Authors: Eric Rickstad
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T
HE MISSING GIRL'S
metallic brown 1989 Monte Carlo was parked at a strange angle. Its trunk was backed up to the side of a dilapidated hay barn, so close to the road that the nose of the Monte Carlo jutted out into the soft shoulder.
Rath stood at the road's edge with Grout to study the scene.
A logging truck howled past with a load of cedar logs, its horn wailing as it kicked up a wind that ruffled Rath's thatch of black hair.
Rath spit road grit from his mouth and pulled the collar of his Johnson wool coat up around his neck.
Grout blew his nose into a red bandana. “The car is registered to Mandy Wilks, the girl,” he said.
Rath knew Grout hadn't wanted to ask for help. They were friends, and they threw darts together, and Grout respected Rath. Still, no young man wanted to ask for help. Especially involving career.
“Her mother reported her missing this morning, after she got a call about the car.” Grout peeked at a sheet of paper in his hand. “Sixteen,” he said. “Last seen Thursday night at about eleven.”
“Where?” Rath said.
“Where she washed dishes. The Lost Mountain Inn.”
“Odd.”
“What?”
“Washing dishes. Odd for a girl,” Rath said. “I was a dishwasher as a kid. The girls always worked out front.”
“Things change,” Grout said.
“Some don't. Like missing girls.”
“She could have taken off of her own free will with a friend,” Grout said, but his voice carried no conviction. It was a loathsome fact about the human condition: Wherever there were girls, some would go missing, plucked like errant threads from the fabric of everyday life and cast into a lurid nightmare of someone else's making. Movies created suspense out of a “forty-Âeight-Âhour window” cops had to find a girl alive, as if kidnapped girls had a “kill-Âby” date. The colder reality remained: A girl gone missing against her will, nine times out of ten, was dead within three hours. Usually after being raped.
“Nobody's touched anything?” Rath said.
“Not me,” Grout said.
Rath rubbed his jaw, his fingers still stained pink with deer blood. “Why's it parked like that?” he muttered.
The snow had melted. Rath surveyed the ground and stepped toward the car with the mindful, deliberate motion of a soldier navigating a minefield.
“No sign of another car,” Grout said. “No tire tracks. Snow is gone, but the cold snap froze the ground pretty solid last few nights.”
“The other car stayed on the road,” Rath said.
“If there was another car.”
“There was.” Rath gazed at the long, deserted stretch of road that ran north into Canada in just under a mile, then looked south to a length of road equally long and deserted. “Unless we think Mandy got out and walked because she was struck with an urge to stroll a country road in the middle of the night with a windchill of ten degrees. Not much chance of getting a boot print.”
He inched closer to the car, analyzing the ground. The search was like being hungry but not knowing what you wanted to eat. You had to open the fridge and peer inside until something made your mouth water: a piece of chocolate cake, a stick of pepperoni. When you saw it, you knew it was just the thing you'd been looking for, but you had to look to
know.
His mother used to tell him when he stood with the refrigerator door open:
If you can't decide what you want, you must not be hungry. Shut the door.
But she'd only been concerned with the electric bill.
“What are you looking for?” Grout said.
“Chocolate cake. A stick of pepperoni.”
Grout shook his head.
Rath craned his neck to peer inside the car as a late nineties white Peugeot, scabbed with rust at the rear fenders, rumbled up roadside, its hazards flashing.
Out stepped Canaan Police Department's forensics team-Âof-Âone and lone part-Âtime junior detective, Sonja Test. Dartmouth graduate,
summa cum laude,
crazed marathon runner with the lean, taut physique to match; wife of Claude Test, wildlife oil-Âpaint artist of limited regional renown; mother of Elizabeth and George, ages six and three.
“Gentlemen,” Sonja said as she hefted her kit from the Peugeot's front seat and nodded.
She caught her short red hair in her hand, pulled it back taut to wrap a rubber band around it and make a stunted ponytail. She tugged a white shower cap over it, then peeled surgical gloves on over her long, slender fingers.
As she set to work on the Monte Carlo, Rath turned to Grout. “What else is in that folder of yours?”
The two men sat in Rath's Scout, the folder open between them on the bench seat.
“Sixteen,” Rath said. A year younger than Rachel. His stomach felt as if he'd swallowed crystal Drano.
“Hard age,” Grout said.
“What age isn't? Emancipated. Nice family you got.”
“Extended.”
“And you personally spoke to the mother?” Rath said.
“Briefly. This morning, after the car was found, and she got worried.”
“Who discovered the car?”
“Lee Storrow. He was spreading salt with the town rig before dawn. Called the dispatcher, pissed off that a car was
parked in the fucking road.
”
Rath pushed the lighter into the dash. If for no other reason, he'd kept the Scout because it had a lighter and a solid metal ashtray.
“So,” Grout said, “we can discount any connection between the person who discovered the car and the disappearance of the girl driving it.”
“If it was her driving it,” Rath said.
“Naturally,” Grout said, though Rath could see that possibility had not occurred to Grout.
Rath lit his cigarette, drew the smoke deep. It tasted like dryer lint, but he'd suck it to the filter anyway. That's why they called it addiction. At least his lips weren't suctioned to a bottle of Beam. Lung cancer instead of cirrhosis. Here's to you.
“What's so funny?” Grout said, catching the shine in Rath's eyes.
“Me. I'm an idiot.”
“And that's funny to you?”
“I rest my case.”
“Can you roll down your window? Your cigarette smokeâ”
“My window hasn't rolled down since Letterman wore sneakers,” Rath said.
Grout rolled down his window and coughed.
