The souls of lost lake, p.30
The Souls of Lost Lake, page 30
“No,” Meghan whispered. She tossed a look over her shoulder toward the front door, then back to Wren. “I got this, this morning.” Shoving a piece of paper into Wren’s hand, she waited. “I needed you to see it.”
“How’d you know I was here?” Wren asked as she unfolded the crumpled piece of paper that wasn’t unlike the one she’d salvaged from Redneck Harriet.
“I saw your truck.”
Small-town problems. Privacy was hard to come by.
Wren opened the paper. Her breath caught. She met Meghan’s eyes. “Where’d you find this?”
Meghan gave Wren an almost panicked look. “Outside our RV. Taped to Jasmine’s bike.”
“What!” Wren straightened in her chair.
Meghan nodded. “I’m going crazy. Wren, I’m losing it.” Her breath quivered. “I can’t do this any longer, and everyone thinks I’m nuts already.”
Wren looked down at the note, so similar to the one she was just researching. “What does April second, 2016, mean to you?” She had a gut feeling but had to ask anyway.
“It’s Jasmine’s birthday.” Meghan’s eyes welled with tears. “Who would do this?”
“I don’t know.” But she did. The woman in the woods. It was all her.
“And your name.” Meghan jabbed at the paper in Wren’s hand. “Your name is by Jasmine’s birthday. Why?”
Wren spun to her computer and quickly opened another tab. She typed in Trina Nesbitt’s name and Tempter’s Creek. A report came up instantly, discussing the disappearance of Trina, naming Trina’s mother and others searching for her.
“Why are you looking at that?” Meghan leaned over Wren’s shoulder.
“There’s something connecting all of us. But I can’t figure it out.” She eyed Trina’s birth date. It didn’t hold any special significance to her. She skimmed the article.
“Wayne Sanderson.” Wren tapped the computer screen.
Meghan looked confused. “What about him?”
“He helped with Trina’s search.”
“So?”
Wren turned to Meghan. “He’s inserted himself into Jasmine’s search too. His stories of Lost Lake. What if they’re a deflection? Something to keep him involved so he can watch and—”
“You think he’s a psychopath who takes kids?” Meghan breathed. Her fingertips met her lips, which were in a shocked O.
Wren hated voicing her suspicions out loud, but they were there nonetheless. “It makes me wonder. Look. They even interviewed him about Trina’s disappearance, and there—he mentions Ava Coons. Right there.”
“But how do you fit into this? Why would Wayne Sanderson leave a random note on Jasmine’s bike with your name on it?”
“I don’t know.” Wren hesitated. Her fingers alt-tabbed back to the screen where the Stanford, California, news archives waited. Without putting further thought into it, Wren slammed her index finger down on the enter key. The newspaper pulled up.
A black-and-white picture of a baby stared back at them. The headline sent a wave of horror through Wren.
Missing: Taken from park, 2-month-old baby girl. Search continues with no leads.
“What is that?” Meghan’s inquiry was natural.
Wren drew in a carefully controlled breath. If she wasn’t cautious, she could go into a tailspin like Meghan, and take Meghan right along with her.
“Wren?” Meghan’s hand came down on Wren’s forearm.
Wren stared at the familiar baby. The eyes. The cheeks. The hair that, while a shade of newspaper gray in the picture, was a brilliant red in real life. She’d seen this baby in other pictures. There was even one hanging in the hallway of the Blythe home.
“It’s me,” Wren whispered.
“What?” Meghan frowned.
Wren tapped the black-and-white photo of the baby. “That baby is me.”
Meghan stared intently at the headlines, at the picture, then back to Wren. “You are—you’re the—you’re the missing baby?”
Wren couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t speak. White dots filled her vision. She heard Meghan calling her name, a distant echo. Her eyes could barely filter the words below the headline.
Authorities say the window of time making it probable to find the missing baby has expired. The FBI is cautioning parents to monitor their children in the Stanford area, as the kidnapper is still at large. If anyone has any information, please call the Stanford Police Department.
