Widow Lake

WIDOW LAKE A TOTALLY PULSE-POUNDING CRIME THRILLER FILLED WITH JAW-DROPPING TWISTS RITA HERRON BOOKS BY RITA HERRON Detective Ellie Reeves 1. The Silent Dolls 2. Wildflower Graves 3. The Burning Girls 4. Frozen Souls 5. Stolen Angels 6. Hidden Bones 7. The Girl in the River 8. Widow Lake Available in audio 1. The Silent Dolls (available in the UK and the US) 2. Wildflower Graves (available in the UK and the US) 3. The Burning Girls (available in the UK and the US) 4. Frozen Souls (available in the UK and the US) 5. Stolen Angels (available in the UK and the US) 6. Hidden Bones (available in the UK and the US) 7. The Girl in the River (available in the UK and the US) CONTENTS Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Chapter 58 Chapter 59 Chapter 60 Chapter 61 Chapter 62 Chapter 63 Chapter 64 Chapter 65 Chapter 66 Chapter 67 Chapter 68 Chapter 69 Chapter 70 Chapter 71 Chapter 72 Chapter 73 Chapter 74 Chapter 75 Chapter 76 Chapter 77 Chapter 78 Chapter 79 Chapter 80 Chapter 81 Chapter 82 Chapter 83 Chapter 84 Chapter 85 Chapter 86 Chapter 87 Chapter 88 Chapter 89 Chapter 90 Chapter 91 Chapter 92 Chapter 93 Chapter 94 Chapter 95 Chapter 96 Chapter 97 Chapter 98 Chapter 99 Chapter 100 Chapter 101 Chapter 102 Chapter 103 Chapter 104 Chapter 105 Chapter 106 Chapter 107 Chapter 108 Chapter 109 Chapter 110 Chapter 111 Chapter 112 Chapter 113 Chapter 114 Chapter 115 Chapter 116 Chapter 117 Chapter 118 Chapter 119 Chapter 120 Chapter 121 Chapter 122 Chapter 123 Chapter 124 Chapter 125 Chapter 126 Chapter 127 Chapter 128 Chapter 129 Chapter 130 Chapter 131 Chapter 132 Chapter 133 Chapter 134 Chapter 135 Chapter 136 Chapter 137 Chapter 138 Chapter 139 Chapter 140 Chapter 141 Chapter 142 Chapter 143 Chapter 144 Chapter 145 Chapter 146 Chapter 147 Chapter 148 Hear More from Rita Books by Rita Herron A Letter From Rita The Silent Dolls Wildflower Graves The Burning Girls Frozen Souls Stolen Angels Hidden Bones The Girl in the River Acknowledgments To my amazing editor Christina Demosthenous for bringing the Ellie Reeves series to life! PROLOGUE WIDOW LAKE 2013 Amy Dean had made a lot of mistakes in her twenty years. Some of them her fault for being stupid and naïve. Some of them not her fault because she’d been thrown into the deep uncharted territory of the foster system by every adult in her life. Feeling unloved and unwanted, she’d blindly paddled through the muddy waters, sinking and flailing until she’d almost drowned. So many times, she’d imagined herself trapped by the ghosts that dwelled in the haunted lake, her grave unmarked, her disappearance unnoticed. She’d learned the hard way to hang tough. To fight. To tolerate the ghosts and not allow the pain to destroy her. But then she had Paisley and the world was filled with a bright beam of hope. She stroked her precious two-year-old little girl’s soft brown hair and rolled her aching shoulders as she tucked Paisley into the back of her beat-up VW and buckled her seatbelt. Today she’d cleaned houses for the “Ladies of the Lake”—that’s what they called their little group. Three of them were nice and paid her well, the other an obsessive-compulsive control freak who demanded Amy redo things a thousand times if she saw a wrinkle in the bedding or found a speck of dust anywhere. She wanted to quit that woman more than anything. But Paisley had to eat and needed new shoes and a roof over her head. Amy would do whatever it took, swallow her pride and work for dirt cheap to take care of her beloved daughter. Yes, she’d made mistakes. But as she drove the short distance to Lake Haven Apartments, the complex which housed half the students at Widow Peak College, she heard little Paisley’s soft breathing echoing in the back of the car and refused to call her a mistake. Paisley was the best thing that had happened to her. After years of torment and anguish, Amy had a family. Someone to love. Someone who loved her back. Someone who made her want to be better. To earn a degree and get a proper job so they could move to a nicer place and take vacations like real families did. “We’ll be home soon, baby,” she murmured as she turned onto the road leading to the complex. She recognized a few cars belonging to other coed girls, although she hadn’t made friends. While they indulged in party mode on the weekends and even during the week, she worked during the afternoons, had a child to look after and studied when Paisley went to bed. And truthfully, she didn’t want to discuss her daughter with them. Too many questions. Ones she didn’t want to answer. Her baby was her business and nobody else’s. Not that she minded staying in. A party was what had gotten her into trouble three years ago. That trash can full of hooch punch… Her stomach roiled at the thought. Dumb. Foolish. Rum had short-circuited her brain and turned her into mush. The drunken blindness had robbed her. Then he took the rest. She hadn’t cried out or fought. She was too far under. Then six weeks later… the morning sickness began.