Page 24 of Distress Signal

“Yes. It looked like she had cleared the area herself to set up camp.”

“That’s so…odd.”

“What is?”

“She called me on Sunday, complaining about the cold.” I chuckled at the memory. The same thing had happened seven years ago, where the nights had gotten too frigid to sleep outside, so we’d gotten the motel room for the last two. “So she checked into the motel.”

The sheriff scribbled in his little notebook. “I’ll be in touch with the owner,” he mused, more to himself than to me. Then he looked up. “You reported her missing on Thursday morning,correct?” I nodded. “Have you ever had to report her missing before?” A shake of my head. “Then why this time?”

“I knew something was wrong,” I said quietly. “I had a bad feeling before she even left, and when she sent me this text on Tuesday evening, that nagging in my gut got worse. But I waited, hoping she’d turn up.”

“What text?”

I fished my phone out of my purse and navigated to my messages with Lainey, then passed it over to him.

Lane studied it, then handed it back. “Who is thisheshe referred to?”

I debated whether or not to tell him about the stalker, given Lainey’s stubborn refusal to involve law enforcement of any kind.

But Lainey was gone now, and if her stalker had something to do with this, the sheriff needed to know.

As best as I could, I boiled down six and a half year’s-worth of creepy texts, calls, emails, and social media DMs into a succinct explanation.

“So you don’t even know this guy’s name,” he mused, leaning back in his chair and crossing thick, tattooed arms over his chest. “Were you and your sister not close?”

“She’s my best friend,” I ground out, growing irritated with his irreverence. “But we both had secrets, and this was hers. Her phone is going to be your best bet to get info on him.”

“Unfortunately, her phone is missing.”

I didn’t have a response for that, and Lane leaned forward again, picking up his pen and plowing ahead.

“Can you tell me why she was in the area? From Tennessee to Dusk Valley is a long way to travel for some hiking.”

“We own a photography business, and we had a client from the area reach out, wanting us to do an engagement shoot.”

More scribbling.

“I’m going to need the name of the client.”

Scrolling through my phone, I found the inquiry email andrelayed the information. Thescritching of his pen on the paper filled the silence between us.

“If you haven’t been able to locate her phone, how did you find me?” I asked.

“Ran her name through some databases and found you paired as next of kin. Your parents died some time ago, yes? Car accident?”

My eyes slammed shut with the reminder, the horrible images of that night flashing across the backs of my lids.

“Yeah.”

“Shit, sorry,” he said, catching my reaction. “You were with them, right?”

I nodded. “We were on our way to Knoxville. Got caught in a bad thunderstorm. Hydroplaned, went off the road. I survived; they didn’t.”

I spoke the words as flatly as I could, having gotten good over the years at never letting talking about it penetrate too deeply, lest I lose control completely.

Losing our parents had nearly broken both of us, but in the end, it had also brought Lainey and I closer together.

That first trip to Dusk Valley had been our re-entrance into society, the moment we decided to stop letting our grief control us and start living again.