abducted. We found Barbara Thacker. She doesn’t know who killed the girls, but the killer is holding Mazie and Ivy at some farm with chicken houses. Search Modelle’s farm again.

Cord had been staking out the place anyway. But now he felt that itch along his spine that usually nagged at him when he about to encounter a dangerous animal on the trail. The wild boars were vicious and attacked without provocation.

Only the dangerous animal here was a man. Modelle.

Despite not having a warrant or officially being asked to follow the man, Cord had made it his mission to do so.

Watching him in town had raised his suspicions that the man was evil and a predator. But he hung in the shadows the way he had as a teenager living in the woods.

Modelle had been in the system and was smart enough not to strike with someone on his tail.

The man had arrived at his farm earlier, looking flustered, then grabbed an ax from the outbuilding and hurried back in thehouse with it. Cord inched close enough to the edge of the house, hunkering low in the bushes and listened. A noise inside made his ears perk up.

It sounded as if Modelle was chopping something up with the ax. The sound came from the back of the house so he crept closer and peered through the window. His pulse jumped as he spotted Modelle slamming the ax against the wall.

A slab of plyboard was tilted on the opposite side with a can of paint waiting as if to repair the mess when he finished.

Cord held his breath as he watched Modelle hack away the drywall, creating a hole big enough for Cord to see inside.

Holy hell. A body, wrapped in heavy plastic, was in there.

The blood roared in his ears as Modelle removed it from the wall. Modelle grunted as he dragged it out and threw it over his shoulder.

Cord yanked his phone from his pocket and snapped a picture.

Modelle jerked his head around as if he sensed someone was watching, and Cord ducked back into the bushes. Tense seconds passed. Cord judged the size of the body to be an adult. Thankfully not a child.

Still, he dared not move.

He heard a door slam and realized it was the back door of the old house.

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