“And yet when this girl, this best of all girls, went missing, no one but her mama went looking for her. They said, with no reason to support it, that Mandy must have run away from home. Now we know, two years later, that she’d been stolen and abused. After that, she was murdered and tossed into the sea. If she’d been rich, they would have sent out a search party. If she’d lived in one of the mansions on Culling Pointe, they would have had every officer on the island knocking on doors. But Mandy was poor, and her dad was in jail, and to them, that meant she wasn’t worth their time.”
Nessa paused to wipe her tears with a handkerchief. “There is nothing we can do for Mandy now. The damage has already been done. But there are two ways we can honor her memory. We can identify the other girls found near Danskammer Beach, and we can make absolutely certain that this never happens again—to any girl, no matter who she is or where she comes from.”
As she was walking back to her pew, her eyes panned the crowd. Lucy waved to her and Jo gave her a proud thumbs-up. Art had taken his glasses off to dab his eyes and missed the exchange. It wasn’t until Breanna and Jordan jumped up to greet her with hugs that Nessa spotted the person she’d been seeking. Franklin stood by the church doors, tall and stoic. She hadn’t spoken to him since the day she’d asked him to leave her house. He met her gaze and held it until she turned to sit. When the service was over, she looked for him again, but he’d already gone.
The angel’s trumpet Harriett had planted on the girl in blue’s grave had grown to a height of six feet and burst into bloom. Its enormous flame-colored flowers could be seen from the highway below. It had become known in town as the burning bush. After Mandy’s coffin had been lowered into the ground and the other mourners began making their way to their cars, Harriett and Lucy filled in the grave and planted another angel’s trumpet on top of it.
“It’s going to look like the whole hill is on fire,” Lucy noted.
“That’s the idea,” said Harriett. “Let it serve as a warning.”
Jo stood silently, holding her husband’s hand as their daughter finished burying Mandy Welsh. One story may have ended, but her own family’s remained far from resolved. The man who’d broken into their house had managed to retain one of the best criminal defense lawyers in Manhattan and post a two-million-dollar bail. He was currently under house arrest, with an ankle monitor that kept track of his movements. Worried what Jo might do, Art had begged her not to make any housecalls.
Though the man continued to keep his silence, there was no doubt now about what had happened to girls who were kidnapped for Spencer Harding. When the police searched Harding’s beach house, they’d found a safe filled with Polaroids. The photos showed, in lurid detail, the crimes he’d committed. Jo and Art knew their daughter might have narrowly avoided the same fate. And they’d both agreed to let Harriett punish those involved in whatever way she saw fit.
The third victim remained in the Mattauk morgue, waiting for someone to claim her. With Nessa’s guidance, a forensic artist had created a digital portrait of the girl, and Nessa swore it was her spitting image. She’d been a stunning girl with features experts thought might suggest Chinese ancestry. The media coverage had remained intense for weeks. The story had made every major website, magazine, and newspaper. But no one stepped forward to claim the girl as their own. It was as if she had fallen right out of the sky.
Newsnight
The evening after Mandy’s funeral, Newsnight aired a special episode devoted to the Danskammer Beach murders. For a week, sensational promos had teased exclusive details and never-seen-before evidence. At showtime, Jo, Nessa, and Harriett gathered in front of Jo’s giant television. The police had been uncharacteristically tight-lipped since Spencer Harding’s death. The investigation was still ongoing, they said, whenever the media asked. Now they’d granted Newsnight access to their case files. At least that was what Jo, Harriett, and Nessa assumed. No one from the show had contacted the three of them. Even Josh Gibbon, who’d been busting his ass to keep investigating the case, had no idea what the revelations would be.