43
Ava
Ava plunged into the clearing. The lake stretched in front of her, its dark waters the grave marking of her family. She knew. She sensed in her gut it would not be long before those of Tempter’s Creek who were sure she was guilty would descend on this place. This time not to learn what had happened to the Coons family, but to string her up. If not by her neck, then by her soul. They’d haul her in with no evidence but their own concocted realism. She’d be at the mercy of a judge, a court, and God knew what would happen then. Fine. Let it be. She was tired. Exhausted. Shaken.
Ava waded into the water, allowing the cold to wash over her legs, soak through her shoes, and saturate the hemline of her dress. She reached forward, fingers outstretched, as if by doing so her family’s bodies would rise from the watery depths. Their cold gray corpses reaching back to her just as they had in her vision. Covered with weeds and silt from the bottom of the lake, but family all the same. Ma, Pa, Ricky, and Arnie . . .
She fell to her knees, the water splashing up and dotting her face, matching her tears. Ava was surprised Noah hadn’t followed her. She’d expected to hear him crashing through the woods behind her. But with that kiss and promising hope had come the shattering reality of their demons that dogged their steps. Hers, the Coons family’s demise. His, Emmaline? Who was Emmaline? Had she received Ava’s letter?
Ava ran her wet hands through her hair, loosening it from her braid. “God, you may as well take me. Just throw me in the water and hold me under.” It was a challenge to a God who was supposed to make sense in a place of confusion. The only sense Ava could make of anything was death. There was finality in it. An ending. This living thing? It was nigh on exhausting. Heartbreaking.
She tried again. “Don’t you have an angel up there what could come down and just make me die?”
Ava looked up to the sky. Clouds. Fluffy. Blue sky. It was really beautiful here. She could understand why her family had homesteaded in this place so far out from Tempter’s Creek. She could see why someone would want to disappear into these woods—to vanish, to never be seen again. There was a peace here, in spite of the echoes of violence that had bled into its very soil.
“You up there listenin’ or are you asleep?” Ava raised her voice.
No face of God shone down and fulfilled her expectation. No angel of death came to meet her request. She wasn’t brave enough to do nothin’ that dramatic herself.
“I don’t want to die anyway,” Ava muttered. Her mouth twisted as she grew aggravated at the tears that were just plumb set on coming today. “I just want your help. You know?” She thought of the painting of Jesus in the parsonage sitting room. So nice-looking, really. Peaceful. A bit like Noah, if she was honest. That gentle softness that hid an underlying passionate protection of fierceness. “Maybe just—do something?” Ava prayed.
She heard him before she saw him. Not God, but Widower Frisk. When she saw him, she stiffened. He’d shaved his beard. But this time he didn’t wear a floppy hat pulled down to his nose. She could see his eyes. Small, narrowed. She knew those eyes. But she didn’t recognize his face without his bushy beard that had covered three-quarters of it since the day she’d met him. He stood on the shoreline behind her. Hunched shoulders. Wearing overalls, not unlike the ones Ava was accustomed to wearing.
She struggled to her feet in the water and faced him.
“What do you want?”
“Whack, whack, whack,” Widower Frisk cackled. He didn’t try to disguise his voice, didn’t hiss or whisper. His words were bolder than that night in the church or the day he’d landed his fist against the side of her face.
Ava pushed through the water and back to shore. She hated the widower in this moment. “You killed ’em. Jipsy. Matthew Hubbard. Didn’t you?” Anger sucked away Ava’s fear.
Widower Frisk rocked back and forth on his feet. He rubbed wrinkled, callused hands together. “You’d like to pin that on me, wouldn’t you, you little witch?”
Ava’s feet cleared the water.
Widower Frisk waved his arms around. “Here’s the damage that begun it all, huh, missy? You an’ that bloody ax. Then you traipsed into town like a special kind of poison. Right into my house. ’Course, I didn’t know it then.” His yellowed eyes scaled her body from top to bottom and then up again. It made her skin crawl. “Had other ideas for you and no plans to let a little chit like you take an ax to me or Jipsy.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ava skirted around him until she was firmly on the shore.
“Wheedlin’ your way in. That’s right.” Widower Frisk was spry. Even in his older years, he was wiry and strong. His eyes were wide, tinged with crazy, and not at all kind. “Got my years’ worth of work outta ya, but then Jipsy. You an’ Jipsy and your little secrets.” He spat a stream of tobacco.
