The Girl and the Cursed Lake (Emma Griffin FBI Mystery Book 12)

by A J Rivers

  “We need to trust that the proper authorities are doing their jobs and will put the energy and effort necessary into locating Elsie and making sure she can come home safely. I promise I will keep you up to date on anything I find out. And, please, review the footage we posted. I'll be posting more, including what Elsie's camera caught, soon after this is posted. Go over it. See if you notice anything that might be helpful. If you do, reach out to me, and I'll make sure the police know.

  “One final thing. Elsie and I have been doing these investigations together for a long time. From the very beginning, we agreed we would never be the type of investigators who shied away from a challenge or turned and ran in fear. That wasn't us. We came together over a shared passion for the paranormal and desire to understand what lies beyond this life. Our deep belief in this realm of existence and the desire to contact it made our friendship tight and our devotion to this quest unbreakable. Throughout it all, there's one thing we always acknowledged: the danger.

  “We have always been aware of how dangerous what we do could be. From before our first investigation, we've talked about the risks involved in what we do and whether or not it is worth it to us. We agreed right then that as soon as a risk seemed too much to either one of us, we were out. There was never going to be a time when we pressured each other or let ourselves get overwhelmed. But we also promised to face things head-on and never let our fear get in the way.

  “We've never had to leave an investigation. We've never backed down or experienced a danger too severe. We have never done it and we never will. We know the risks. We know the dangers. Now as we face those dangers coming to fruition, I want to assure you my commitment hasn't changed. My dedication hasn't wavered. We will not regret what we've done and what we've learned and accomplished. We committed ourselves to this path and we will continue to follow it. Thank you."

  The video ends, but I keep staring at the screen for several long seconds after.

  "He has got to be kidding," I say. "That was his idea of a statement about his co-host, the woman who he himself describes as his best friend, being missing?"

  "What was wrong with it?" Dean asks.

  I stare at him incredulously. "Seriously? Dean, you know people. You read people. And you also know the complexities and nuances of the pungent aroma of bullshit. That man just tap-danced through a one-man vaudeville act and called it classical Greek tragedy. He's using Elsie's disappearance to promote himself and his business. He could have done a three-sentence announcement. I would even give him six sentences and it would have still been appropriate. But that was just ridiculous.

  “He spent more time on his drama and trying to get people to pay attention to his website, where he sells merchandise and books private tours, by the way, than he did actually talking about Elsie. And what was all that about trusting the local authorities and that they are doing their jobs? Did you hear his tone?"

  "I did," Sam says. "He wasn't telling them to trust the police. He was trying to imply that they are covering something up. That they aren’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing. He needed to tell everybody to stay away for liability purposes. That way no one can say that he encouraged or provoked people to go out there. But he wants there to be a fuss. He wants to make a big deal out of this because it will give him more notoriety."

  "Exactly," I say. "It's all about attention. I know you guys admire Ken Abbott, but there's something about him that strikes me wrong. And it's not the paranormal stuff. He craves attention and he'll do anything to get it."

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Does that mean you think he has something to do with Elsie’s disappearance?” Xavier asks.

  “I'm not necessarily saying that. All I'm saying is this seems to be working out a bit in his favor and he's not shying away from it," I say. "It almost makes me hope that it's a hoax or a publicity stunt."

  "He might love attention, but I don't think he craves it enough to file a false police report,” Sam counters.

  “I know,” I acknowledge. “But at least if it was fake, that would mean both of them were shady at best. It's better than thinking she really is missing, that something actually did happen to her, and he's still acting like that.” I take a breath. “Come on. Let's eat before everything gets cold.”

  We all move around the table filling up our plates. It's the same every time we order Chinese food. Each of us picks out our own thing, but we all end up grabbing little scoops of everything until we have plates that are just a couple shades short of obscene. Those last us for the hour or so it takes to eat, then we rest for a while. Then… cookies. Fortune first, then chocolate chip. Strictly in that order. I'm pretty sure Xavier has some complex reasoning behind it all, but I haven't asked.

  "What else did you find out?" Xavier asks, several bites into his shrimp fried rice. "Yesterday it seemed as if you had found out a lot more."

  I nod, setting down my chopsticks and wiping my fingers on a napkin as I finish chewing the bite in my mouth. "I don't know if I would say a lot, but I did a lot of roaming around on the internet."

  "Always a reliable source of information," Dean mutters.

  I look at him for a second, trying to understand the attitude radiating from him. He's focused on the food on his plate, which is fairly considerable, as he's barely eaten a bite of it.

  "That sleuthing forum you were telling me about?" Xavier asks.

  "Yeah. Well, the forum isn't specifically for web sleuths. It's just a page on a bigger forum that's used by people who are interested in cold cases and other crimes. They talk about the details and try to come up with theories. Sometimes there are some pretty interesting insights. But what I found most interesting and most useful is all the details that are in there. Things that get lost really easily over time. Some of these people scan in old newspapers and embed news reports.

