Mrs. Jessup’s eyes widened as she shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Is it possible she had a change of clothing she kept at school? Or maybe even a friend’s house?’

‘Of course, it’s possible…’ Mr. Jessup hedged. ‘But to be honest, those are nothing like my daughter’s style.’ His gaze never wavered from the shorts and top in the plastic bag. ‘Those don’t even resemble the clothes we’ve refused to allow her to purchase in the past.’

Alyssa caught Lynn’s, then Sergeant Boudreaux’s, eye. If they truly didn’t belong to Meghan Jessup, then who did they belong to?

Before leaving the medical examiner’s office, she and Sergeant Boudreaux agreed to stay in touch. In the car, she allowed herself a moment, closing her eyes, sending up a silent thank you that she and Brock hadn’t been faced with the same pain the Jessups were now experiencing. Isaac had escaped; Meghan had not. Witnessing their agonized realization that their entire lives as they’d known had been completely destroyed by their daughter’s death brought Alyssa a new determined resolve to bring justice to the Jessup family.

As she turned the key in the ignition, she prayed she and her team would find Rachel, Jersey, and Katelyn before they met the same fate as Meghan. If they haven’t already. She shushed the voice by calling Cord to fill him in so he could let Hal, Tony, and Joe know.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Wednesday, May 22

Like hot tar on pavement, apprehension clung to Rachel’s insides. At nineteen, she wondered how she could endure this torture day in and day out, let alone how someone as young and innocent as the new girl would survive. She didn’t see how it was possible.

Rachel’s eyes drifted around the room, landing on each of the girls garbed in a rainbow of color that seemed incongruous with their surroundings, and once again she wondered what had happened to Meghan. But, like the others, she didn’t ask. Because, though unspoken, there was a reason they didn’t discuss their ordeals. What transpired upstairs in The Toybox was too horrific to relive, even if it was with others who experienced the same nightmare. Tears trailed both sides of her face as she rested her gaze on the young girl’s prone form. When she’d finally woken, it had taken quite some time before she’d been able to tell them her name. Katelyn Phillipson.

What would be worse – Katelyn surviving – or dying right away? Again, Rachel wondered if Meghan’s sudden disappearance meant she was dead. Was that the end they all faced? Is that what she wanted? When she was in The Toybox, she thought yes, death was enviable. But down here with the others… she found herself hoping they could all find a way to survive this.

What sounded like furniture being moved overhead stole Rachel’s attention away from her fear for the new girl. None of them could guess what was happening upstairs, but what they did know was that it had been several hours – from dusk to daylight and back to darkness – since the noises had begun, and in that time, none of them had been requested. At this point she wasn’t sure which was the most prominent feeling: relief that they’d been left alone… or vomit-inducing dread that she should be mentally preparing for horrors even more unimaginable than what they were already forced to endure.