Dead Silence (The Body Finder 4)

It wasn’t the picture, though, that made bile rise into the back of Violet’s throat all over again. It was who she was looking at in the image.

The girl was the same girl from the school picture. She was older in the dance photo, but it was most definitely her.

“Holy . . .” Her uncle breathed from between gritted teeth, and Violet guessed that he was thinking the same thing she was: That the girl belonged here. In this house. With this family.

Violet nodded, unable to tear her gaze away from the image, because there was more. The boy in the dance photo with her . . .

She knew him better than she probably wanted to. And she hated that he was there, standing next to the smiling girl in her prom dress, while Violet had to be here . . . in the girl’s house . . . with her murdered family.

“We need to find her,” her uncle said now, reaching over Violet’s shoulder and snatching the picture off the fridge. “We need to make sure she’s safe.”

Violet stumbled after him, realizing she was losing him—her uncle. That he was already disappearing into police chief mode. “Uncle Stephen,” she called, before he was too far gone.

He stopped at the kitchen door and turned to her. “What is it, Vi?”

“That’s Grady,” she said, nodding toward the picture in his hand. “The boy with her, at the dance, it’s Grady Spencer. You know him, don’t you?”

Her uncle glanced down at the image, and Violet saw a quick flash of recognition before he slipped back into the living room, leaving Violet to decide whether or not to follow. She lagged behind, her hand hovering over one of the other pictures, the school photo of the girl in her braces.

As she plucked the image from the fridge, tearing the tape that held it, she heard her uncle on the other side of the wall. “We need to find the girl in this picture. Go up and look through her bedroom. Look for anything to tell us where she might be. In the meantime,” he added, his voice lowering, but not so much that Violet still couldn’t hear him, “start with a kid named Grady Spencer. He might have some idea where she is.”

Violet stood at the living room window and stared out at her driveway, her impatience mounting with each passing second. “What’s taking him so long? Shouldn’t he have at least called by now?”

She knew it was pointless to ask her dad, he had no way of knowing where her uncle was or what he was doing, any more than she did. But she couldn’t help it; all this waiting was driving her crazy.

Especially with these new echoes weighing on her.

She supposed she should be relieved there hadn’t been a third one to deal with, but instead, its absence was making her edgy, making it even harder to sit still. To relax, as her dad kept trying to tell her.

Relax? Was he kidding? She felt like jumping out of her skin, not soaking in a bubble bath.

“You know, it won’t do you any good to pace. Why don’t you just sit down and rel—”

Violet held her hand up. “Please. Just don’t say it.” She blew a curl out of her eyes. “Fine. I give up.” She marched over to the couch, where her dad had been sitting, doling out words of wisdom, and she flopped down beside him. Letting out an exaggerated sigh, she complained one more time, “I just wish he’d hurry up already. I hate not knowing if the girl’s okay. I hate the idea of her being out there somewhere . . . alone.” Her eyes burned and her dad reached over and squeezed her leg.

“She’ll be okay, Vi. Uncle Stephen’ll find her.”

She nodded, her eyes still stinging. “I know, it’s just . . .” She couldn’t imagine what that would be like—losing her parents. She couldn’t imagine having the police come to her with the kind of news they’d be bringing to this girl.

His arm slipped around her. “It’s not your fault. There’s nothing you could’ve done.”

“How does something like this happen? How are people not safe in their own homes?” It wasn’t like Violet didn’t know it was possible. It wasn’t like she’d never seen the news before, or watched a movie or TV show about home invasions. But the idea of it happening so close to where they lived. To someone she shared a connection with . . . even someone as unsavory as Grady Spencer.

It wasn’t the first time she’d known someone who’d died—not that she actually knew this girl or her family. But even then it had seemed so foreign to her, somehow detached. Like something that only happened to other people.

Yet she knew better.

She’d seen it with her own eyes.

The front door opened, and Violet’s heart shot into her throat as she jumped up, expecting to see Uncle Stephen standing on the other side. She was halfway across the room when she saw her mom instead, her expression harried.

“Violet,” she gasped, completely unaware of the disappointment on her daughter’s face. She dropped her purse on the floor as she reached for Violet. “Your father told me what happened,” her mom said. She drew back, her eyes raking over her daughter. “You’re okay? You weren’t hurt at all?”

“Mom, stop.” She wriggled out of her arms. “I wish everyone would just stop asking me that. Yes, I’m fine. Nothing happened. . . .” And then she added, her voice quieter, “At least not to me.”

“I thought you were learning not to do that. I thought that was the point of seeing that psychiatrist, so you wouldn’t put yourself in danger like that anymore.” Her voice rose, a hysterical edge creeping into it.