Page 39 of The Lake of Lost Girls

“Dad, don’t,” I interrupted. Dad acquiesced and didn’t finish what he was about to say.

“As I said, Mr. Fadley, I understand your anger. If it were me, I’d be mad as hell.” Lieutenant Higgins had a soothingway about her. I could tell she had, unfortunately, been in this position a lot. I imagined speaking to a victim’s family was never easy, but she handled it well. “But, please remember, I am not the officer who originally dealt with Jessica’s case. And you’re absolutely right about how things were handled back then. But, I assure you that I don’t operate that way. Technology has come a long way since 1999. Investigative procedure too. I promise I’m doing everything I can to find your daughter.”

At her words, the fight seemed to leave my dad. He sat down in his chair with a heavy sigh. He ran his hands through his hair, gripping it at the scalp as if ready to pull it from his head. He stared down at the ground, his face ashen. If possible, he looked more horrified than before.

Mom had finally stopped crying. She wiped her now red, puffy eyes and turned to the lieutenant. “Can you tell us anything at all?” she begged. “Who was it, if it wasn’t Jessica? What poor soul was left out there for all this time?”

The truth sat poised on the tip of my tongue, but I held it back.

Lieutenant Higgins’s face softened. “I hope you understand, Mrs. Fadley, that I’m not at liberty to disclose that information. Another family has to be notified first. What Icantell you is that the remains we found were 100% not your daughter’s.” She once again addressed my father, as if to placate him. “We have an underwater forensic team coming in from Wilmington tomorrow. They’ll search Baneberry Lake with specialist sonar equipment that wasn’t available twenty-four years ago. We have a team out there right now, combing the woods. If there’s anything else out there, wewillfind it.”

We will findit.

I wanted to scream.

They were talking about my sister as if she were an object. Not someone’s daughter. Not someone’s sister. They were speaking about Jess, as if she wasn’t a person at all.

“It’s Tammy Estep,” I said, unable to stop myself from revealing what I already knew.

Everyone in the room turned to me in surprise. Lieutenant Higgins’ eyes widened imperceptibly.

I should have shut up. I’d already said too much. I had promised Ryan I wouldn’t tell anyone the things he told me. I wondered if he could get in trouble—ifIcould get in trouble. But I needed to let my parents, let Lieutenant Higgins, know that I wasn’t ignorant. That I had been finding things out, too.

“It was a blow to the head that killed her, right?” I said, my voice sounding surprisingly calm even to my own ears. But I hadn’t felt calm when Ryan had told me what his source had reported.

“Tammy died from blunt force trauma. There were clear fractures to the occipital bone at the base of the skull. According to the medical examiner, her head was practically caved in. Skeletal weathering and tissue markers put her date of death sometime in 1998. So she most likely died almost as soon as she went missing.”

“Lindsey?” Mom said my name as a question. I realized everyone was staring at me in confusion.

“I need to know how you got that information, Miss Fadley.” It was the first time that Lieutenant Higgins sounded aggravated. Her calm fractured slightly.

“I … I uh have my sources,” I stammered, inwardly cringing at how flippant I sounded.

“Tammy’s remains were found not far from Doll’s Eye Lake. Her body had been buried about four feet down, wrapped in an old, plaid wool blanket. The body was badly decomposed and was little more than bones, a few scraps of tissue and fabric strands that were clothing at one time. It was pure chance that she was found. This area has seen unprecedented wet weather. There’s been significant flooding and runoff into the lake. According to my source, the lieutenant in charge believes the body simply rose to the surface due to the ground being oversaturated. A couple of boys were out there fishing and one of them went to dig up some nightcrawlers to use as bait. Poor kid found a lot more than nightcrawlers.”

Ryan had sounded giddy as he relayed the facts he had been given. He’d been working on this story for so many years, to finally have new information was probably thrilling for him.

“They haven’t been able to find a murder weapon. But they’re looking in Doll’s Eye Lake itself again. I know they gave it a cursory inspection back in ’99, but this time they’re going to do it properly.”

There wasn’t time to hear anything else because I had needed to get to my family. Ryan seemed like he wanted to talk more about what all this meant. He was energized. Frantic even.

It’s not Jess, Lindsey.” He repeated that sentence several times, as if hardly able to believe it.

Lieutenant Higgins was angry. The vein in the middle of her forehead was standing prominent. “This is a very big problem, Miss Fadley. If someone’s feeding you confidential police information, I’m going to have to insist you tell me who.”

Crap, crap, crap. I was such an idiot.

“I … I don’t know—”

“Whose Tammy Estep? What does this have to do with Jessica?” Mom interjected, her voice quivering, taking the heat off me.

I waited for Lieutenant Higgins to insist I talk to her, but she never did. The issue with how I got my information seemed to be dropped for the time being. She glanced at Stan James, and there was an unspoken communication between them.

She turned to us, her expression guarded yet determined. “I want to be straight with you, Mr. and Mrs. Fadley. There are a lot of pieces to this puzzle. We are coming at this from many different angles.” She looked at my dad who was still staring at the floor, his body tense. I couldn’t figure out what was going on with him. “Have you heard of the new podcast that’s out right now about Jessica’s case?”

Mom appeared puzzled, but I answered affirmatively. “Yes, I’ve listened to it.”

Lieutenant Higgins looked between my mom and me. “It’s great that people are invested in these cases, it helps keep pressure on to solve them. But it’s getting a little wild out there. The department is dealing with a lot of crackpots who fancy themselves detectives.” Lieutenant Higgins pursed her lips. “But they do highlight some interesting things. Such as the long-standing theory that Jessica’s disappearance is tied to the disappearances of the other missing girls from Southern State University, Tammy included. Unfortunately, back then, the idea that the disappearances were connected was disregarded, which makes no sense to me. But that means lines of questioning weren’t followed and evidence was definitely overlooked. I’m coming at this with a fresh pair of eyes, and I am finding links that investigators at the time didn’t. These cases needed a modern take to view it all clearly. And I can tell you that now we’ve found Tammy, I believe it’s only a matter of time until we find the others. It’s my opinion that whoever did this put them all in the same place. And the place matters—it holds personal significance to the perpetrator. More importantly, I think that these women all had a connection, not only to each other, but to the person responsible. These aren’t random crimes.”

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