Shadow Falls

by Wendy Dranfield

  “Oh yeah? You got a suspect yet?”

  “We think we do, but we’ll see.”

  “Who’s we?” Rex suddenly sounds more alert, reminding Nate that he hasn’t told him about Madison yet.

  “My new employee. She needed a job so I thought I’d give her a try.”

  Rex laughs. “I can’t believe you’re branching out. What’s her background? Want me to run a check on her?”

  Nate cringes. He doesn’t want Rex to know he’s helping a former cop. Not until he has time to explain the circumstances anyway.

  “Not on her, no. But I do need your help and I’m pressed for time, so that’s a story for later.” He’s about to continue before Rex can put two and two together, but he doesn’t get a chance.

  “You’re hiding something, aren’t you? Your voice changed. I wasn’t born yesterday, Nate. There’s a reason you don’t want to tell me. Which means you’re doing something you’re not happy with. Something your conscience isn’t happy with.”

  Nate laughs. Rex can be overly dramatic. “I promise I’ll tell you another time. For now, I have to focus on finding Jennifer Lucas. I need you to do a full background check on a guy named Josh—maybe Joshua—Sanders. He’s a camp counselor here. The police have already ruled him out as a suspect, but his alibi is shady. I need his address and all the usual details. Check out his finances too.”

  “Okay, let me grab a pen. Josh Sanders. Got a date of birth?”

  “Not yet, but I’ll text you when I do.”

  “Okay. Anyone else?”

  “Yeah, Donna Gleeson. She’s the camp director. Look into her finances. You never know, she might have taken Jenny to blackmail the parents for money. They’re obviously loaded and they’re offering a twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward for information, so it’s a potential motive.”

  “Have there been any demands for money?”

  “Not yet, but I want to rule it out. I want to know why Jenny in particular was taken. This isn’t a well-run, modern summer camp; in fact it’s pretty basic, and the fees listed on their website are cheap. It’s also almost seven hundred miles away from the Lucas home. So I’m wondering why her parents chose this camp over a more impressive version when they appear to be so well off. I’m also wondering if one of the staff saw Jenny as a potential ransom payout.”

  “Got it. That all?”

  Nate thinks about the family. It’s unlikely they’re involved if the grandmother hired him to look into Jenny’s disappearance, but you never can tell these days. Nothing shocks him anymore. “Do a criminal background check on the family: Anna Lucas, Grant Lucas and Esme Lucas. I don’t have dates of birth, but I’ll forward you a text with their address. I’d say the parents are in their late thirties and Grant’s mother is probably in her late sixties or early seventies.”

  “Full financial check too?”

  “Yeah.” He knows Esme won’t be happy when she sees on his invoice that she’s paying for a background check to be done on her family, but she’s hired him to do a job and that’s what he’s doing.

  “While you’re at it, look into Detective Ted Morgan from the Trinity Creek Police Department. See if there have been any internal investigations into him.”

  “Now you’re talking!”

  Nate can picture the smile on Rex’s face. “That should keep you busy for a while.”

  “Yeah, while your new lady friend keeps you busy, no doubt.”

  “Cut it out, Rex. It’s not like that.”

  “Whatever you say, buddy. And before you ask, no leads on Father Connor or Kristen yet. You’ll be the first to know.”

  He was going to ask, because he can’t help it. “Thanks, Rex.”

  Nate spots Madison outside their cabin, talking on her new cell phone. He wonders who she’s still in touch with after her prison stay, and whether anyone she worked with stood by her. He can’t shake the feeling that she’s holding out on him. Trust comes hard to people who have been in their situation, but keeping secrets isn’t going to help her in the long run.

  Shielding his eyes from the sunshine, he spots Kat walking toward the office, holding the hand of a young girl. They’re singing. As he approaches, she stops and smiles up at him. “Hey, Nate. Are you enjoying life at the camp?”

  The girl lets go of her hand and runs ahead of her into the office.

  “It’s peaceful. You’re not at full capacity, I take it?”

  “No. A lot of kids have already left. It’s not peaceful during orientation week, that’s for sure! But Donna says the owners have decided to close camp early as we’re running at a loss now. She’s phoning the parents later to tell them to collect the kids at the end of next week. Some of them are really looking forward to going home.”

  He frowns. That gives them less time to find Jenny. Kat plays with the buttons on her shirt, and he wonders if it’s a flirting tactic, to make his eyes drift there.

  “Where’s home for you?” he asks.

  “Oh, I’m from here. Josh is too. We went to school together in the next town over. Shadow Falls isn’t big enough for its own school yet.”

  “Have you been together long?”

  “No.” Her cheeks redden. “Only this summer. To be honest, he wasn’t interested in me until recently. And we broke up after having a drunken argument at his birthday party last Saturday, but got back together the next day, when we were sober.” She smiles. “I always said I’d get my claws into him in the end, and I was right.”

  Nate wonders why Josh would suddenly relent now, when he’s known her forever. But then there can’t be many women to choose from in a town as small as this, and Kat’s certainly attractive, although still immature. “What will you do for work when the camp closes?”

