Page 30 of The Souls of Lost Lake
“Never mind.” Wren waved his explanation off. It wasn’t worth the tension. Jasmine was the focus—shouldbe the focus. Not the doll, or the cabin, or Ava Coons.
“I get why she’s on your mind.” Troy didn’t let it go.
Wren met his frank liquid-blue stare.
Troy continued, “Everyone is thinking it to a degree. Jasmine isn’t the first to go missing around here.”
Wren bit the inside of her cheek and looked away from him. No. No, she wasn’t. There was that girl who disappeared when Wren was in high school. They never found her either. No one talked about it anymore, and the most accepted explanation was that the girl’s father had kidnapped her. People liked to blame Ava Coons when bad things happened. Sometimes a ghost story was easier than the raw truth.
“But you know they’re all explained. Hunting accident. That kid’s dad taking her. It wasn’t anything with these woods—or Lost Lake. Or you.”
Wren jerked her head back and locked eyes with Troy. She didn’t like the way he was searching her face, trying to impress some element of truth on her she didn’t want to hear.
“I never said this was about me,” she snapped. Why on earth would Troy think that, outside of the doll they’d found? A nagging feeling in her stomach worried Wren that somehow she was coming across narcissistic enough to turn Jasmine’s disappearance into her issue. Her problem. Some plea for attention. “It’s about Jasmine,” she reaffirmed.
“I don’t doubt your intentions.” Troy offered her a gentle smile. God bless him. Wren allowed the strain to ebb from her body. Troy looked over to the Rivieras. “Go,” he nudged her. “You said you wanted to reach out to Jasmine’s parents. Go. Do it. It’s a good idea. I’m not sure if camp has had the chance to yet, and Deer Lake Bible Campshouldbe more to them than just a base camp for their daughter’s search.”
Troy dropped a kiss on her cheek. Affectionate but understandably distant, considering Wren hadn’t shown any particular warmth toward him that morning. She wrapped her arms around herself and nodded. He chucked her under the chin with his knuckle and moved away, heading toward John and the other SAR teams. He was going to lead Group Four today. Wren had chosen to stay behind. Something about the woods seemed darker this morning. More dangerous. She wasn’t convinced she wanted to enter them.
“Ben? Meghan?” Wren approached the parents, who clutched Styrofoam cups of camp coffee. The two looked up, lost expressions on their faces. Wren eased onto a chair, the cold from the metal seeping through her shorts and cooling the backs of her bare legs.
Ben lifted dark eyes. He was handsome, his dark hair and olive skin a striking physical contrast next to his wife, Meghan, who was blond and even on a bad day could probably walk the runway as a model. But stress and trauma were taking a toll. Wren could see the remnants of hours of tears by the red-rimmed eyes, the puffiness, and the trembling in Meghan’s hands.
Wren leaned forward and drew in a deep breath, praying for the right words.
“I’m Wren. Wren Blythe. I work here at Deer Lake Bible Camp. We just wanted to let you know we are praying, and hoping, and will do whatever we can to help.”
“You will?” Meghan’s head snapped up, her blue eyes intense.
Wren shot a hesitant look at Ben, who reached for his wife’s hand.
“Meghan,” he began.
“No.” Meghan shook her head at her husband. “I know—IknowJasmine didn’t just wander off!” Meghan swung her attention back to Wren. She leaned forward, matching Wren’s stance of elbows on knees. She lowered her voice. “The day Jasmine disappeared, she told me about a woman she’d seen. In the woods.”
“A woman?” Wren ignored the return of the tension in her stomach. The foreboding that she consistently stuffed away as ludicrous.
Meghan nodded, ignoring Ben’s squeeze of his hand on her upper thigh. “Jasmine said it was a woman wearing overalls.”
“There isn’t anything suspicious about a woman in overalls.” Ben’s grave tone sliced through his wife’s frantic words.
“See?” Meghan waved her hand at Ben, bitter desperation trailing across her features. “He doesn’t believe me.”
“Por el amor de Dios! I believe you.” Ben blew out a breath. “I just don’t see what is—”
“Overalls!” Meghan almost shrieked. A few of the people gathered not far away cast covert glances.
Ben squeezed Meghan’s knee. Wren noticed it wasn’t a tight squeeze but meant to be comforting, calming.
Meghan drew in a deep breath, pursing her lips together. “We may be from Milwaukee, but I grew up in this area, you know? Our family owned a cabin close to camp. We’ve come up every summer, sometimes for a week at a time. Iknowthe story of Ava Coons in her overalls and her boots. Iknowshe haunts the woods. I know shehuntsin these woods.”
Ben growled deep in his throat, hanging his head and shaking it back and forth. His black hair flipped forward, hiding his expression. Meghan side-eyed him as she addressed Wren. “He doesn’t think it’s true—the story of Ava Coons—but he didn’t grow up around here. He’s from Florida, where their biggest fear is alligators!”
Wren squelched all the various responses flying through her head. None of them were adequate. None of them helped her ease her own insecurities about the recent events, nor would they help Meghan.
“You believe in Ava Coons, don’t you?” Meghan sniffed. The edge of anger in her voice was dissipating into a watery hope that someone wouldn’t think she was crazy.
Wren tapped her fingers on her bare knees, feeling a rivulet of sweat trickle down her back. It wasn’tthathot outside. But it didn’t change the fact that she felt as though she were in the hot seat.
