Sleep Softly
Four little girls–each blond, each on the verge of adolescence–stolen from their families.Their bodies discovered months later in shallow graves, surrounded by trinkets they never owned, clutching a scrap of paper bearing a cryptic verse. As a forensic nurse in rural South Carolina, Ashlee Davenport Chadwick acts as both caregiver and cop, gathering evidence from anyone who arrives in the local E.R. as the result of a crime. It's a tough job, both physically and emotionally draining, but deeply satisfying.Then a child's red shoe is discovered on Davenport property. The evidence leads Ashlee to the body of a missing girl and her work suddenly invades every aspect of her life. As an expert and a witness, she must call upon all her resources. And when the killer's eye turns to her, she becomes intimately involved with a crime that tests her mind and her spirit…and the price of failure will be another child's life.
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GWEN HUNTER
sleep softly
Contents
Acknowledgments
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
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
FOR HELP ON MUSES:
S. Joy Robinson, who did research and brought me wonderful books on the subject.
And Misty Massey, who gave me the idea in the first place.
FOR MEDICAL HELP:
I have tried to make the medical sections of Sleep Softly as realistic as possible. Where mistakes may exist, they are mine, not the able, competent and creative medical workers in the list below.
Susan Prater, O.R., Tech and sister-in-love, in South Carolina
Earl Jenkins, Jr., M.D., in South Carolina
James Maynard, M.D., in South Carolina
Eric Lavondas, M.D., in North Carolina
Randall Pruett, R.N., in South Carolina
As always, for making this a stronger book:
Miranda Stecyk, my editor, who had a massive editing job in this one! Kisses!
Jeff Gerecke, my agent.
Lynn Prater, esthetician and owner of Serenity Spa in Rock Hill, South Carolina, who gave me all the skin info (hope I got it right) and who keeps my skin glowing.
My husband, for answers to questions that pop up, for catching so much in the rewrites and for his endless patience.
My mother, Joyce Wright, for editing as I work.
To the love of my life who
Handles all the details
Is never boring, though is often hard to keep up with Writes wonderful songs
Didn’t laugh when I wanted to learn to whitewater kayak
Fixes the trucks and the RV and anything that breaks in the house.
Painted my dining room and didn’t balk at the dark garnet color
Learned to dance just for me
Rubs my feet when they hurt
Works 16 hours a day because he loves it
And who is a man of honor. There are so few in the world today.
Prologue
He spotted his landmark, a lightning-blasted tree, its bark peeled back to expose pale, dead wood, and turned left onto a little-used tertiary road. The pavement was pitted and cracked, and the old Volvo shuddered as the right front wheel slammed into a particularly deep pothole. The girl who hadn’t been his daughter shifted on the seat beside him, her head hitting the window with a thump and whipping toward him.
He caught her one-handed and eased her back to the seat. Her earrings tinkled softly beneath the music on the CD player. Violins harmonized the heartbreaking melody of a Mozart sonata.
Slowing, he pulled the black velvet throw over her again and patted her shoulder. She didn’t respond. He didn’t expect her to. She had been dead nearly an hour.
There were no streetlights here, the road disappearing into the darkness. A doe stood on the verge of dead grass, watching the car. She was unafraid, her jaw moving as she grazed on the coarse vegetation. “Did you see that deer?” he asked the girl. “You like deer.” She said nothing. He patted her shoulder again.
The old graveyard appeared just ahead, the damaged bronze horse beneath the Confederate soldier casting a bizarre shadow. The nose of the horse had broken off when vandals had thrown the statue to the ground in 1998. The cost of repairing the monument had been more than the local historical society had been able to acquire, and so the horse, while returned to its perch and secured to its base, remained a half-faced mount. He knew all this and much more; he’d done tedious, fatiguing research into the family tree and this graveyard. “Research is paramount, right, honey?”
The girl was still silent. When he braked in the graveyard, she slid down the seat, her body curling limply on the floor. “Sorry, sweetheart. But we’re here now.”
Leaving her in the car, the motor running, he took a flashlight and walked the perimeter of the graveyard from the monument clockwise, until he reached the horse again. The New York Philharmonic continued to play the Mozart piece as he paced an approximate ten feet to the family plot. Six generations of Shirleys were buried here, several with Confederate memorials on their headstones. Others were heroes of the First and Second World Wars. A husband and wife were buried side by side, though they had died two decades apart in the late 1800s. The husband, Caesar Olympus Shirley, the wife, Susan Chadwick Shirley. Five children had died and been buried within one week. Flu? Cholera? Strep? There had been no historical documentation.
The girl would like the Shirley children. He had seen an old daguerreotype of the family. They looked like nice people.
Back at the Volvo, he changed the CD to Vivaldi, opened the trunk and removed a shovel, a second flashlight and four small statues made of polished brass. They shone like gold in the light, each of them dressed in Grecian robes with arms lifted high, fingertips touching so their arms made a circle, as if they held the world. Each had devices at her hip, delicately molded brass instruments. He tucked a Bible under one arm and carried a small pink box by its plastic handle. A child’s lunch box he’d obtained on eBay. The girl had been delighted.
