Page 13 of Vanished in the Mist (A Mystic Lake Mystery #2)

Shanna shook her head in exasperation and shifted on the picnic bench to make herself more comfortable.

“I can’t believe there are, what, twenty-five, thirty rubberneckers out here at the scene of the crime?

You’d think the police would rope off the entire area to keep people from potentially interfering as the divers search for evidence and more remains this morning. ”

“Isn’t a rubbernecker someone who slows traffic because they’re gawking at a car-accident on the side of the road?” Kaden asked, from his seat beside her.

“I’m pretty sure it applies to anyone who’s being nosy, watching some event that has nothing to do with them and getting in the way. Not that they can see all that much, anyway, with all the mist on the lake this morning.”

He chuckled. “The mist is already clearing. As to the audience, the police officers are watching the crowd, just like us. I’m sure they’ll make sure no one interferes.

” He pointed to her laptop screen, which displayed pictures she’d uploaded from the police investigation folder last night.

“Having so many curious onlookers out here is a blessing in disguise. I’ve already identified five of them by comparing them to those pictures.

Most appear to know each other, probably locals.

I’ll do what I can to get pictures without being obvious.

If John Doe’s killer is out here watching the recovery like you think he might be, we should come out of here with his picture.

If nothing else, it might help the police with their investigation.

And if the same person did something to Tanya, it can helps ours too. Win-win.”

“Are you always this happy at nine o’clock in the morning?” she griped.

“Are you always this grumpy?”

She cursed beneath her breath, making him laugh.

“Oh, got another one.” He wrote a name on his legal pad.

She glanced at it. “Jessica DeWalt. Wait. Isn’t she the head cheerleader from the local high school?”

“ Was the head cheerleader. She graduated the same school year that Tanya went missing. There are several graduates from last year’s senior class here, all of whom were interviewed by the police last spring.

The odd thing is that they’re not mingling together.

They’re standing or sitting around in different areas.

It’s a small town, even smaller school. You’d think they’d all know each other, wouldn’t you? ”

“Probably.” She glanced around at the other picnic tables scattered around the sloped hill above the lake where the Chattanooga police divers were searching.

After a few minutes of casually looking, she nodded.

“You’re right. It’s as if they’re purposely avoiding each other.

You saw the football team’s quarterback over there, right?

By that tree? He and the cheerleader would have to know each other. ”

“Sam Morton. Maybe they didn’t like each other at school. That could explain it.”

“Maybe.” She opened a new document on her computer and made some notes before pulling up the pictures again. “Give me your list. I’ll focus on trying to ID everyone while you subtly take more photographs.”

“You got it.” He held his phone in one hand while he made scrolling motions with the other, as if he was surfing the internet. But every now and then he’d zoom in on someone and take their picture.

“Are you sure you haven’t done this kind of work before?” she asked. “You’re pretty good at it.”

“If that’s a job offer, I’m not sure you can afford me.”

She laughed, then sobered as a diver surfaced and motioned for one of the forensics guys on the dive boat to take something from him. “I think they found another bone.”

Kaden nodded as he snapped a picture in their direction, then pulled up the photograph and zoomed in. “Wait. That’s not a bone. That’s—”

“A steel rod. Like the kind they implant in bones when they’ve been shattered. Which means—”

“They’ll be able to trace it.”

“Or we can.” She minimized the photos and typed in the address for the Mystic Lake High School website.

He hovered over her shoulder, watching the screen.

“Take pictures,” she reminded him. “We need to identify all the onlookers.” She blinked, then looked up at him. “I’m being bossy and aggressive, aren’t I?”

He slowly shook his head. “No. You’re being the boss, as you should be. You’re heading the investigation. I’m your helper. Forget what Troy told you. Those are monikers insecure jerks put on women to try to make themselves feel more superior. Don’t let him get to you.”

Her eyes actually started tearing up. “Remind me again why some lucky woman hasn’t snapped you up as a husband yet?”

He opened his mouth as if to respond, then seemed to think better of it and simply shrugged.

Her face heated. She’d expected one of his flirty replies.

Maybe she was making more of the attraction between them than there really was.

Or maybe the attraction was mainly on her side and he was just the kind of guy who was nice and made you feel good about yourself, without meaning anything deeper by it.

She cleared her throat and started typing again. “We need more pictures. Please.”

“Peyton Holloway.”

“What?”

He held up his phone, showing the photograph he’d just snapped.

“Prom queen. Another recently graduated senior. Most of the people out here this morning are older, the retiree type who can check out what’s going on without worrying about missing work.

Sure is odd that the younger ones watching the recovery of a body in the lake are mostly kids from Tanya’s school.

