Page 29 of The Lake of Lost Girls

I was taken aback by his harsh tone, but wondered if I’d misinterpreted it. “Sure. I get that. But from everything I know about my sister she wasn’t that kind of person.”

Ryan looked away. “That you know of.” He was quiet for a beat before continuing. “But maybe you’re right. I hope so, anyway.”

I instinctively disagreed with Ryan’s assessment of Jess and her potential relationship with her professor. Everything I’d ever learned about her was that she was studious, hardworking and had a lot of friends. Thinking of her with an older man—one of her teachers no less—didn’t fit the image I had of her. But what did I really know of her?

“So the police never made Dr. Daniels a person of interest?” I asked, trying to shake the strangeness I was feeling.

Ryan shook his head. “There was nothing tying him to any of the girls but rumor and speculation. He was a respected member of the faculty. He was close to being tenured. No one could believe he would prey on his students. People are willfully blind if it’s something they don’t want to believe. Because of that, the police barely questioned him. And no one wanted to think he could be a killer.”

There he said it.

This wasn’t a case of missing women.

This was a case ofmurderedwomen.

“But I’ve been working on getting someone on the inside to talk to me. Okay, maybe I’ve been hounding them, but I think they’re about ready to spill. And I think they have the information I’ve—we’ve—been looking for.”

“That’s good. Hopefully we can get some concrete answers.” I felt impatient. I wanted to knock the door down and blow this thing opennow.

“And get this, apparently Dr. Daniels left his previous teaching job pretty quickly. He taught at a small community college in Tennessee before coming to Southern State. He was only there for a year before he uprooted his family and came to Mt. Randall. I dug into it, but on paper, there’s nothing I could find that says why he left. But, I drove there, had a poke around, talked to a couple of people who are still around from the nineties, and it seems there were rumors at that school as well.”

“About him with his students?”

Ryan nodded curtly. “Yep. But it seemed that the administration was less inclined to turn a blind eye than Southern State.” He picked at his thumbnail, clearly agitated. “One man said it was thought that Dr. Daniels was asked to resign to avoid charges being filed against him. One day he came into work, spoke briefly with the college president, then packed up his stuff and left without talking to anyone. That same week he left the community college, sold his house to a family friend, and got out of Dodge. He resurfaced a few months later when he was hired at Southern State University. It was clear he moved his wife and kids two hundred miles to get away from something.” His eyes met mine.

My head was buzzing. “It’s not enough though, is it?” I asked. Ryan shook his head.

“It’s only hearsay. It doesn’t actually prove anything.”

“But it at least shows that this guy should be looked at a little more closely” I argued.

“That’s true, but it’s not enough to press charges. It’s not even enough to get a warrant to search his house, that’s for sure,” Ryan reasoned.

I balled my hands into fists. “But it can’t be a coincidence. Anyone with half a brain can see that.” The burger I’d eaten churned in my gut.

“It doesn’t matter how it looks. It only matters what can be proved,” Ryan countered. “After all these years the police are going to be careful in how they handle this. And right now, there doesn’t appear to be any evidence to tie anyone to those missing women. Someone knows what they did and they got away with it.”

“But the body that was found may be the key. Maybe they’ve uncovered something that will finally bring that scum to justice.” I sounded desperate, probably because I was.

Ryan looked away from me, staring at some point off in the distance. “My sources say there’s nothing. Not a scrap of suspect DNA. Only an old blanket, and even that doesn’t appear to hold any clues.”

I briefly closed my eyes in anguish and frustration. Eventually, I opened them, feeling the sting of angry tears. “So we’re back to where we started. With nothing.”

Ryan’s face was expressionless. “I need to get my inside source to talk.” He threw his coffee cup into the trash can next to us. “I’m hoping that by hearing more about the case and the evidence, then perhaps I can find something that points to Dr. Daniels hurting Jess—hurting all of them.” He sounded slightly frantic.

“So, that’s what you think happened? That he hurt her? Hurt all those women?” I asked.

Ryan seemed sure of himself. “Yes, Lindsey, that’s exactly what I think happened. I think Dr. Daniels wanted Jess. She was this beautiful, intelligent girl and he couldn’t help himself. And I’m going to prove it if it’s the last thing I do.”

“What about the idea that it’s an anonymous killer who decided to make Mt. Randall his hunting ground?” I asked.

Ryan appeared to not hear me. He was too lost in his theories and conjecture. He seemed to have a one-track mind when it came to who he thought was responsible for Jess’s disappearance.

Then a thought came to me. “We have a couple of boxes of her college stuff at home. I’ll have a look through it, see if there’s anything of importance. I’m sure the police have combed through it already, but if they weren’t looking for something that ties her to the other girls or to this professor, they likely would have missed it.”

Ryan’s eyes lit up. “That would be great, Lindsey. Maybe you could bring them to me and we’ll look through it together. They say two sets of eyes are better than one.” He seemed to barely be able to contain his excitement. But then his face darkened into something dangerous. “It’s not fair. He’s still happily going about his life and living in his big, beautiful house with his sweet, unsuspecting wife. If he’s responsible, he’s gotten away with it for decades. Hell, he could still be preying on young girls. And all because the police couldn’t put A, B, and C together.”

I wasn’t sure why this case affected him so much, but it was obvious it did. It was his passion for finding the truth that made me believe if anyone could discover what happened to Jess, it was Ryan McKay.

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