Page 19 of Vanished in the Mist (A Mystic Lake Mystery #2)

Shanna threaded her way through the still-crowded restaurant while Kaden finished briefing Dawson on the other side of the room.

The chief had asked everyone to stay, so his recently arrived deputies, Christopher Collier and Liza Fletcher, could interview them as potential witnesses.

But Shanna couldn’t seem to locate the people she wanted to speak to.

“Hey, everything okay?” Kaden stopped beside her.

“I guess so, except that I can’t find Peyton, Sam, or Jack. Do you know whether they were already interviewed?”

He motioned toward Collier and Fletcher, sitting at a table near the French doors.

“They’ve only spoken to a few people so far.

I don’t remember seeing the ones you mentioned over there yet.

But I was speaking to Dawson, so I could have missed them.

I wanted to give you an update about the search by your cabin.

Nothing was found. No indications that anyone had been in those woods anytime recently. ”

“That’s a relief. I guess. Honestly, I’d rather know for sure where Troy is these days rather than him being in the wind. But as long as he’s not here in Mystic Lake, that’s good.”

“I’d feel better if you stick close to me for now on. It’s not just Troy that we need to be on guard against, it’s whoever is terrorizing this town.”

“No need to convince me. I’m happy to have a tall, buff man as my bodyguard.”

He grinned. “And I’m happy to keep an eye on you.”

She smiled and motioned toward the chief, who was talking to one of the potential witnesses. “Has Dawson gotten any updates about Jessica?”

“Not yet. He already notified the family. They live close by and are on their way to the hospital right now. He’ll text me once he hears anything on her condition.”

“Good. Are we free to leave?” she asked. “He doesn’t need to question us further?”

“We can go. You have somewhere specific in mind?”

“Talking to the remaining members of the popular clique is near the top of my list. But I’d like to see the Jerichos first. They deserve to be updated about what happened here in case the rumors start up about connections to Tristan, and then potentially to Tanya.

I don’t want them caught off guard like when they were told by the police that we were here working their daughter’s case. ”

“You have their address?”

“I’m hoping they haven’t moved since last spring, when Tanya went missing. I programmed their address from the police files into my phone for when it came time to go see them. It’s time.”

R AYMOND AND L YDIA J ERICHO were nothing like Shanna had expected, or at least that’s what she thought when she and Kaden had first arrived at their home.

From Cassidy’s comments about how devastated they were, Shanna had assumed they’d be broken, barely able to function.

They were definitely somber. But they were also polite and welcoming.

In spite of Shanna and Kaden’s insistences that they didn’t need anything, Lydia had brought them ice-cold glasses of sweet tea and placed crystal bowls of pretzels and nuts on the coffee table in front of them, along with little cocktail napkins.

It wasn’t until Kaden began explaining what had happened at the B and B that the cracks in their facades began to show.

Shanna realized they were putting on a brave face for the world.

But the truth revealed itself in how Raymond’s hands shook as he sat quietly listening.

And in the streaks of white that peppered Lydia’s dark hair that shouldn’t have begun to gray for many more years.

Inside, their battered souls were being held together with tattered threads of hope that wouldn’t sustain them much longer.

They were a dam ready to break. And she desperately didn’t want to be the one to burst that dam wide open and destroy them.

Shanna stood. Kaden gave her a surprised glance then stood as well.

“You’re leaving already?” Lydia rose and took Shanna’s hands in hers. “I thought you wanted to discuss Tanya, that you had questions.”

Shanna lightly squeezed the woman’s cold, thin fingers. “I did. We do. But now isn’t the right time. We can come back later and—”

Lydia’s hold changed, gripping hers with surprising strength in spite of how frail she appeared.

“Please. Don’t leave. Not yet. Ask us any questions you have.

We want to help. We want your help.” Her mouth formed the ghost of a smile that probably hadn’t curved her lips in months.

“We’re stronger than we look, Ms. Hudson.

If there’s any chance you can find our little girl, no matter what has happened to her, we want her found.

” She let go and sat beside her husband, who put his arm around her shoulders, and waited.

Kaden gently took Shanna’s hand, and lightly tugged her down beside him as they sat once again. Feeling as if she needed as much support as poor Mr. and Mrs. Jericho, right now, Shanna subtly moved closer to Kaden, taking comfort in his strength and warmth.

