Page 9 of Vanished in the Mist (A Mystic Lake Mystery #2)

Shanna wrapped her arms around her waist as she sat at a picnic table a good thirty feet from the shoreline, watching the activity on the lake.

The police had told Kaden yesterday that it was too late in the afternoon to begin their search of the lake where he’d made that horrific discovery.

So they’d all agreed to meet out here this morning.

Neither Kaden nor she had been interested in dinner yesterday, so he’d stayed on his boat to do whatever maintenance boaters did after going boating.

He’d spent the night there while Shanna had slept at her sister’s cabin.

This morning, the two of them had shared a quick, lean breakfast of toast and juice in spite of the kitchen being well-stocked as Cassidy had promised.

Neither of them had gotten their appetite back yet.

Then he’d left in his boat and she’d left in her car, both of them ending up at the same spot.

This place, where he’d discovered that awful, severed hand yesterday afternoon.

There weren’t any local police divers, so rather than wait for the state police to arrive with their dive team, Kaden had volunteered to begin the process of recovering the remains.

As he dived yet again, this time in scuba gear, three Mystic Lake police officers, including the chief, assisted from their much smaller boat, holding a rope tied to Kaden and tugging it now and then.

In answer, Kaden was supposed to tug back so they knew he wasn’t in trouble.

Four minutes.

She would have sworn an oath that Kaden had been underwater for four minutes when he’d made that dive without any diving equipment.

She’d been on the verge of making that 911 call when he’d finally surfaced.

Later, he’d assured her that he couldn’t have been down that long.

He’d have run out of air. But she’d checked the time on her phone throughout his dive.

It had definitely been four minutes. Or, at least, her phone told her it had.

Maybe yet another of the anomalies around this allegedly cursed lake was that it somehow messed with electronics.

It was either that, or divine intervention had protected him.

She shook her head at her fanciful thoughts, torn between her being determined to wait until all of the bones were recovered, so they could officially confirm that it was Tanya, and wanting to head back home.

One thing was for certain. She wasn’t ever going out on that lake again.

The largest, deepest body of water she ever planned to get close to in the future was a bathtub.

“Hey, there,” a friendly voice said as one of the female police officers sat beside her at the picnic table. “How are you holding up?”

Shanna gave her a weak smile. “Okay, I guess. I’m sorry, I forgot—”

“My name? I wouldn’t expect you to remember.

We only spoke briefly when all of us met up here a couple of hours ago to start the search.

I’m Officer Grace O’Brien. That’s Chief Dawson and Officers Ortiz and Collier on the boat out there.

And you’re the private detective that Cassidy has been hounding to come here for quite some time. ”

Shanna winced. “Guilty as charged.”

The policewoman surprised her by pressing Shanna’s hand in camaraderie.

“Try not to feel guilty. There’s no evidence that Tanya Jericho’s disappearance was anything sinister that needed your expertise as an investigator.

You should feel proud today, proud that you and Mr. Rafferty are likely bringing closure to the Jericho family by bringing Tanya home.

Or, at least, helping them accept that she’s truly gone so they can lay her to rest.”

Shanna nodded her thanks, but guilt was riding her hard. She doubted it would go away until or unless she could confirm that her refusal to help before now hadn’t contributed to whatever had happened to Tanya, and whatever the young woman may have suffered.

She watched as Kaden handed a dark plastic bag to one of the officers on the police boat. Then he dived beneath the water yet again. “You really think it’s her? Tanya?”

“You don’t?”

“I hope it is. Not that I want her to really be…gone. But if it’s not her, that means we still don’t know what happened, where she is. Her family won’t get that closure you mentioned. And someone else’s family is going to get some really bad news.”

“We don’t have anyone else missing, at least not recently. And no one’s ever been reported missing in this section of the lake. An unfortunate number of swimmers and boaters do go unaccounted for around here, more than in most lakes—”

“Second only to Lake Lanier, which is allegedly haunted.”

O’Brien nodded, her expression solemn. “You’ve done your homework.

Despite our regrettable statistics overall, we’ve had a pretty good run this past year.

The last known person to go missing was Tanya Jericho, last spring.

So unless someone else went missing and no one reported them, those remains are hers. ”

“There was still some tissue on the bones that I saw. If it is her, wouldn’t the remains be completely skeletonized by now?”

O’Brien narrowed her eyes, as if taking her first close look at Shanna and trying to figure something out.

“You seem awfully nervous about the recovery of that body. I thought as a private investigator that you’d have seen dead bodies before.

But the questions you’re asking make it seem otherwise. Which is it?”

“I’ve seen a few bodies in my line of work, more than I’d like. That’s not why I’m nervous.”

The officer waited, but Shanna wasn’t about to discuss her embarrassing fear of water with a woman she’d just met.

Or her ridiculous concern for Kaden, a man she’d also only just met, even though it already seemed as if she’d known him for years.

Or maybe it was that after being so worried about him yesterday when he’d been underwater so long she felt vested in his safety and far more concerned than made sense, given their short acquaintance.

“I’ll take your silence as a reminder to mind my own business.

” O’Brien smiled. “Not the first time I’ve been told that.

Instead, I’ll answer your earlier question.

With my background from having been an FBI special agent, I can tell you that while bodies in the water do usually decompose quickly, that’s not always the case.

