Page 8 of The Lake of Lost Girls

I pulled my hand away, refusing to admit how much his words moved me. How much I longed for someone to see Jess as the living, breathing person she had been.

“What will talking to me accomplish?” I pressed.

“I don’t know. But I think we can help each other.” Ryan took a scrap of paper and pen from his satchel and hastily wrote his phone number down, before handing it to me.

“Call me, anytime. I’m here for a while and I’d like to share what I know with you. Perhaps there are things you remember—”

“I was six. I told you—I don’t remember anything,” I countered, taking the paper and shoving it in my pocket.

“You’d be surprised how much gets suppressed with time and sometimes a little poking and prodding frees stuff up. I’ve seen it happen a time or two.”

If he’d been investigating for as long as he said, then perhaps he knew things about Jess’s life that I didn’t. My sister was my Achilles’ heel, she always had been. Ryan was dangling a carrot in front of me that I couldn’t resist. He probably knew it, too.

“Fine, Friday then,” I suggested, finally relenting.

Ryan’s eyes lit up. “Friday sounds perfect. Should I meet you in the bar—?”

“No. Not here.” Talking about my sister’s case at work was the last thing I wanted to do.

“Okay. Text me a time and place and I’ll be there.” Ryan was trying to rein in his excitement, but failing.

I started to walk toward the parking lot, but stopped, looking back one last time.

“Just so you know, I’m only agreeing to this because I want to hear whatyouknow about my sister. Don’t hold anything back. No secrets.”

“I’ll tell you what I know, Lindsey,” he promised. I still didn’t trust him, but I needed to see where this went. For Jess’s sake.

Ryan’s eyes met mine. “I’ll see you Friday.” He started to walk backward toward the hotel entrance. I couldn’t help but laugh at how silly he looked. I half hoped he’d trip and fall on his ass.

“Goodnight, Lindsey,” he called. “Sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite,” he sang playfully and this time I did smile.

He had charmed me. I hoped I wouldn’t regret letting him.

CHAPTER3

JESSICA

Fall 1998

“CAN YOU TURNoff your stupid alarm?”

The pillow hit me square in the face with a soft, yet violent, thud.

My roommate, Daisy, wasnota morning person.

I knew she was most likely nursing a major hangover after spending most of last night at a frat party, getting drunk on jungle juice. I wasn’t sure what time she came back, as I had put in my earplugs and fallen asleep around midnight. Daisy had spent the past six weeks trying to coerce me into joining in her drunken adventures. So far, I had resisted, insisting I needed to focus on my classes. But seeing her have such a good time was wearing down my staunch resolve to avoid anything that would get in the way of my education.

I was a girl who toed the line. I did what was expected of me. But that skin was starting to chafe. Tentative freedom was beginning to erase silent obedience. After all, Mom wasn’t here to look over my shoulder.

Rebellion was incredibly tempting.

I fumbled around for the hundred-decibel alarm clock my dad got me before I moved into the dorms and sat up in my extra-long twin-sized bed, rubbing the grit from my eyes. Daisy was a lump beneath her covers—and she wasn’t alone.I couldn’t tell who was sharing her bed, and most likely I wouldn’t recognize him. We hadn’t been enrolled at Southern State University long, so I barely knew anyone, let alone some random guy my wild roomie picked up at a party.

The first time she brought a guy back to the room, I had been weirded out, so we had established rules that involved a scrunchie on the doorknob to indicate she was “entertaining.” Daisy never meant to make me feel uncomfortable, so I knew she must have been pretty wasted to not have given me a heads-up.

I quickly slithered out from under my green-and-blue plaid blanket and grabbed a dirty pair of jeans from the floor, putting them on as fast as I could. It was hard to see, and I didn’t dare open the curtains, so I stumbled around, trying to find my toiletry caddy.

Slipping on the flip-flops I wore in the shower, I hurried out of the room and to the communal bathroom at the end of the hall. It was early, only seven in the morning, but the bathroom was already busy.

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