Page 105 of The Lake of Lost Girls

The trunk of her car was still wide open, like she only stepped away and would be back any minute.

I got out of my car and stood there in the middle of the street, looking around for her.

I waited. And waited.

I waited so long that eventually I got back in my car to wait some more.

Five minutes turned to twenty and she still wasn’t back.

The front door of her house opened and a little girl stepped outside. “Jessie!” she shouted. “Where are you?’

The girl looked over to my car. I wasn’t even sure if she could see me, but it unnerved me all the same. What would Jess say if she found out I was parked by her house, drunk? It looked weird.Ilooked weird. Like some freaky stalker or something.

“Christ.” I sped away as fast as my drunk ass could go. And when I got back to my dorm room, I crashed on my bed, feeling too far gone to think properly.

I’d call Jess when I woke up.

Hell, maybe I’d even go back over there tomorrow. But sober this time.

CHAPTER19

LINDSEY

Present day

“SHE WAS GONE.I never saw where she went or what happened.” Ryan looked around like he was still searching for her after all these years, expecting her to come through the door. “I should have gone over as soon as I saw her. I should have punched that old perv in the face and kissed my girl and told her that it was okay, that I still loved her, but I was so mad and so drunk … at that moment, I hated her. She broke my heart. I got out to speak to her, but when she didn’t come back, I just … left. I panicked.”

I was silent, trying to piece together everything I knew and everything that was missing.

“I should have stayed, I know that,” Ryan said, his tone filled with crushing guilt. “I’ve always blamed myself. I imagine her sometimes. She’s always there, by the house, dying. And I sat in my car like an asshole waiting while she suffered.” He let out a choked cry. “And then Ileft.God, if I had only gotten out and gone over there, maybe I could have saved her.”

I couldn’t look at him. Of course, I couldn’t remember seeing him. I had been too consumed with finding my sister because she shouldn’t have been gone that long.

I wondered how differently things would have been if Ryanhadgone to check on her. If he had knocked on the door and let us know as soon as he realized Jess was gone. If he’d broken up the fight between my sister and Dr. Daniels. But whatever had happened, it wasn’t Ryan’s fault. He hadn’t hurt her. He had loved her. And he had spent his whole adult life trying to find her to make up for what he should have done back then.

“So, Dr. Daniels murdered Jess,” I said, more to myself than to either of the men standing beside me.

Perhaps it was insensitive of me to blurt it out, but I was done trying to be gentle with everyone’s feelings. This story was anything but gentle.

Ryan’s shoulders tightened. “I’ve always thought so. He was a creep. He preyed on those women. They looked up to him because he was their teacher. He chose women who were vulnerable. Women who wouldn’t fight him. Jess and I saw him with Phoebe and with Meghan. And I know he was making a move on Jess. But that school protects its own. It has protected him for decades. Rather than doing the right thing and turning him in, they covered everything up.”

“That’s what Daisy said, too.” I chewed on my bottom lip. “So why did he murder Jess? How did it go from him trying to sleep with her to killing her? And the other girls, too. What made him take that leap?”

Dad was standing there, silently listening. I couldn’t get a read on what he was thinking. He was being surprisingly quiet as Ryan and I discussed the details of his daughter’s possible murder.

“Everyone said Tammy showed up to his office threatening to tell his wife. Maybe the others did the same thing,” Ryan suggested.

I paced the hallway, a sinking feeling in my stomach. I was close, but I was missing something important.

Jessica:

I rushed down the stairs as Dr. Daniels closed his car door. I glanced over my shoulder. I could see Lindsey’s face in the window. I smiled at her and made a shooing motion. I could see her laugh and then she turned, distracted by something inside.

“Jessica.”

I shivered.

“I told you, I didn’t want you to come.” I approached my teacher, seeing him for the selfish, entitled bastard he really was. He didn’t care that he was destroying his daughter’s life. He only cared about getting what he wanted from me.

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