  “I don't even know where they get some of this stuff. Sometimes it seems as though they could give Eric a run for his money. There's one main page for those four years, and then more in-depth pages about the individual sets of deaths and disappearances. There are even pages that people use almost like photo journals. They document going to the campground and what they saw there.”

  “I thought it was closed,” Xavier says. “Police don't allow anybody in the area.”

  “Technically, it is closed,” I say. “All the paths and trails leading to it are blocked off. The parking lot is closed. Anybody who gets caught in there can be arrested. They kept officers up there for a while after the last set of disappearances, but it's just not practical to keep them there all the time. And despite popular belief, parks like that don't have their own police forces or officers patrolling through them all the time. There are rangers, of course, but they aren't there so much for law enforcement as they are to protect the park.

  “The parks are meant to be places of escape and freedom, away from the stresses and pressures of regular life. Few things manage to take more relaxation and simple joy out of things than constantly seeing police officers."

  "What a lovely sentiment," Sam mutters. Seriously, what is with these moody men in my life?

  I purse my lips at him. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. I love you and clearly, I am pro-law enforcement. It's kind of an ongoing thread through my life. But you have to admit, some people act and feel differently when they know they are around the police. They tense up and get nervous. Or they get cocky and rebellious. It doesn't matter. The point is, the police aren't there all the time. Funding for them to have a constant presence just isn't available, and since the instance of crime in these parks is actually really low, they wouldn't be doing much most of the time. Their resources would be more valuable somewhere else."

  Xavier stares at me, and I watch him slowly bring a scoop of rice toward his mouth with his chopsticks. His eyes don't move away from me and most of the rice doesn't actually make it all the way to his mouth. The few grains that do disappear into a slow chew.

  "I still don'
t understand," he says a few seconds later as if he was waiting for me to continue the thought.

  "The campground is closed. It can't be reserved and is not for use. But since the surveillance ended years ago, there's little stopping people from going into it. Apparently, there is a group of frequent campers and hikers who stake the area out around the anniversary each year to stop people from going thrill-seeking," I say.

  "And no one has disappeared or died since they started doing that," Sam adds.

  "Not until Elsie," I point out. "Anyway, I read through the information and ended up getting deeper into the page about Violet Montgomery. It turns out the theory that her death was an accident doesn't sit well with any of these people. They all agree that when the police say it was an accident, it's a cover-up. The police started saying that and repeating it as a way to get the heat off them. They didn’t want to have people look at them as if they’re failures at their jobs, or as if the area is dangerous.

  “But then it happened again the next year with the two kids, and the people on the forum say there should have been an official statement made then that Violet did not die of exposure or dehydration. It's so obvious she was gone well before the time it would have taken for her to die that way."

  "Why?" Xavier asks. "They couldn't determine the cause of death due to the decomposition, and the weather skewed the time of death. It was very hot that summer and extremely rainy in the days following Violet's disappearance."

  "Right. The day she disappeared was hot and muggy. It would have been unpleasant to walk around in the woods much for anyone, but especially a small child wearing shorts and sandals. Without any water, especially, it's unlikely she would have gotten very far in the woods in the time it took for her mother to notice she was gone," I say. "Yet, she went completely unnoticed for two months?"

  "I'm not following you," Sam says.

  "All of them are different, but no matter which one you're talking about, a national park is going to be two things. Large and quiet. The quiet is the big part, here. Yes, a campground can be kind of a noisy place. But once you get out onto the trails, it's birds and wind and not a whole lot else. It's why many people love going to them so much. It can be an extremely loud world out there. It's nice sometimes to be able to hear yourself think," I say.

  Xavier pounds his fist in the middle of his chest and holds it up toward the sky in what I can only imagine is a gesture of solidarity. He goes right back to his food, and I look over at Dean. My cousin stands and picks up his glass.

  "He found a ‘greatest moments’ compilation of Celine Dion in Vegas," he explains, walking back toward the kitchen.

  "Oh. Well, my point is, it was quiet. How could that child not have heard her parents calling for her? And then the people searching for her?" I ask. "Even assuming that their calling her name inside the cabin or around the area in the campground got muffled by the other sounds of the campground, once the search party got into the woods, wouldn't she be able to hear them calling for her? And wouldn't they be able to hear her?"

  "The police took awhile to get there, remember? Her parents went to the neighbors in the surrounding cabins first. Then once they weren't able to find her, they called the police. Then the police had to get there and then send people out into the woods. By then, she could have gotten a good distance away," Sam says.

  "She might have also thought she was in trouble," Xavier says. "So, she hid."

  "And just sat there until she died?" I ask. I shake my head. "No. That's not going to happen. A little child isn't going to crawl up into a cavern and then just sit there untilshe dies. I guess it's possible it took long enough for the team to get assembled and organize their search that she got pretty far into the woods. She could have gotten turned around and then encountered whoever killed her. The killer might have even offered to help her, which could have earned her trust before the actual search began, or before it got into the area where she was."