Widower Frisk knew. About Jipsy and Matthew Hubbard. Somehow he knew.
Ava’s nerves settled in a ball in the pit of her stomach. Jipsy had started messin’ around with Matthew Hubbard a year ago. When Ava caught them, they’d sworn her to secrecy. Jipsy with threats of a whippin’, and Matthew with a much kinder approach of bribery. Chocolates. Candies. The like. She’d taken it. What girl wouldn’t be bribed by chocolate? ’Sides, Matthew Hubbard might be a bit sleazy, but he was a keen sight better to look at than Widower Frisk. She’d always wondered why on earth Jipsy had any common-law marriage or commitment to the old geezer.
“It wasn’t my doin’.” Ava tried to convince Widower Frisk of her innocence. Seemed like that was her life’s calling.
“Sure it was.” Widower Frisk smiled again. He gave a broad sweep of his arm. “Fine place you got here.” His cackle was cruel.
Ava narrowed her eyes. “Did you kill my family? So you could have me for free labor? A kid you could use to do all your chores?”
Widower Frisk scowled in disbelief. He hiked toward the burned-out ruin of the cabin. Ava dogged his steps from a safe distance.
“You think I did this.” It was a statement, not a question. He bent and picked up a charred piece of wood that had once been part of a wall. He tossed it into the ruins. “I didn’t do this.” When Widower Frisk turned toward her, his expression was bitter. “But you did this to me. You let Jipsy get away. You an’ your secrets. S’why I hunted you down. Scared ya too, didn’t I? The church? The woods? That ax-head? Folks in town are stupid. Wharn’t hard to figure out the preacher was hidin’ you in his room. Little hussy that you are.”
“It wasn’t like that!” Ava hurried to Noah’s defense.
Widower Frisk’s eyes narrowed. He stepped toward her. Ava took a step backward. “‘Forty whacks’ . . . you ain’t the first female to kill her parents.”
“You honestly think I could have hacked my parents to death? I was a child!”
“Ya came outta the woods draggin’ an ax and covered in blood. This place was burned down, blood in the grass, ax marks in the soil and wood. Your family was missin’. I came and looked myself.”
“You did?” Ava paused. She hadn’t known Widower Frisk had inserted himself into the search for what had happened here so many years before.
The widower walked a circle around Ava, eyeing her up and down as if determining what to do with her. “Sure did. I was the one what found the drag marks in the mud. Finger marks like someone was clawing at the mud.”
“They were dead.” Ava’s voice was weak. Her legs were trembling.
“’Course they were.” Widower Frisk patronized her. “You didn’t do nothin’ to them. So’s you said for years. An’ everyone believed you until Hubbard done showed up dead.”
“You killed him,” Ava accused. “You were jealous and murdered him.”
“Me?” Widower Frisk slapped his hand to his heart. He continued to circle her, his eyes wild. “Never. Killin’ ain’t my thing. Well,” he added and tipped his head, “it wasn’t. Not him no ways.”
“I didn’t kill Hubbard,” she argued. Ava looked around for a way to escape. He was older. She would have the advantage over him for speed. But she also knew the widower. He knew these woods better than she did. He was sprightly. Odds were he’d find her again before anyone from Tempter’s Creek actually made their way to the Coons homestead.
“’Course you didn’t. Neither did I.”
“Who—who did then?”
“Ava!” The shout came from deep in the woods. It didn’t sound like Noah, but it snagged Ava’s attention.
Widower Frisk leapt forward and grappled her to the ground. Ava screamed, kicking out at the man, his springy body straddling her. His hands pressed her shoulders to the ground. Ava bucked and kicked her heels. Widower Frisk sat on her legs and leaned close to her face, the heels of his hands digging into her shoulders, tobacco juice dripping from his mouth onto her cheek.
“Little witch. All you had to do was tell me about Jipsy an’ you wouldn’t be here.” His hands snaked to her neck. Ava twisted her head away, trying to sit up against him. Arms pinned at her sides, she opened her mouth to shout. Widower Frisk’s thumbs dug into her throat. His eyes were wide, blue staring into hers with the gleam of the devil in them. “You shoulda told me. Had to find out from Jipsy. Found her cryin’ in the woodshed like a little girl. Blubberin’. All a mess.”