“Go ahead.” This time, it was Mr. Jericho who spoke. “Please.”

For the next half hour, Shanna carefully led the grieving parents down the path she wanted to take.

But she did it by having them tell her about Tanya, her likes and dislikes, what she preferred to do with her free time.

While Shanna mentally logged the details that would help her understand a typical day for the missing girl, and the people she associated with on a regular basis, Kaden sat quietly beside her.

He seemed content to trust her as an investigator and only spoke up a few times to clarify his own understanding of some details that had been shared.

While Shanna was getting a good picture of Tanya and how she liked to spend her time, her parents hadn’t said anything about the popular crowd, like Peyton and the others.

The few classmates the Jerichos mentioned were other smart kids in the academic top ten.

Tanya had plenty in common with them. But there’d been nothing said about them going anywhere together.

No trips into Chattanooga for a girl’s day of shopping, or to see a movie.

No trips to a concert or a ball game. No stories about any of them ever visiting her at her home, or vice versa.

Was it because Tanya didn’t want any friends?

Or was it because the friends she had, she didn’t speak about to her parents.

The Jerichos seemed like nice people who loved their daughter more than anything.

But that kind of love, while well-intentioned, could also feel smothering to a girl on the cusp of becoming a woman.

Did Tanya have a crush on some boy and was afraid to tell them because they’d be worried about the impact on her grades, potentially ruining her chance to go to college on a full scholarship?

Or was it something insidious, like bullying?

Shanna had been that smart, studious girl at school, too.

She knew how awful other kids could be, singling her out for being different, for not fitting in.

Would Tanya tell her parents about things like that?

Or would she keep that a secret, be too embarrassed to tell them.

Or too scared that if she did, they’d try to help her by going to her teachers about it, making her even more of a target for bullies?

Somehow, Shanna had to find out what secrets Tanya kept from her parents, assuming there were any. And the only person who could tell her that was Tanya.

When there was a break in the conversation, Shanna smiled. “Mrs. Jericho—”

“Lydia. Please.”

“Lydia. Would you mind if we—Kaden and I—sit in Tanya’s bedroom for a few minutes? Alone? It would help us get more of a feel for her true personality by experiencing the feeling of her room, how she decorated it, what she looked at every day. Would that be okay?”

The woman frowned and glanced at her husband.

He gave Shanna a knowing look, as if he understood her true goal.

And supported it. Perhaps he knew more about Tanya than her mother and was unwilling to say it in front of her.

He squeezed her shoulder and smiled. “It’s okay, Lydia.

They’re trying to find our little girl.”

She chewed her lip, obviously struggling with the idea of them being in Tanya’s room.

Raymond nodded at Shanna and Kaden. “It’s the last room on the left, down that hallway behind you. Take as long as you need.”

Lydia frowned. “Ray—”

“It’s okay. Here, I’ll help you clear away the food and drinks.”

Shanna nodded her thanks as she and Kaden hurried out of the room.

Once inside Tanya’s bedroom, Kaden quietly closed the door behind them and raised an eyebrow. “Looks like a princess theme park threw up in here. I’ve never seen so much pink and purple in one room. What are we searching for, Sherlock?”

“Secrets, dear Watson.”

“Like a diary?”

“Exactly like a diary.”

“On it.” Kaden flipped the pink comforter up on top of the mattress.

“Careful,” Shanna whispered. “We need to leave the room exactly like we found it. I don’t want to upset Lydia.”

“I’ll put it back once I search under the mattress.”

“It won’t be under the mattress, assuming she has one. That’s too easy.” She headed for the tall bookshelf on the other side of the room, its shelves sagging beneath the weight of all the books stacked on them. “It will be somewhere else, like maybe—”

“Here?”

She turned around to see him pulling out a small book from beneath the mattress. It was purple with gold-edged pages and a gold lock on the front holding it closed. “No way.”

He thumped the cover with big gold letters that spelled out Diary . “Way.”

“Gimme, gimme.”

He grinned as he handed it to her and rearranged the comforter to look as if they hadn’t touched it.

Shanna tugged at the lock. “It’s cheap and will break easily. But I don’t want to do that to something that might end up being a keepsake. We need a key, or something similar that I can use to—”