You’d think they’d be at college, or working right now. ”

Shanna swiped through several more screens on the school website. “Here’s the one I was looking for. Tristan Cargill.”

He set his phone on the picnic table and looked over her shoulder again. “Another senior who graduated last year. I haven’t seen him here. Why did you bring up his photograph?”

“I remembered reading his interview, the opening discussion where the police make small talk to establish rapport. He was in a boating accident several months before graduation, shattered his left leg. He was in a wheelchair for a while but was walking with a cane when it was time to head down the aisle to get his diploma.”

“Shattered his leg?” Kaden took his phone and zoomed in on the picture he’d taken of the diver handing what he’d found to a forensics tech. “It might be long enough to stabilize a femur. Or a tibia. But I sure hope our John Doe isn’t another teenager.”

“Preaching to the choir.”

Neither of them spoke for a while. They sat quietly, openly watching the flurry of activity taking place on the lake.

When the news came, in the form of Officer O’Brien hurrying over to them as she put her cell phone away, it was no surprise to learn that their John Doe had been identified, by following up on the serial number on the steel rod.

It was Tristan Cargill.

“What are the odds?” O’Brien said. “A local high-school kid is found murdered in the same area where another missing high-school kid is believed to have disappeared? I don’t think Jericho’s disappearance should be treated as a potential drowning anymore.”

“I agree,” Shanna said. “Although it still might be, it’s not much of a leap to think the two could be connected.”

O’Brien looked around. “Everyone here is a local. If the killer came back to visit the scene of his crime today, he’s no stranger.

He’s one of us.” Her eyes took on a haunted look.

“And if Tanya was killed, murdered, and it’s the same perpetrator, we may have another serial killer on our hands. We may be looking for more bodies.”

“Another serial killer?” Kaden glanced at Shanna. “You don’t seem surprised to hear that there’s already an active serial killer in this area.”

“That’s because he’s not active. That case is closed. My sister told me about it.”

“That’s right,” O’Brien said. “The killer, well, he’s not a threat to anyone anymore.

And that all happened long before Tristan Cargill was killed.

” She looked around at the curious faces turned their way, then lowered her voice.

“I hope no one else heard that. I need to perform the notification before Tristan’s family finds out from someone else.

” She started to turn away, then paused.

“We’ll obviously be actively working on Tanya’s disappearance again to see if there’s a link between these two cases.

I recommend that you both back down, go home.

If the killer knows you’re looking into any deaths for which he’s responsible, it could be dangerous for you.

Cassidy will understand you stopping your search.

” Without waiting for a reply, she hurried toward her police SUV, which was parked where the road ended.

Shanna began furiously typing on her computer.

Kaden sighed. “You don’t plan on stopping, do you?”

“Nope.”

“I didn’t think so. Guess I’ll hang around, too, to keep you out of trouble.”

She rolled her eyes and continued typing.

“What are you doing there?” he asked.

“Jumping to conclusions and letting my theory lead me instead of the evidence.”

“Isn’t that what we’re not supposed to do?”

She stopped typing. “Yes. We’re short-cutting, remember?

Seeing where we can go with what we have.

Two teens from the same school in a tiny town go missing or are murdered within days, weeks, or months of each other depending on the medical examiner’s conclusions about Tristan Cargill’s time of death.

We’d be idiots for not thinking they could be related.

O’Brien thinks the same thing. You heard her. ”

“She’s also part of the same police force that hasn’t found Tanya and wouldn’t have found John Doe on their own. Emulating them and jumping to conclusions doesn’t sound like the right way to go here, at least not based on your earlier cautions.”

Her face heated. “I hate having my own words thrown back at me.”

“Then you’re really not going to like this. I have a theory too.”

“Okay. What is it?”

“We already discussed how odd it was that so many of the school’s recently graduated seniors were out here. What if the killer is one of them?”

She glanced around, a chill going down her spine. “I couldn’t even begin to pick one of them as a suspect. They’re all so young, innocent looking. But it’s not like killers go around with an M tattooed on their foreheads so we can pick them out.”

“That would make it too easy,” he teased, then motioned behind her. “Maybe we can do one of those shortcuts you mentioned and talk to someone who likely knew all the other teens, including Tanya and Tristan.”

She glanced over her shoulder. A young brunette was standing off on her own by a thick oak tree, her hand to her throat as she watched the divers at the lake.

“The prom queen,” Shanna whispered. “The most popular girl in school. She had to know both of our victims.”

“Looks like she’s leaving.”

“Watch my laptop.” Shanna jumped up and hurried after the departing girl.