Page 11 of The Lake of Lost Girls

“Promise?” I asked, gazing up at the person I loved most in the entire world.

Dad’s smile lit up the sky. “Promise.” He looked down at me for a long moment. “You make me so proud, Jess.”

I passed by the row of identical colonial-style buildings that housed the English and Foreign Languages departments. The windows sparkled in the morning light and a group of landscapers were raking up piles of leaves.

The college was just waking up, stretching and ready to start its day, and I was happy with this new life I had only now started to live. But I knew that if I made my way to thecrest of the hill beyond the Commons, I could see down into the town I had grown up in. I’d see the quiet streets and dated facade of my old high school. If I turned to the west, there’d be the winding, tree-lined avenue where my parents and little sister lived.

My old life was right there. So close … too close. They threatened to collide, yet, for now, remained thankfully separate.

I slowed down, taking my time, even though I was dangerously close to being late for my early-morning English 101 class. The college never felt busy. For such a small school, the campus was sprawling and meticulously maintained.

I was glad I had insisted on living in the dorms. It was one of the very few times in my life that I put my foot down about anything.

My parents—particularly my mother—had wanted me to live at home.

“Why pay for room and board when we live fifteen minutes away?” she had argued. My dad had agreed with her—at first. Though, eventually, I made him see my side of things. Dad usually backed me up. We were a team and always had been.

As I passed Roosevelt Hall, which housed the Math Department, an older man around my dad’s age hurried down the steps. He was looking at a piece of paper in his hand and I moved quickly, and narrowly avoided colliding with him.

“Excuse me,” he muttered, only then glancing up.

“It was totally my fault. I should have been more careful,” I apologized. I noticed the staff badge around his neck, indicating that he was a teacher at the school.

I felt my body flush as the much older, very good-looking man’s lovely hazel eyes met mine. The ferocity of his gaze left me feeling shaken and oddly vulnerable.

“It’s my fault entirely. That’s what happens when you’re in a rush.” His voice was like warm honey.

I cleared my throat, feeling strangely breathless. “I’m sorry,” I replied lamely.

“You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for.” He smiled, the lines around his eyes deepening. “I’ll have to be more careful next time.”

“Hi, Dr. Daniels,” a student called out and the professor raised his hand in a wave before giving me a quick smile and heading down the path.

I watched him leave, feeling an inexplicable anxiety in my gut. I twirled the thin silver band on my right hand, something I did when I was worried or upset. I looked down at the simple ring my father had given me for my sixteenth birthday. I had been ecstatic when I had unwrapped the light blue Tiffany’s box finding a delicate silver band inside. It was a lot like the wedding ring my mother wore, but this one had swirls engraved in the metal reminiscent of the design on my favorite children’s book and had my initials on the inside. I had worn it every day since my dad had given it to me.

Inside the Commons, there was a long line. When it was my turn, I grabbed a donut and a coffee, then gave the student manning the register Daisy’s ID, which they swiped and handed back to me. I tucked the card in my bag and then headed to class.

For the first time in my life I felt like I was doing something forme.The realization that I only had myself to look after and depend on filled me with excitement.

But also dread.

True Crime Crazy Blog Post 314 Southern State University’s Missing Coeds May 22, 2005

This is the first part of my new Missing Women Series focusing on unsolved crimes otherwise forgotten by police—the young women abandoned by an incompetent police force and relegated to the whispered musings of agossip-ridden town. I hope you join me for a truly devastating story of unanswered questions and frustrating half-truths that I will try hard to unravel.

This story takes place during the school year of 1998 and 1999 at a tiny college in an even tinier town in North Carolina. There are places you go to experience life—this wasn’t one of them. This was a place you went to disappear.

And that’s exactly what happened to these women.

All were roughly the same age. All in the prime of their lives.

But they shared more than just their age and location. All of them were connected by a complicated web of relationships that were kept a secret from their loved ones.

Yet not one person of interest has ever been named in any of their disappearances. When asked, the lead detective, a proud man named Sergeant Liam O’Neil, claimed that they ran away. Every. Single. One.

It wasn’t until the parents of the second missing girl demanded action that action was in fact taken.

Time was lost. Leads were buried. Suspects were too quickly dismissed.

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