While the other women forged ahead, something held Nessa back.
“Here.” It felt as if someone was whispering in her ear. Nessa turned her head and saw the girl standing just off the path, a few feet away.
Nessa let go of her T-shirt and the collar slipped down. The dead girl was a baby. Seventeen, maybe, eighteen at most. Her own daughters’ age. She was dressed for a party in a pale blue dress that clung to her thin body. A tiny quilted leather purse dangled from her shoulder. The girl’s black curls were styled in twists. Someone had spent nine long months making this beautiful creature. Whoever her parents were, she must have brought them great joy. And then some demon had killed her and dumped her here, wearing her prettiest dress, on the side of a desolate highway.
“Where are you, baby?” Nessa did her best not to cry. Her grandmother had warned her that her heart was too soft and she would have to work hard to stay strong. Nessa’s job was to find the girls so their families could mourn.
“Here,” the girl said without moving her lips. She pointed at a black plastic mass that lay slumped against a tree twenty feet off the trail. Nessa forged her way through the dense foliage. Poison ivy brushed her exposed ankles and branches snared her hair. The stench grew overpowering as Nessa got closer to the garbage bag.
The second most important part of the job was to bear witness to the wounds. You have to look at the truth, Nessa’s grandmother had told her, no matter how awful. The ghosts need someone to know what happened before they can move on. Nessa stared down at the black trash bag. She wasn’t supposed to cry, but she couldn’t help it. Some other mother’s baby was wrapped up in that plastic. It was only by the grace of God that it wasn’t one of Nessa’s own girls.
“Dear Lord, give me strength,” she whispered. She knew she’d have to open the bag, but there was nothing on earth she wanted to do less.
“You found her,” Harriett said. She and Jo had appeared at Nessa’s side.
“I can’t believe this is happening.” It hadn’t seemed real to Jo until that moment. “We have to call the police.”
“Not yet,” Nessa told them. “I need to see what was done to her.”
“Oh my God, why?” Jo cried. “So you can be completely fucked up for the rest of your life?” She had no idea what Nessa had seen during her years working at the hospital. She didn’t know yet what Nessa knew—that God needed some people to look at things the rest of the world couldn’t face.
“I need to see her so she can go and be at peace knowing there’s someone who will never forget.”
Nessa squatted down beside the trash bag. The red plastic cinch string had been tied in a fancy bow. She took several pictures before she used a twig to pull the bow loose and open the mouth of the bag. Nessa heard Jo vomiting behind her, but refused to turn away. Curled up inside was a rotting corpse. If not for the girl’s hair, Nessa wouldn’t have recognized her. Her smooth, lovely skin was now a mottled green, and there was no trace left of her pretty blue dress. Naked and broken, she’d been used up and thrown away.
Nessa rose and returned to the spot where she’d left the ghost standing on the side of the trail. She reached for the girl’s hand, and while she couldn’t quite grasp it, she could feel its presence. “You can go now,” she told the girl. “I promise you, I will find your family, and my friends and I will punish the person responsible.”
Back in South Carolina, the dead girl had vanished as soon as Nessa’s grandmother had spoken to her. This one remained. She wasn’t ready to leave.
“There,” she told Nessa. She lifted one of her long, bare arms and pointed down the trail toward the ocean.
“Baby, I told you, I found your body,” Nessa assured her. “You don’t need to be here anymore.”
“There,” the girl repeated, her arm still raised.