The Body Finder

inner turmoil.

But just like when she was eight, when sleep finally claimed her, it came at a cost. Nightmares of the dead girl drifted through the waves of her subconscious. Pale, lifeless eyes watched her closely whenever she closed her own. And no matter how shocking the images were, she couldn’t avoid them as sleep reclaimed her, again and again, until the dawn.

She went back to school too soon, but didn’t realize it until it was too late.

That Monday, as she ventured out, she thought the diversion would be good for her. Jay was relieved to see her, and even though Violet was still unable to ask for his forgiveness, his presence made her feel better…almost alive again.

He reached out to her and held her cold hand as they walked to class together. At any other time that simple gesture would have caused her heart to skip beats, but at the moment, it simply reminded Violet that she was still awake.

What she hadn’t bargained for was that what had happened over the weekend, at the lake, hadn’t happened only to her, or to the two of them. It was as if it had happened to the entire school. And every student who could get close enough wanted to talk about the events… They wanted her to relive it for them, over and over again.

How did Violet see her, the dead girl?

Did she recognize her?

What was it like seeing a dead body?

Did she think the girl had drowned? Was there blood? Did she see bruises?

Was she missing body parts?

The questions were endless.

Those who really knew Violet, her friends, were more sensitive but no less chatty on the topic. And their questions, for some reason, bothered Violet more than the predictably grim curiosity of the others. They were too personal.

Was Violet all right? Did she want to talk about it? Did her uncle say if they knew who the girl was?

She felt like concern for her was being paraded around like an exhibition, and even when she tried to change the subject, which she did as often as she could, they always managed to bring it back around to the topic they really wanted to discuss: the dead girl in the water.

Jay was the only one who understood her, the only one who seemed to know that she wasn’t ready for this yet. He stayed as close to her as he could throughout the day, and even though Violet thought that she should be trying to offer some sort of comfort to him, she doubted that she could have brought herself out of her own well of self-pity long enough to try. He didn’t seem to mind, though. He didn’t appear to be damaged the way she was.

At home, her parents were patient. They listened when she talked, and she did talk to them, but when she was finished they would leave her alone again. It was a cautious dance as they took great care to stay out of her way, and she wondered if they thought she were fragile or breakable. Instead of being grateful for the space they gave her, she felt annoyed that they considered her so weak.

Her uncle Stephen made regular appearances during that first week too, checking in on her and dropping off cookies that her aunt Kat had baked, the real homemade kind that didn’t come in a roll from the refrigerated section at the grocery store. Violet tried but couldn’t seem to find it in herself to appreciate the effort her aunt had made.

And then, almost simultaneously, two things happened that changed everything.

Just one week after Violet found the body in the lake, another dead girl was discovered.

It was exactly one week to the day.

Then, on the following day, and two cities away, on a Sunday afternoon, the girl from the lake-Carys Kneer-was buried by her family…laid to rest in proper fashion.

Once and for all.

And despite the fact that another body had just been found, Violet was suddenly at peace with the world again. She seemed to abruptly wake from the haze that had claimed her.

And she stayed that way…

Until the next girl vanished.

CHAPTER 7

BY MONDAY, EVERYONE AT SCHOOL HAD HEARD about the discovery of a second body. The news was bigger this time, not just because another girl was dead, or because she’d been found so close to home. It was bigger news because of who the girl was.

Brooke Johnson might not have attended White River High School, but she had been a student in the next closest town. And as happens with kids in small towns, their social circles had overlapped: they attended the same parties, dated the same boys, and hung out in the same places. Brooke had been popular, which didn’t necessarily translate into being well liked, but which definitely made her more important on the gossip ladder. Violet hadn’t known Brooke personally, but she knew who Brooke was, in the same way that kids from Brooke’s school would know who Lissie Adams was.

The other thing that made Brooke’s death more newsworthy was that it established a pattern…at least in the eyes of the community at large.

They knew now what Violet had known all along: that the girl in the lake had been murdered before being dumped in the water. And despite the fact that the authorities could neither confirm nor deny a connection between the two bodies, locally, no one really doubted it. Two girls abducted, and then subsequently murdered and discarded so close to each other, in such a short period of time, hardly seemed like a coincidence.

If it walks like a duck, seemed to be the sentiment regarding the assumed correlation, and people were reacting accordingly.

Grief counselors had been made available at several area schools, including White River in Buckley. There were assemblies and after-school classes scheduled about personal safety, stranger danger, and self-defense. Suddenly every girl in school was preoccupied with concerns over her own well-being. And despite the fact that they were not actually permitted under the school’s “no- tolerance” environment, tiny cans of pepper spray became something of a staple-like lip gloss and tampons-in nearly every purse in school.

But by the middle of the week, conversations began to feel more normal again, and while safety was still a real issue, even Brooke Johnson’s death was eventually eclipsed by the trivial quest for lighthearted rumors to cut through the gloom.

Jay, on the other hand, was neither eclipsed nor forgotten. And as the last days of summer drifted toward fall, the number of lovesick girls trailing behind him on any given day seemed to multiply.

While she’d been locked in the grip of her own troubles, Violet had temporarily forgotten to be jealous of those other girls and had finally remembered how to just be Jay’s friend again. During those days before the girl from the lake was finally buried in her hometown, Jay had been the one who kept Violet sane. He slipped candy bars into her backpack for her to find and left little notes in her locker just to let her know he was thinking about her. She leaned on him every step of the way, and he never once complained. And afterward, when she felt back to her old self again, at least mostly anyway, he was still there.

She wondered what she’d done to deserve a friend like him, someone who never