Eerie Read Online Free PDF

herself.
    â€œThey’re . . . all . . . Holly’s files.”
    Hailey looked down at them.
    â€œAll of this?”
    Toll glanced at the files, pressed his lips together, and sighed without answering.
    He was holding something back. And if he was going to keep secrets, she was just going to find out for herself, so she opened the folder on the top of the pile and started reading.
    â€œYou told Uncle Pix you didn’t have any information,” she said as she scanned the pages.
    There was a ton of information—measurements from skid marks left in the parking lot, which they’d matched to a specific tire and wheel base. That narrowed their pool of suspect vehicles to seven possible models, three of which weren’t even registered in the tri-state area.
    â€œI told him I didn’t have any suspects,” he clarified.
    â€œYou lied.” There were three names on a page labeled “Suspects.”
    â€œClose that file.”
    He made a quick grab for the papers and missed.
    â€œPay attention to the road,” she shot back.
    She pressed herself against the window, reading as fast as she could as they pulled into the station.
    There were also some flecks of paint recovered from a smashed utility box at the corner of the parking lot exit. Hailey scanned the lab report, which included a list of manufacturers that used that specific paint.
    She deduced that the police should be looking for a white Ford Explorer with damage to the passenger side.
    Detective Toll put the car in park and ripped the pages out of her hand.
    â€œDon’t go getting the wrong idea about the stuff you just read,” he chastised. “It’s all preliminary. You shouldn’t have read that.”
    â€œYou handed them right to me.”
    â€œI didn’t tell you to read them,” he said, getting out of the car.
    Detective Toll hugged the folders to his chest with one hand and opened the door to the station with the other, motioning Hailey to lead the way. As soon as they crossed the threshold, Toll dropped his folders and vaulted over a tall desk to assist an officer who was on the floor, wrestling with the biggest man Hailey had ever seen.
    A pair of handcuffs swung from the man’s wrist as he landed punch after punch. He was on top of the officer with one hand squeezing the officer’s neck and the other tugging on his service pistol, which, thankfully, was stuck in the holster, when Detective Toll pulled him off.
    Hailey watched them wrangle the giant’s hands back into a set of cuffs. Then she stared at the folders on the floor.
    This is too easy.
    She fell to her knees, scanning each page, committing them to memory. There were interview notes and lists of names and locations as well as photos from the pub and a few of Holly’s shoe (foot and all), which Hailey quickly covered.
    One folder was particularly interesting. It was darker brown than the others and stamped CONFIDENTIAL in big red letters. Most of the pages inside had several lines of fat black marker running across them, obliterating a lot of the text. A visible word here and there indicated the pages had something to do with the fire that had killed her parents.
    She knew she’d guessed right when she uncovered some pictures of her childhood home.
    She puzzled over them.
    One photo showed the house before the fire and one after—both from the same vantage point.
    That’s weird , she thought. Why would they take a picture of her house before it burned down?
    Holding one of the papers up to the light, she discerned the outline of an acronym through the magic marker:
    D.O.P.P.L.E.R.
    Footsteps. Someone was coming. Hailey gathered the folders, put her butt in a chair, and folded her hands.
    When Detective Toll came back out—not over the desk, but through a magnetically locked door—he carried a binder and found Hailey sitting in the lobby like an angel with the papers straightened