Page 46 of The Lake of Lost Girls

Daisy was right, I needed to get out of my house.

I decided to walk downtown instead of driving. It only took ten minutes and I enjoyed the cold air on my flushed skin.

Ryan had been involved with both Tammy and Phoebe. What were the odds?

A deep-rooted instinct wanted me to forget about him. Getting involved with a guy who had anything to do with either woman wasn’t a great idea.

But then I remembered his smile and how I had felt when he kissed me, and for some inexplicable reason, I lost all sense.

Mom had asked me a dozen questions before I left the house. Lindsey had begged to come along. It had been difficult to extract myself, but I needed to be alone. I needed space.

I needed tobreathe.

If Daisy could see me walking by myself, she would have a fit. She didn’t understand that I had nothing to fear from Mt. Randall’s streets.

Most of the houses were still lit up for Christmas, though it was now the first week of January. I knew no one wouldbother taking them down until the days became warmer. Mt. Randall held onto every holiday with an iron grip.

I smiled at the bright, seemingly random mailboxes that lined the sidewalk. The mailboxes were one of the more peculiar things about my hometown. There were no regular wooden or metal boxes for the homes in our tiny corner of North Carolina. Every person took it upon themselves to upstage their neighbors. The Wilsons on Partridge Drive had one in the shape of Godzilla. The Mercers on Dandelion Park had a green elephant. None were the same. All were strange enough to make you look twice.

I remembered picking out our own mailbox when I was no more than four. I had insisted on a bright red barn with a purple roof. Mom had wanted a more sedate black and white cow, but Dad had sided with me, as he had always done. So the tiny red barn had been sitting nailed to the thick wood stake at the bottom of our driveway for the past fourteen years.

The quiet, maple-lined streets eventually gave way to the main drag. The Dollar Store was the busiest spot in town, which wasn’t saying much. With the college on winter break, the place felt empty. The town survived on the commerce generated by Southern State, and they hated that reliance.

It wasn’t as if the college kids were particularly rowdy. They—we— kept to the top of the hill. But people complained about them—us—all the same. Growing up, I had heard the criticism and accusations thrown in the school’s direction. Grumbling about Southern State was a Mt. Randall pastime in which almost everyone partook.

Yet one couldn’t exist without the other.

My stomach growled and I realized I hadn’t eaten since that morning. Checking the time on my watch I saw it was after four. Even though I knew Mom would be annoyed if I ate so close to dinner, I headed toward the Sunset Cafe.

I sat at the counter, not wanting to take up a whole booth for only myself. I picked up a menu and waited to place my order.

“Hi, Jessica. How’s it going?”

A plain girl with long, brown hair tied back in a low ponytail approached me. She wore a stained apron and a tired smile.

“Not bad, Bianca. How are you?”

“Ah, you know, doing the Mt. Randall thing until I die.” She laughed and then I laughed, though it was clear neither of us found it particularly funny.

Bianca Simmons and I had graduated high school together. We were two out of the eighty-five kids who had all grown up on the same streets and graduated the same year. Bianca and I weren’t exactly friends, but we knew each other well.

“How’s college life?” Bianca asked with a note of envy.

“College is good,” I told her.

“You go up there, right?” She inclined her head in the direction of Southern State, its brick buildings visible for miles.

“I do.”

“Strange about those girls, huh.” Bianca chewed on her bottom lip, the skin cracked and peeling. “I was reading about it in the paper this morning. Two girls in two months. That’s something.”

“I don’t really know anything—”

“What’s that school doing to find them?” An elderly man spoke up from further down the counter, turning in his chair to face me. I recognized Mr. Warner from when he owned the old hardware store. Dad took me there several times over the years to get parts for our paddleboat. The store closed after he retired. Yet despite the nearest hardware store now being a thirty-minute drive away, no one had opened another one. That’s what happened in towns like Mt. Randall. Places closed and stayed closed.

I shrugged, feeling a familiar kind of restless defensiveness. “I’m not exactly sure. I’m only a student.”

Mr. Warner made a noise of derision. “Those kids are ruining our town,” he muttered under his breath.

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