redirect the conversation. She pulled at his arm but he shook her off.
“But you must have seen something,” Jim insisted. “You had to be facing him when he stabbed you. Try to think.”
“Jim, please,” Mara whispered.
“Mr. Landry,” I said firmly and pressed the call button for the nurse. “Look at Cora. You’re scaring her. Going about it this way won’t give you the answers you want. Let’s step outside and talk about it.”
My words seemed to bring him to his senses. He stared down at his daughter, who was crying silently. “Shh, Cora,” he said. “I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to upset you.” He cradled her bandaged head in his hands. “I’m sorry. I just want to get the person who did this to you and I know it wasn’t some stupid legend. It was a real person and I don’t want him to hurt anyone else.” He kissed her cheek and this seemed to soothe her.
A nurse stepped into the room and I watched him leave, knowing that he was overwhelmed and feeling helpless. Still, I didn’t like Jim Landry much. Something about him rubbed me the wrong way. I moved away from Cora’s bed so the nurse could take her temperature and examine her bandages. “What’s your pain level?” the nurse asked. “Zero being no pain and ten being the worst.”
“A nine,” Cora said, her chin trembling. “Everything hurts.”
When the nurse left to get something to ease Cora’s pain, Mara dropped into a nearby chair. “The girls did a school project on Joseph Wither,” she said weakly. “Last November. For Mr. Dover’s class.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t grow up around here so I don’t really know who Joseph Wither is. Was,” I said. “A character of some sort?”
“An urban legend,” Kendall said. “Mr. Dover assigned the same project to us when I was in sixth grade. We had to research an urban legend and present it to the class. Cora and her friends made a movie.”
“On this Joseph Wither person?” I asked and Mara nodded. “So lots of people could have known that the girls worked on this project?”
“I guess.” Mara shrugged. “Mr. Dover and Cora’s classmates would have known for sure.” Mara rubbed her arms as if trying to warm herself. “Do you think someone might have pretended to be Joseph Wither and lured the girls to the train yard and attacked them there?”
“Oh, my God, that’s horrible,” Kendall said, chewing on her thumbnail.
“Or perhaps, because of the project they worked on, the Crow girl’s thoughts immediately went to Joseph Wither,” I suggested. “It sounds like the police are looking into all the possibilities. The important thing to remember is that Cora is safe now. No one can hurt her here.”
Text Message Exchange
Between Jordyn Petit and Violet Crow
Thursday, December 21, 2017
Jordyn: Can u believe Cora did that to me?
Violet: Yeah, that was crazy!
Jordyn: She ruined the whole thing
Violet: It was pretty bad. Poor Kaley
Jordyn: Poor Kaley and poor me! Did you see Gabe’s face?
Violet: I don’t think Cora could believe it herself
Jordyn: I’ll get her back. I don’t know exactly how, but she’ll pay
Case #92-10945
Excerpt from the journal of Cora E. Landry
Dec. 4, 2017
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about JW44. In my head I know someone must be playing a joke on me, but mostly I want to believe it. To believe in him. I decided that if what JW44 said about the yearbook in the library was real, then I’d believe everything else.
Today Jordyn complained to Mr. Dover that we’d hit a dead end with finding any more information about Wither. Dover asked us what we tried and she listed all our sources. “Keep looking,” Mr. Dover said, putting his arm around her. “I have faith in you.”
At lunch I brought up the idea of going to the library to see what we could find out. “I hate the library. It’s so dumb,” Jordyn said, putting her hands around her neck as if studying there would bore her to death. “Besides, it’s so dinky it probably won’t have any new information, anyway.”
I told her that it wouldn’t hurt to try and that I was going to the library with or without them, that the project was due soon and we had to get it done. Violet said she would go and then after a minute Jordyn shrugged and said she’d go, too.
When we got to the library I really wanted to go to the yearbooks but Jordyn went straight to the librarian