  She looks over at the cabin to see if anyone’s missing her yet, then turns back to Nate. “Well, Josh is planning to move to Chicago to study business, but I’m hoping he’ll stay in town with me. I want to move in with him.”

  Nate tries not to raise his eyebrows. He doubts Josh will give up a place at college to stay in a small town like this. Or maybe that’s just a line he’s fed her so their relationship doesn’t last too long.

  “But I’m starting to think he’s just using me for the summer. You know, for sex.”

  Nate sighs. “I hope not, Kat. You seem like a nice girl.”

  She smiles. “I am! Before Josh, I never even touched alcohol or—” She stops.

  “You wouldn’t be the first girl to get into something they didn’t want to because of a man.”

  She looks scared. “No, it’s okay. He’s a good guy. He makes me laugh. Anyway, I need to get back to work.”

  She spins around, so Nate steps in front of her and touches her arm lightly. “Kat? You want to help us find Jenny, don’t you?”

  Her eyes widen and she reminds him of a naïve schoolgirl. “Of course!”

  “Do you think Josh might know what happened to her? It would really help if you were able to tell me anything at all. It doesn’t have to be something that would get you in trouble. Just a clue of some sort. Something I can work with.”

  She looks over her shoulder to make sure no one’s watching them. Brody is patrolling the camp and the baseball game appears to have finished so the kids are dispersing.

  “To be honest with you, Nate,” she whispers, “I don’t know why he asked me to lie. I fell asleep, and when I woke up about an hour later, he was gone.”

  Nate thinks she’s telling the truth this time. “Did you find out where he went?”

  She shakes her head. “No. I fell back to sleep. He was with me when I woke up in the morning. I remember, because we had sex.” She blushes hard. “He was rougher than usual, and he smelt of pot. I didn’t enjoy it.”

  He feels for her, because she’s clearly being used. “Was it Josh who should have taken the head count the night Jenny went missing?”

  She looks at her feet and nods. “Detective Morgan already knows, but he thinks Josh forgot because we fell asleep.
He did a background check on us both and found out Josh has a DUI from last summer. Josh was so pissed at him. He hates it when people snoop into his private business. Even I don’t know that much about him, and I’ve known him forever.”

  So Josh was a suspect at one point. Nate assumes he would have been arrested by now if Morgan had found anything disturbing. “You can do better than him, you know.”

  She shrugs her shoulders. “Not around here. I’d have to move to the nearest city to meet someone else, but that costs money. Besides, my dad says I’m pretty much good for nothing, so I’d never get a job in the city.”

  Nate can tell she thinks about her situation a lot. Her father sounds like a regular asshole. “Has Josh got an opinion about what happened to Jenny?”

  She glances toward the lake. “He’s adamant she’s down there. He won’t even consider any other possibilities. But how could he know that?”

  “He can’t.” Unless he put her down there himself. “Thanks, Kat. You’ve been really helpful.”

  She takes a step toward him. “Please don’t tell him I said anything. He might break up with me.”

  Nate feels ashamed for being the same gender as Josh. “I won’t say a word, I promise. But you are too good for him, Kat. Find yourself someone better, someone who doesn’t ask you to lie for them.”

  Someone runs up behind Nate, grabs Kat and spins her around. It’s Josh, right on cue. He kisses her lips and she giggles with delight. It’s clear that Nate’s advice is immediately disregarded.

  “Who are you too good for?” he asks nonchalantly.

  Nate resists the impulse to speak, as he doesn’t trust what he’ll say.

  “This place,” says Kat, her smile faltering. “Nate thinks they work us too hard here.”

  “You wouldn’t be lying to me now, would you?” There’s sudden menace in his voice. “You’re not screwing our new friend here, are you, Kathryn?”

  She looks at Nate with wide eyes before responding to Josh. “What? Of course not!”

  “I’m just fucking with you.” Josh turns to him. “I’d prefer it if you stayed away from my girlfriend.” There’s no smile now. “She’s just a kid.”

  Nate glances at Kat. “How old are you?”

  “Eighteen. Nineteen at Christmas.”

  He turns back to Josh. “Sounds like an adult to me. I think she can make her own decisions about who she talks to.”

  Josh takes a step closer. “You better watch yourself. One word from me and Donna will kick you off this camp, and then where will you be?”

  “Well, actually, I’m a millionaire, so I’ll just go and stay in the best hotel I can find. But don’t worry, I’ll still drop by to visit you all. I’m staying until I find Jennifer Lucas. Does that bother you, Josh?”

  Josh looks like he wants to punch him. Instead, he grabs Kat by the wrist and drags her away, yelling over his shoulder, “Watch your back, man. Outsiders don’t do well in Shadow Falls.”

  Nate watches them walk past the office and toward their cabin. Josh doesn’t let go of her wrist the whole time, and when she looks back at Nate, she mouths, “Sorry.”