Ava choked. Coughed. She dug her fingers into the dirt. She heard her name again. “Someone’s—comin’,” she choked out, hoping it would send Widower Frisk running and release her to find her breath.
The man ignored her. Ignored the shout. He had lost his mind with purpose, and his purpose was only her.
Widower Frisk’s breath was rancid. “Ohhhh Matthewwwww!” He made a mockery of Jipsy crying. “Matthew’s dead, an’ the town’s blamin’ poor Ava.”
Stars danced in Ava’s vision. In the distance she heard her name again.
“Funny whatcha can do when you’re mad as a hornet. Next thing I knew, Jipsy was dead too.” Widower Frisk sniffed as if he might cry. “What’d I do to make her run off an’ be with Hubbard? Huh? I didn’t mean to hurt her. Not stabbin’ her like I did. But she wouldn’t listen. An’ you? After all I done for you? Givin’ you a place to live? Feedin’ ya?”
Black shutters closed over Ava’s eyes.
The pressure released on her throat. Widower Frisk’s weight was thrown off her. Ava gasped, choked, her throat throbbing as she attempted to suck in air. Her vision cleared. A man tackled the widower. They tussled in the dirt, shoes kicking up stones and patches of earth as they grunted.
Ava rolled onto her hands and knees. Saliva dripped from her mouth onto the ground. She retched, her throat working to clear itself. Air sucked into her lungs. She drew in deep breaths, coughing as she did so. So close to dyin’. She’d come so close.
The sound of a fist connecting with Widower Frisk yanked Ava’s attention. She saw the man who’d pulled Frisk off her rise to his feet. He took a few steps and hefted something into his hands.
Ava tried to clear her vision.
The item was long. Thick. Circular at the bottom where one powerful hand gripped the shaft, but the top was a dull metal color, held just below by the man’s other hand. He sauntered toward the widower, whose eyes were now turned on the man. Widower Frisk backed away on his backside, then lifted his arms to shield his head.
“No! Don’t do this!” he screamed.
Ava’s eyes cleared. She watched as Ned lifted the logger’s ax over his head.
Ava’s screams combined with the widower’s as the ax came down with a vicious stroke.
44
Wren
Gravel spit from her rear tires as Wren backed out from the parking spot outside the camp’s lodge. Tristan Blythe wasn’t in his office. Anger and hurt boiled inside her. Missing? A missing child? Wren fumbled with her phone as she drove, ignoring all previous cautions not to be on a phone while commandeering a vehicle. She pulled up another article and skimmed it, her eyesight bouncing between the phone’s screen and the road ahead that wound through the forest land.
The missing daughter of Phillip and Sue Johnson has not yet been found. A week after the baby went missing at the local park, authorities state they have no further suspects and refrain to comment whether the child is believed to be alive.
“Phillip and Sue Johnson.” Wren said the names aloud. It was unreal. The names of two individuals that only an hour or two before, she’d never heard of. Never had a remote thought that someone other than Tristan Blythe and his blathering obsession with Tolkien and literature could be her parent.
How?
How was she a missing child? Wren turned the steering wheel as she rounded a corner. She’d heard stories of people who’d adopted, not realizing the child they received had been stolen. Was that it? But then wouldn’t there still be some sort of adoption records? Black market? Maybe her parents had bought her. A private off-the-records adoption. That would make sense. It kept them justifiably innocent—sort of.
She’d left Meghan at the library. Wren knew Meghan was going to call Ben. Maybe Ben would start believing her now. Maybe the police would. The police . . .
Wren wrenched the steering wheel the other direction as a rabbit streaked across the road. She should contact the police. No. The can of worms that would open! She needed more answers before she called the authorities on her own father—or adoptive father—or whatever he was. And it still didn’t explain what her past had to do with Jasmine Riviera’s disappearance, or Trina Nesbitt’s dead body, or Ava Coons. Right now she wanted answers.
Finding her father was step number one, and she knew if he wasn’t in his office, he had probably driven to the camp’s off-site property, where they had a staff cabin reserved for those needing to get away. He liked to put together educational materials for the camp, and he preferred to do it in solitude.
