Page 56 of The Souls of Lost Lake

Ava recalled the letter from Emmaline and how Noah hadn’t even bothered to explain it.

Yes sir. There was something more to Noah Pritchard than simply being a preacher.

The woods swallowed them whole. If the trees had fangs, Ava was sure they’d be mincemeat by now, and she never was a fan of mincemeat pie. She followed Noah, wondering when he was going to bother to stop and ask her in which direction they should go. But he seemed more focused on just getting into the woods deep enough so they weren’t seen. Or followed. Or arrested. Or—

“You gonna stop anytime soon?” Ava huffed for breath. They were practically running, and aside from tripping a few times on sticks or viny stems that reached up from the earth like demons, she couldn’t say as if she’d had anything else try to deter them from the mission.

Noah waited for her to catch up. It was pitch-black in the woods now, and she couldn’t see his face, let alone his eyes. But she could feel them. Yes. She could feel them. They were intent. Focused. Most definitely not engaged in any sense of humor at all.

“Which way?” Even Noah sounded short of breath.

“To the body?”

“Yes,” he snapped.

“You know, for a preacher, you’re short on patience,” Ava quipped in return.

Noah tugged her toward him so he could see her more clearly. Now she could make out his eyes in the darkness.

“Listen, Ava. Listen closely. We need to get Jipsy’s body back into town and make sure we don’t leave a thing behind that could tie it to you—or me. And then we’re going to hurry back to the parsonage and go to bed and pretend this didn’t happen.”

“Why not just leave her in the woods?” Ava wasn’t fond of the way he held her. Well, that wasn’t true. She was fond of it. She wasn’t fond ofbeingfond of it. There was coiled strength in his fingers.

“Jipsy deserves a Christian burial.” There was that war between a man and his inner religious parts.

“So where’re you plannin’ on dropping her body? In front of the police station?”

“No. At Widower Frisk’s place. He can answer for her.”

“Widower Frisk would never hurt Jipsy,” Ava argued.

“I never said he did. But the town needs to start looking at other folk than just you.”

“So you’re trying to get Widower Frisk into trouble?” Ava’s voice rose. “Have you plumb lost your Christian senses?”

“It has nothing to do with that,” Noah hissed. He pulled her closer. Ava felt his breath on her nose. “I just—Frisk will get her taken care of. The town can try and figure out what happened, and maybe it’ll deflect all this attention away from you.”

“I’m not going to bed at the parsonage,” Ava said.

Noah stepped back. He cleared his throat. “Of course. Well. We’ll figure that out later. Now, which way do we need to go?”

Ava pointed. “Thataway.”

Noah dropped her arm. She’d never wanted to be manhandled by a man before, but the way Preacher Pritchard held her wasn’t mean. It was firm. Decisive. A bit like he was saying, I need you to help me so that I can help you. Sort of like a linking of armsif they’d been on the same team and he just needed to get her attention.

Well, Preacher Pritchard had her full attention. She could still feel the heat from his hand on her arm, and he was already several paces ahead of her.

23

Wren

Wren could feel Meghan’s eyes on her as she drove her pickup toward their destination. She could read the woman’s mind and she waited, knowing the question on the tip of Meghan’s tongue.

“You believe me, don’t you?”

And there it was. The question Wren was terrified to answer. If she answered no, she would crush this already fragile woman. If she said said yes, then she opened a much larger can of worms. And Meghan was already shaky as it was since the discovery in the woods and the shift in tone for the search for Jasmine.

Meghan accepted Wren’s silence. She sighed and turned back to look out the windshield. “Ben told me that Search and Rescue is getting nowhere. They’ve covered so much land already. But if Jasmine moved—if she’s running—Wren, what if she hears them and she won’t come because she’s afraid? Afraid of Ava Coons?”