Page 107 of The Souls of Lost Lake
“Funny whatcha can do when you’re mad as a hornet. Next thing I knew, Jipsy was dead too.” Widower Frisk sniffed as if he might cry. “What’d I do to make her run off an’ be with Hubbard? Huh? I didn’t mean to hurt her. Not stabbin’ her like I did. But she wouldn’t listen. An’ you? After all I done for you? Givin’ you a place to live? Feedin’ ya?”
Black shutters closed over Ava’s eyes.
The pressure released on her throat. Widower Frisk’s weight was thrown off her. Ava gasped, choked, her throat throbbing as she attempted to suck in air. Her vision cleared. A man tackled the widower. They tussled in the dirt, shoes kicking up stones and patches of earth as they grunted.
Ava rolled onto her hands and knees. Saliva dripped from her mouth onto the ground. She retched, her throat working to clear itself. Air sucked into her lungs. She drew in deep breaths, coughing as she did so. So close to dyin’. She’d come so close.
The sound of a fist connecting with Widower Frisk yanked Ava’s attention. She saw the man who’d pulled Frisk off her rise to his feet. He took a few steps and hefted something into his hands.
Ava tried to clear her vision.
The item was long. Thick. Circular at the bottom where one powerful hand gripped the shaft, but the top was a dull metal color, held just below by the man’s other hand. He sauntered toward the widower, whose eyes were now turned on the man. Widower Frisk backed away on his backside, then lifted his arms to shield his head.
“No! Don’t do this!” he screamed.
Ava’s eyes cleared. She watched as Ned lifted the logger’s ax over his head.
Ava’s screams combined with the widower’s as the ax came down with a vicious stroke.
44
Wren
Gravel spit from her rear tires as Wren backed out from the parking spot outside the camp’s lodge. Tristan Blythe wasn’t in his office. Anger and hurt boiled inside her. Missing? A missing child? Wren fumbled with her phone as she drove, ignoring all previous cautions not to be on a phone while commandeering a vehicle. She pulled up another article and skimmed it, her eyesight bouncing between the phone’s screen and the road ahead that wound through the forest land.
The missing daughter of Phillip and Sue Johnson has not yet been found. A week after the baby went missing at the local park, authorities state they have no further suspects and refrain to comment whether the child is believed to be alive.
“Phillip and Sue Johnson.” Wren said the names aloud. It was unreal. The names of two individuals that only an hour or two before, she’d never heard of. Never had a remote thought that someone other than Tristan Blythe and his blathering obsession with Tolkien and literature could be her parent.
How?
How was she a missing child? Wren turned the steering wheel as she rounded a corner. She’d heard stories of people who’d adopted, not realizing the child they received had been stolen. Was that it?But then wouldn’t there still be some sort of adoption records? Black market? Maybe her parents hadboughther. A private off-the-records adoption. That would make sense. It kept them justifiably innocent—sort of.
She’d left Meghan at the library. Wren knew Meghan was going to call Ben. Maybe Ben would start believing her now. Maybe the police would.The police...
Wren wrenched the steering wheel the other direction as a rabbit streaked across the road. She should contact the police. No. The can of worms that would open! She needed more answers before she called the authorities on her own father—or adoptive father—or whatever he was. And it still didn’t explain what her past had to do with Jasmine Riviera’s disappearance, or Trina Nesbitt’s dead body, or Ava Coons. Right now she wanted answers.
Finding her father was step number one, and she knew if he wasn’t in his office, he had probably driven to the camp’s off-site property, where they had a staff cabin reserved for those needing to get away. He liked to put together educational materials for the camp, and he preferred to do it in solitude.
Wren turned onto a side road, the overhanging branch of a tree scraping the roof of her pickup. She glanced down at her phone.
Emily Ann Johnson was last seen on October 9, 1996. She is two months and three days old with red hair and dark blue eyes. She weighs approximately eleven pounds and was last seen wearing a pink sleeper with a white hat.
Emily Ann. That was her name? What if she was horribly and awfully mistaken? The baby’s picturewasblack-and-white, itwasan older newspaper, pixelated and on the computer. Babies sometimes looked alike. There was a chance she was just plain wrong.
No. No, there wasn’t.
Wren dialed Eddie’s number. When the call didn’t go through, she looked at her phone. There was a signal, but it hadn’t connected.The problem wasn’t uncommon for cell service in this area. She tried again, only to have it connect and go to his voicemail. Panic was rising in her. She hadn’t seen him since the night in the camp kitchen. Hadn’t seen Troy either, but at least he’d answered her platonic texts. Eddie was simply off the grid—right when she needed him most. Right whenheneeded her, but she’d been too blind to realize, too dumb to know what Patty had alluded to all along. She and Eddie needed each other. Were meant for each other. They weren’t just buddies, pals, old friends. They were—
The truck bounced over a pothole, and Wren’s phone flipped onto the passenger seat. Growling, she left it there and turned into the short drive of the cabin. Jumping from the cab, she strode toward the cabin.
“Dad?” she called. She’d give him a chance to explain. Wren determined that as she hopped up the three steps onto the porch. “Dad?” It was only right. He wasn’t an evil man. He wasn’t bad. He was herfather, for pity’s sake! There had to be an explanation.
“Dad?” Wren wrenched the cabin door open. She ducked inside and looked around. There wasn’t any sign of her father. No academic books splayed on the small table. No papers. His reading glasses weren’t there. Neither was his pivotal thermos of coffee that gave him the courage of Aragon, if not the personality of an Orc.
“Crud,” Wren muttered. She spun on her heel and hurried from the cabin, shutting the door behind her. She headed for her truck. It wouldn’t hurt to try calling his cell again. Maybe he’d pick up.
“Wren?”
