Gone to Ground by Brandilyn Collins Read Free Book Online Page B

into our bedroom and to my dresser. I leaned over to slide out the bottom drawer, full of regular-sized clothing. One day I'd be able to fit into them again. I lifted the pile on the right, feeling to the bottom. My plastic-coated fingers brushed the small paper bag I'd hidden yesterday. I pulled it out, sat on the bed, and dumped out its contents.
    Out rolled a swath of toilet paper.
    Biting the inside of my lip, I unwrapped the paper, layer after layer, my fingers clumsy in the gloves. Finally the objects I'd so carefully protected lay before me.
    Two cotton swabs, both stained red. The blood on the doorknob had been long dried by the time I found it. The only way I could swab it was to dampen the cotton.
    Would a tiny bit of water make a difference in DNA testing?
    Crazy, saving this evidence, then cleaning the rest of it off the doorknob.
    I stared at the blood. Was it Erika's?
    My nerves tingled. What was I going to do with this? If I took it to the police and DNA matched, they'd arrest my husband.
    I closed my eyes, picturing the cops at our door, Mike's hands cuffed behind his back. Neighbors watching, word spreading across town. The look Mike would give me, his betrayer, as they pushed him into the squad car.
    If they let him go, he'd kill me.
    I stared at the swabs. I could take them down to the police right now. Show them the bruises on my neck. Mike wouldn't know—until they came to arrest him. Would they do that right away? If not I'd have to tiptoe around the house. Do nothing to set him off.
    But what if he found out?
    When I made these swabs, I wore plastic gloves, careful not to leave my own prints on the package. Just in case I sent it anonymously to police.
    Now I couldn't even bring myself to do that.
    The red cotton cried out to me, demanding justice. I couldn't stand to look at it anymore.
    Carefully I rewound the two swabs in the toilet paper, then placed them in the bag. Returned the package to the bottom of my drawer.
    I closed the drawer with a firm push, then turned around to face my empty bedroom.
    And the rest of my life.

http://www.pulitzer.org/works/2010-Feature-Writing
    2010 Pulitzer Prize
    Feature Writing
    The Jackson Bugle
    Gone to Ground
    What happens to a small, quiet Southern town when evil invades in the form of a serial killer?
    By: Trent Williams
    October 29, 2010
    (Excerpt)
    Legend of the Amaryllis cemetery ghost dates back to the early years of the town. In 1871 Winifred Prathers, wife of the town's first banker, was mourning their young son's death from diphtheria. As she knelt at the grave in the gloaming, she felt a rush of cold air at her back. Turning, she beheld a figure in dark clothing, whose face she could not discern. Man or woman? The figure clenched both hands to its chest and bowed its head, as if grieving for her loss. "Who are you?" Mrs. Prathers managed—and the form fizzled into pieces that melted into the gathering darkness.
    Sightings continued after that, the reports handed down from one generation to the next. Always the figure remained androgynous yet graceful, chilling yet empathetic, as if it mourned its own unrelinquishing form tethered between worlds, belonging to neither.
    As Amaryllis grew, its cemetery spread to include land on the other side of Turtle Creek, which once formed its rear boundary. While the front of the burial place sits at street level, the back drops down a hill and into a small field that borders some of the finest homes in town. In the 1930s grand stone steps were built into that hill, affording easy access for the elite to pay respects to their deceased. Apparently the ghost applauded the stone steps as well. The specter was seen ascending and descending, as well as dipping its feet into Turtle Creek, known for its unusually frigid water. Perhaps the ghost found comfort in the creek, the one entity colder than itself. That is, until the Closet Killer appeared.

Chapter 9
Cherrie Mae

    The phone rang a dozen times before I could