Page 79 of The Lake of Lost Girls

And who killed these women? Because each set of remains bear marks consistent with a violent death. These girls were murdered in the prime of their lives and left to rot in some backwater town where they went unnoticed indefinitely.

Whoever killed them was angry. These weren’t crimes of cold calculation. These were crimes of rage and passion.

Was it the professor? Or perhaps the fellow student that online communities speculate dated all four?

Or was it someone else entirely? The elusive serial killer so many people have speculated about perhaps? The North Carolina Boogie Man? The SeaSide Strangler?

Or someone else who has been overlooked all these years?

Whoever it is should be scared. The secrets are coming out. Their days in obscurity are almost over.

It’s almost time for them to pay the piper.

CHAPTER14

LINDSEY

Present Day

MOM HAD BEENinconsolable at the diner. So much so that I had to be the one to drive us home. When we pulled up in front of our house, she opened the car door and leapt out before I fully came to a stop.

She was inside and up the stairs by the time I got to the door.

I could hear her tearing through Jess’s room.

“Mom?” I called out, hurrying upstairs after her.

She was frantic. “It has to be here. It has to be!” she cried from inside Jess’s closet.

“Mom, calm down,” I pleaded, watching as she opened the boxes I had only recently gone through.

“How had I not noticed it missing? What kind of mother am I?” She pulled items out of the boxes, tossing them on the floor.

“Mom, please, calm down, we’ll figure it out—”

“No!” she yelled, startling me, “Ican’t. Don’t you see? If that’s her blanket then … then she’s down there too. My baby is down in that water with those other girls. Or maybe she’s buried in the woods,” she wailed, her body suddenly going limp.

I dropped to my knees beside her, pulling her to me. She sagged, and I had to support all of her weight. She cried, her words unintelligible. I gently rocked her back and forth like she was the child and I was the parent.

After a few minutes, she sat up, wiping her face. She seemed to have gotten herself together somewhat. “Will you help me look?” she asked, her voice gravelly.

So, we sat on the floor of Jess’s closet, going through all of the boxes carefully. We were meticulous and methodical. Pulling out each and every item. But I already knew the blanket wouldn’t be here. I’d been through these boxes already.

“We need to go and speak to that lieutenant,” Mom said, finally giving up on the search.

She stood up, leaving Jess’s things scattered across the floor, and hurriedly left the room, practically flying down the stairs.

“Where are my keys?” she exclaimed in a panic.

“I’ll drive,” I offered, grabbing my purse. There was no question I would take her. We needed to go to the police with what we suspected. I was due in to work later that night, but I would call them on the way to the station and tell them I needed to take some personal days. I’d barely had a handful of days off from that place since I’d started, so I knew it wouldn’t be a problem.

We pulled up in front of the police station ten minutes later. We sat in the car for a moment, both of us needing to prepare ourselves.

“Why was her blanket with that other girl?” Mom asked for the hundredth time since seeing the news broadcast. And for the hundredth time, I had no answer.

Finally, we headed inside. I wondered why Mom hadn’t called Dad. It was usually her de facto response in an emergency. Yet she hadn’t. And secretly, I was glad. After everything I had discovered, I wasn’t sure when I’d be ready to face him.

My father was not the man I used to believe he was.

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