“Now that the drama's out of the way,” Rath said. He swept cigarette ash from the report. “I wonderâ”
A rap came at Rath's window, startling him. He dropped his cigarette in his lap, snatched it and stuck it back in his mouth.
Sonja stood at his window, a grin pasted to her face. It was a pretty face.
Rath opened the truck door.
“I'm done with cursory,” Sonja said.
“You shouldn't sneak up on Âpeople,” Rath said.
“
I
saw her from ten feet away,” Grout said.
Rath made to get out of the Scout, and the nerves in his back exploded. He clutched the door, sweat flooding his brow.
“Bad back?” Sonja said, squinting at him.
“You could say that.”
“Heat's good for it.”
“My doc says ice.”
“He's the doctor, I guess.”
Rath flicked his cigarette to the road and stood erect with a wince.
“What's the short version?” Grout asked Sonja.
“Tons of prints. It's like an iPad screen in there. Some hair. Long, red. Probably hers. No blood, to the naked eye. I'll know better once I put the Luminol to it.”
“You won't find anything,” Rath said. “The car's clean.”
“That'll have to wait till Barrons is back anyway,” Grout said.
“It shouldn't. We should move on this,” Sonja said. “No sign of a struggle either. Which means if she was taken, it was someone she knew and trusted, orâ”
“âÂsomeone who tricked her,” Grout finished.
“Right,” Sonja said, not one to be interrupted apparently, even by her pseudosuperior. “Nothing in the trunk but a tire iron, a spare, jumper cables.”
She led them to the Monte Carlo, her pert runner's backside pushing snugly against her faded jeans. Rath looked off toward plowed-Âunder cornfields.
Sonja pointed at the ignition. The keys were in it. “There's cash on the floor,” she said. “Three fives and twenty-Âeight ones.”
“Forty-Âthree dollars,” Grout said.
“Math whiz here,” Sonja said.
“Her share of tips,” Rath said.
“This isn't going to end the way the mother hopes, is it?” Grout said.
Â
ERIC
R
ICKSTAD
IS
the
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author of
The Silent Girls.
His first novel,
Reap
, was a
New York Times
Noteworthy Book. He lives in Vermont with his lovely wife and their daughter and son.
@ericrickstad
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at
hc.com
.
Â
“
The Silent Girls
is Vermont's own
True Detective
. Eric Rickstad masterfully renders Frank Rath, a PI and single father who's been beat up and beat down but never backs off. Three-Âdimensional characters, a moody rural-Ânoir vibe, and a compulsively readable story make this a stunner of a crime novel!”
Steve Ulfelder, Edgar
®
finalist author of
Wolverine Bros. Freight & Storage
“Eric Rickstad's
The Silent Girls
is a bone-Âchilling mystery set in one of New England's darkest corners, the kind of place travelers are well-Âadvised to avoid after nightfall. This well-Âcrafted book will have you staying up late, turning pages and afraid to turn off the light.”
Paul Doiron, author of
The Poacher's Son
“Finely drawn characters, a narrative that beguiles and surprises, and stark, poetic writing make for a novel as dark and brooding as its rural Vermont setting.
The Silent Girls
is both an exceptional detective story and a terrifying meditation on good and evil.”
Roger Smith, international best-Âselling author of
Wake Up Dead
,
Dust Devils
,
Mixed Blood
, and
Sacrifices
“
The Silent Girls
is a thrilling ride to very dark places. I kept turning pages, scared of what I'd find but compelled to look. It'll keep you reading all the way up to its shattering conclusion.”
Jake Hinkson, author of
Hell On Church Street
and
The Big Ugly
“Eric Rickstad writes with the ferocious passion a father has for his deeply loved child and with the precision of a verbal surgeon versed in terror. From the very first, a feeling of dread crept over me and stayed with me until the end, and remains with me days later.
The Silent Girls
is love and terror, a mix of intense feelings that seeps into your heart and does not go away.”
Stephen Foreman, author of the novels
Watching Gideon
and
Toe Hold
Intelligent and profound, this dark and disturbing rural noir twists and turns with relentless suspense. Eric Rickstad writes beautifully, and seamlessly tucks a secret or a surprise around every corner.
Hank Phillippi Ryan, Agatha, Anthony, and Mary Higgins Clark award-Âwinning author of
The Truth Be Told
Fresh, original, absolutely unexpected. A deep, dark, intense mystery that left a scar on my mind, soul and heart. There is a tight tension, an adrenaline racing through the reader as one follows along and can't help but be mystified and enthralled by the spider web tale taking place. You're the fly captured in that web, as the spider smoothly comes to devour its prey.
Classic Book Reader
Compulsively readable. Pitch black. A freak-Âout [with] an all-Âencompassing preoccupation with evil and innocence, a touch of Gothic motif and Stephen King, and a climax that Thomas Harris could have plotted.
Seven Days
A beautifully written literary thriller. A dark, page-Âturning, up-Âall-Ânight story by a great novelist.
Tyler McMahon , author of
Kilometer 99
Instantly elevates the rural noir genre. Every bit the novel of
Winter's Bone
(a favorite). You will be hard pressed to set it aside until you reach the shocking final page.
Drew Yanno, author of
In the Matter of Michael Vogel
Â
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from
The Silent Girls
copyright © 2014 by Eric Rickstad.
LIE IN WAIT. Copyright © 2015 by Eric Rickstad. All rights reserved under International and Pan-ÂAmerican Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-Âbook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-Âengineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperÂCollins e-Âbooks.
EPub Edition SEPTEMBER 2015 ISBN: 9780062424761
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062424778
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