In special circumstances, it can take much longer, from a few weeks up to a year or even longer.

There are a variety of factors, like temperatures, whether they were clothed when they went into the water, marine-life activity.

Around here, I’m learning there’s also the Mystic Lake factor to consider.

The water is…different than most lakes. It’s almost like it’s…

thicker. We’ve had champion swimmers tell us that swimming out here is really challenging, that the water seems to weigh you down.

Whatever it is that makes it unique could potentially impact the decomposition, likely due to the currents and different chemicals and other elements that make the water the way it is. ”

“Thicker?”

O’Brien nodded. “That’s the word we hear the most. It’s a better explanation than to say there are unknown forces at play, like the lake itself is sinister in some way. So we lump all of that together and call it the Mystic Lake factor.”

“Doesn’t sound very scientific for someone who used to work for the FBI.”

“Yes, well, things change once you’ve been here for a while. Or, I should say, this place changes you.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Well, Alannah, my daughter, is five months old. Aidan and I were married a year before I got pregnant and I was here several months prior to that. I guess it’s getting close to three years.

Longer than I’d realized. But even though I’m a transplant, I became indoctrinated pretty quickly from the day I arrived, working on a case for the FBI.

I’ve learned quite a bit about the myths, rumors and downright lies made up about this place to know what’s what. ”

“So you don’t give credence to the legends?”

O’Brien gave her a sharp look, then looked out at the water. “I didn’t say that.”

Kaden popped up on the surface close to the police boat and handed another black bag to police chief, Beau Dawson.

“How long will it take your coroner—or medical examiner, I guess, in the state of Tennessee—to conduct the autopsy and confirm the victim’s identity?”

The policewoman sighed. “Unfortunately, Mystic Lake doesn’t have a medical examiner.

We’ll have to transport the remains to Chattanooga for an autopsy.

A drowning victim who’s been under water for a year or more isn’t likely to come up high on their priority list. If they’ve got a caseload queued up, it might be several days. ”

“What about the Jerichos? If they hear about a body being found—”

“Already taken care of. Officer Fletcher—Liza—is over there now, letting them know what’s going on. Since you and Mr. Rafferty located the remains while searching for Tanya, Liza is telling them that you’re here looking into the case. I hope that’s okay.”

“Yes, of course. I should have spoken to them already. But I didn’t expect…” She motioned toward the water. “This. Not so quickly, anyway. I was going to call and arrange a meeting later today, introduce myself. But this happened yesterday late in the day and…” She shook her head.

As they both watched, Kaden disappeared back underwater. Shanna looked away, too unsettled by what was happening out on the lake to keep watching. O’Brien glanced at her curiously, but didn’t pry.

About twenty minutes later, the whine of boat engines had Shanna looking up again. “Looks like they’re done. Kaden’s boat is heading down river. But he’s on the police boat, in his regular clothes again, coming here.”

O’Brien nodded “Officer Ortiz is likely piloting Mr. Rafferty’s boat to the marina, or wherever Rafferty wants it docked.

The chief will need formal statements from you and Rafferty, which is probably why he’s on the boat with Dawson and Collier heading to shore.

Are you going to give him a ride to the station, or should I? ”

“I’ve got my car. He can ride with me.”

“Okay, thanks. I’ll ask Liza to pick up Ortiz and Collier once they have both of the boats docked and bring them to the station. I’ll meet you there.” O’Brien headed toward the lake.

As the boat got closer, Shanna noticed the piles of dark bags at one end. How tragic that a person’s entire life was now condensed down to those sad little bags.

A minute later, the boat idled up near the water’s edge. Dawson and Kaden took turns hopping over the side of the idling boat onto the grass.

With them off the boat, the last officer, Collier, turned it and took off in the direction that Ortiz had gone with Kaden’s boat.

Chief Dawson stopped to talk to O’Brien a short distance away. Kaden, his hair wet and disheveled, headed toward Shanna. His face was grim as he looked down at her, as if trying to figure out the best way to tell her what he’d found.

“It’s Tanya, isn’t it?” she asked, already nodding.

His jaw tightened. “No. The… What I found down there wasn’t Tanya Jericho.

There wasn’t much left, not enough to make an ID.

But Chief Dawson was certain the pelvis bones were that of a male.

Even if he’s wrong, judging by the length of the femur and the tibia, the victim was at least ten inches taller than the missing teen. ”

Disappointment had her shoulders slumping.

“I suppose it would have been a miracle to find her on our first try. You said as much earlier. It makes sense that it’s not her.

If it was, I’d have expected the police to have found her when she originally went missing.

After all, you discovered that body really close to the area where her parents thought she’d gone that day.

Do the police have any idea who he might be?

Officer O’Brien didn’t seem to know about any missing-persons reports that might account for another accidental drowning out here. ”

“Whoever he is, there’s more to his death than an accidental drowning. That hand I found didn’t detach from the rest of the skeleton on its own. There were tool marks on the bones.”

Shanna stared at him with growing dread. “Are you saying that someone…cut off his hand?”

He gave her a tight nod. “Hopefully the autopsy will tell us that it happened after he died. Regardless, drowning victims don’t have their skeletons chopped up. This guy, whoever he is, was murdered. Which begs the question of—”

“Whether Tanya was murdered, too.”