Page 22 of Vanished in the Mist (A Mystic Lake Mystery #2)

Peyton’s head jerked up. “What? No, nothing like that. It’s just that…

” She bit her lip, glancing back and forth between them with a panicked expression on her face.

“None of us hit her or—or…did anything to her. We saw her taking the picture and Jack wanted to erase it. That’s all.

We—we were smoking weed, okay? Jack’s the one who got it for us and he was scared he’d get in trouble with his parents if they found out.

His dad would beat the crap out of him if he ever knew he did drugs.

And the rest of us were worried she would show the picture to the cops. That’s it. That’s all.”

But that wasn’t all. Shanna could see that Peyton was still covering up something, hiding the full truth.

It was obvious in the way she was wringing her hands, the tortured look in her eyes, how she could barely look at either of them.

Shanna glanced at Kaden, and waited, letting him continue since he was doing so well.

He motioned toward the phone. “I don’t see any drugs in that photo.”

Peyton glanced at the screen, then looked away.

“Maybe not that one. But there were others. Jack chased her down, took her phone, deleted everything. I mean everything . All her photos, not just the ones she took of us. She—she begged him not to, said she’d delete the ones of the bonfire.

But he held the phone up to her face so it would unlock and he deleted everything in her photo app.

And he warned her not to follow us ever again.

I don’t… I don’t know how you got that picture. I thought they were all gone.”

Shanna shook her head. “Maybe Tanya’s just smarter than you and your friends. Haven’t you ever gone to the recently deleted photo folder on your phone to recover pictures?”

Peyton’s face reddened. “What are you talking about?”

Shanna sighed. “Never mind. What happened after Jack deleted the pictures?”

“I don’t—”

“No more lies, Peyton. What happened after Jack caught up to Tanya?”

Her lower lip quivered. “Nothing. I mean, like I said, he warned her to stop following us around. She was a pest, you know? Always trying to talk to us at school, asking us over to her house, wanting to go shopping in Chattanooga with Jessica and me.” She made a disgusted sound. “Like we’d ever do that.”

Kaden stared at her. “You were upset at her for trying to be your friend?”

Peyton lifted her chin at a defiant angle.

“You had to be there to understand. We weren’t trying to be mean or anything.

We just…had nothing in common with her, okay?

She was a kid, a sophomore. I guess she was desperate or something, trying to fit in, and thought we could help her.

She was trying to use us to become popular.

It was ridiculous. She wouldn’t stop. Just kept bugging us, following us around at school and—”

“She followed you again, didn’t she?” Shanna asked. “After the bonfire, after Jack deleted those pictures and warned her. Was there another bonfire? More weed? Maybe the night she disappeared? And you caught her again?”

“Of course not.” Peyton started to shake.

“She saw you illegally drinking alcohol?”

“No.”

“Something worse? Heavy drugs? Meth?”

A single tear coursed down her cheek as she shook her head no.

“Peyton.” Kaden took the lead again. “What did Tanya see the night she went missing that she shouldn’t have seen?”

She shook her head again. “It wasn’t like that. That’s not what—”

“Happened?”

She drew a ragged breath.

Shanna stared at her, waiting. But when Peyton remained silent, she nodded at Kaden to try again.

“You know where she is,” he said, his voice kind but laced with steel. “Tell us.”

Another tear spilled down her cheek and dropped to her lap. “You’re wrong,” she whispered, sounding desperate. “I don’t know where she is. That’s the honest truth.”

Shanna glanced at Kaden. He shrugged, clearly unsure whether to believe the girl or not. He motioned for her to take it from here.

“But you do know what happened to her,” Shanna pressed, her voice hard without any sympathy like Kaden’s had been. This girl might very well be a murderer. Or she could be covering for someone who was. Shanna didn’t feel an ounce of sympathy for her.

Peyton’s eyes closed, her breaths coming in labored pants.

“She’s dead, isn’t she?” Shanna demanded.

“Oh, my God.” Peyton covered her face in her hands, silent sobs shaking her shoulders.

Kaden winced, obviously pained at seeing the young woman so upset.

He’d done an amazing job helping Shanna push Peyton to this point.

But he wasn’t the seasoned investigator that she was and appeared to have reached the end of his tolerance for playing the bad guy to Shanna’s bad girl.

He began to rise, as if to try to comfort Peyton.

But Shanna put her hand on his and shook her head.

His jaw tightened, as if he was waging an internal battle. But he finally gave her a curt nod and settled back against the couch.

This time, it was Shanna who stood, moving to the other side of the coffee table and sitting on it across from Peyton. She covered the young woman’s clasped hands with her own and leaned in close. It was time to take this to the finish line.

“Whatever happened, it’s over, in the past. It can’t be undone. But if you tell the truth, tell us where to find Tanya, we can at least bring her back to her family. Her parents need to know. They need to give their baby girl a proper burial.”

Peyton choked on a sob.

“She was fifteen,” Shanna whispered. “If you disappeared when you were only fifteen, don’t you think your parents would deserve to know what happened? To know where you were?”

“Stop,” Peyton pleaded. “Stop.”

“The only one who can make this stop is you, by telling the truth. Tanya’s parents need to find their baby girl. Where is she, Peyton? Where’s Tanya?”

“I don’t… I don’t know where she is. I really don’t.” Her words were a ragged whisper, sounding as if they’d been wrenched from her soul.

“But you know what happened to her, what was done to her.”

Silence.

“Is that why you don’t want to tell us? Because it wasn’t Jack who hurt her? It was you, wasn’t it? That’s it. You hurt Tanya.”

Peyton’s head jerked up. “No. No, it wasn’t me.”

“Then who was it?”

Her lips trembled, her face so pale her skin seemed translucent. “All of us.”

Shanna stilled, so shocked and dismayed that she couldn’t respond.

Kaden came to her rescue, sitting beside her a few feet from the prom queen. “Peyton?” His voice was gentle, compelling, but somehow brooked no refusal in spite of that. “End this. Now. Tell us the truth. Who is all of us ?”

Her face seemed to crumple as she answered. “Jack. Tristan. Jessica. Sam. And…” A fresh flood of tears flowed down her cheeks. “Me. We did it. All of us. We killed Tanya Jericho.”