  "That's not how it happened."

  The sound of Dean's voice makes me jump. I didn't realize he had come back into the room and is standing just inside the doorway.

  "What?" I ask.

  "That's not how it happened. The search started as soon as Carrie and Travis started looking. Before the police ever got there. People from the campground rushed into the woods to help. And they were anything but calm and organized. They were shouting and running up and down the trails, and tromping through the woods," Dean says. "Violet heard them. I'm guessing that's why she was on that particular path. She was trying to get back to the campground."

  "How do you know that?"

  "Because I was there."

  Chapter Twenty

  For an instant, I can't speak. I'm so stunned by the revelation, all I can do is stare at my cousin in disbelief.

  "You were there?" I finally ask.

  Dean nods, his expression dark.

  "I was there with a group of friends. We weren't supposed to be there. None of our parents knew we were."

  "You were only thirteen," I say.

  "I know," he confirms flatly, seeming to acknowledge how incredibly young that sounded for him to be off with friends and have no adults know, but unwilling to elaborate. "My buddies were going to the river to fish, but I didn't feel like it. We weren't staying at the campground itself but had put up tents in the woods not too far from there so we could use the bathhouses and steal food from the people who left it out.

  “I decided to go back to the tents and ended up on one of the back paths leading up toward the campground. One that isn't used very often. It was mostly overgrown then. I don't even know if it would be visible now. I saw somebody moving in the trees ahead of me. I hadn't seen anybody in a while, so it was surprising. That's what caught my attention.

  “I didn't see where the person went, so I just kept walking. After that, things get a little fuzzy. I know that a few steps later, I saw a girl in the woods ahead of me."

  That makes the breath catch in my throat.

  “Dean,” I say carefully. “Are you the witness?”

  He draws in a breath and holds it for just a little too long, as if he needs to hang onto the air in his lungs so every bit of it doesn't leave him.

  “Yes,” he says. “Not everything you read is accurate.”

  “What happened?” I ask. “Why do things get fuzzy after that moment?”

  “I know I was there that day. I still have nightmares about it. Through the trees. She was far ahead of me. Too far for me to really see her face. And she was behind trees and undergrowth, so I couldn't see how tall she was. All I saw was a few flashes of color from her clothes. Then I heard footsteps behind me. I know I ran. I can remember the fear. I know I felt something grab me.”

  “The person you saw in the woods?" I ask.

  Dean shakes his head slightly and gives an almost imperceptible shrug.

  "I don't know. I didn't see who grabbed me. Or I don't remember it if I did. Something grabbed my leg and hit me in the back. I remember stumbling, but I don't know if I actually hit the ground. The next thing I remember is running down the path near the campground. Not the biggest one that leads from the parking lot. One of the smaller ones that comes down from the opposite side. I could hear footsteps, but I didn't look back.

  “I didn't want to be as visible, so I ran into the trees. I saw the girl again. She was closer this time, but I still couldn't tell you exactly what she looked like or anything. I looked over my shoulder, then I don't remember anything again until I heard a scream, then I was running. There seemed to be voices all around me. I know now they probably weren't. But that's what it sounded like. As though I was completely surrounded. I didn't want them to get near me, so I kept running."

  "Then you fell down the embankment," I say. "It was in the case file. A group of people found you down at the bottom. You were covered with blood.”

  Dean nods.

  “They were searching for Violet. I didn't know that at the time. But they found me before the
police got to the campground. I didn't even know there was a little girl missing until the police were questioning me, and I mentioned seeing the girl in the woods. I gave the officer every bit of information I could think of. They didn't respond too well to me. That's not much of a surprise. I had already clashed with the police a couple of times by then. They wanted to know about my injuries and where the blood came from. They had me describe the girl and the other person in the woods. All I could tell them was a man grabbed me, but I got away.”

  I’m completely shocked. I open my mouth and close it and open it again. Then close it.

  “The point is,” he continues, “you can't believe everything that you read on these forums, because those people weren't there. And even the ones who were, or who think they got first-hand information from somebody who was, might not know the full story."

  He hesitates there for another moment, then walks toward the back of the house. I immediately get up to follow him. When I get outside, he's leaning against the banister of the back deck, staring out over the land rolling behind Xavier's house.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, coming up to stand beside him.

  “I have to be,” he says. “I don't have a choice.”

  “That's not what I asked you,” I say.

  Dean looks at me, and I see the same storm in his eyes I saw the first time we encountered each other on the train to Feathered Nest. That feels like a different life. It's hard now for me to imagine not having him in my life.

  “Should I be okay?” he asks.

  “I don't know,” I say. “You never told me about any of this.”

  “I've never told anybody about any of it,” he sighs. “I don't even want it in my own brain. It's one of the most painful things that happened in my life, and I don't like to put it out into the world.” He looks out over the yard again. “I think about her all the time. He came after me. I was the one who should have been taken. But I fought him off, and I got away. And because of that, a four-year-old girl was snatched and murdered.”