  Nate immediately messages Rex. Kat inadvertently revealed Josh’s date of birth; last Saturday. He doesn’t have a year, but the date could narrow it down. After what he’s just witnessed, it’s time to step things up a gear.

  Thirty-Seven

  Madison has spent an hour on the computer in the camp’s office, doing some online research into the town and its residents via news websites and court reports. Donna said she could use it as long as she didn’t download porn or viruses.

  “It’s our only one and we can’t afford to replace it.”

  Madison wonders whether the police took the computer away to check it for child abuse images. She would’ve done if she was Detective Morgan. According to Donna, everyone here has access to it; staff and kids. There are no passwords and no firewall—in other words, a recipe for disaster. Madison thought about telling her to set a password, but just then a young boy walked in. He was about Owen’s age and was clearly homesick. He begged Donna to call his parents so he could go home. She remained firm and told him it was better to see out his final week and a half. Probably so she didn’t have to refund any more money.

  “I have a meeting with the cafeteria staff,” she said, holding a folder and pen. “If the phone rings, just let it go to voicemail.” She left Madison alone in the cabin.

  Now Madison decides to see what she can find in the computer’s internet search history. If no one has cleared the cache and cookies in a while, she might get lucky. She checks what Kat is doing; a quick look out the window shows she’s helping a kid retrieve her tennis ball from the lake. Josh was with her, but now he’s disappeared.

  “Okay, let’s see what’s really happening in this place,” she mutters. She opens the internet history page but it only brings up the last ten searches, and they’re all hers. She googles how to expand the list. “Hmm, press control and H together.” She does it. “Huh. Would you look at that.”

  A long list of searches is displayed, in time and date order. She scrolls down. It appears never-ending, and she can’t believe her luck. She goes back to the top and starts scanning each website. There are the obvious sites you’d expect from a summer camp full of kids and teenagers: celebrity gossip, YouTube, social media, takeout menus, sports updates. Then she notices Jennifer Lucas’s name. It looks like someone has been looking at the news reports. That’s understandable. Kids would be worried and wanting to know what’s happening, and the staff are probably keeping an eye out for negative press. She keeps going.

  After twenty minutes, her eyes are blurring and she’s thinking about stopping when something catches her attention. The words pre-teen girls have been typed into Google, but she can’t tell what the user clicked next. Someone must have deleted the website but forgot about the Google search.

  She doesn’t try the same search herself—she’s not a cop anymore and can’t risk being accused of looking at that kind of thing—but she makes a note of the time and date and suddenly realizes it was the afternoon of Jennifer’s disappearance. She pushes her hair back behind her ears and leans in to the screen as she keeps scrolling down to find any other unsavory searches. She’s rewarded with twelve-year-old girls. It was googled just an hour before the other search.

  She keeps scrolling for another twenty minutes, but there’s nothing else. She needs to speak to Nate. She should probably call Detective Morgan immediately, but they don’t know if he can be trusted yet. And she would assume he’s already had this computer properly examined. But if that’s the case, why is the history still intact? Why wasn’t it wiped and proper firewalls put in place to stop anyone else searching for this stuff?

  Kat walks back into the office. She’s sweating from exertion but smiling.

  “Kat? Who uses this computer the most?”

  She looks surprised by the question. “Probably me and Donna. Plus, if someone can’t get a signal on their cell phone, they’ll pop in to search for something. And the kids will use it for YouTube. Why?”

  Madison shakes her head. “No reason. Did Detective Morgan take it away as part of his investigation?”

  Kat frowns. “No. He didn’t take anything but Jenny’s belongings. Why would he take our computer?”

  Madison can’t tell if she’s really this naïve or whether she’s playing dumb. “I don’t know. Maybe Jenny was searching for somewhere to run away to before she left.” She doesn’t want to tell her it’s because one of the staff members is looking at kiddie porn. If Kat gives anyone a heads-up, they’ll have time to delete it, because Madison can’t seize the computer.

  Once again she’s frustrated at the restrictions she faces now she’s not a cop.

  After Kat heads out to sort another problem for one of the kids, Madison’s left alone to keep digging. Another fifteen minutes have passed when the door to the cabin opens and Nate appears.

  “Are you ready to get
out of here for a while?” he asks her.

  She stands up. “Sure. But first, look at this.”

  He walks behind the desk and leans against her chair while she points out both searches on the screen.

  “And check out the date. The same day Jenny vanished.”

  Nate turns pale. “Shit. Looks like you were right all along. This suggests she’s been abducted and possibly raped.”

  “By someone she knows, too. Not an opportunist. Should we tell Morgan?”

  He frowns. “Wouldn’t he have seized this as part of his investigation?”

  “He should have, but Kat says nothing was taken but Jenny’s belongings.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “I wish I was. It’s becoming painfully clear that he has completely screwed this investigation up. He’s out of his depth. So what do we do?” She feels excited to finally have a lead to work with.

  “Follow me.”

  She closes the web browser and Nate leads her outside, where Brody is waiting. They both walk past him without stopping, and Madison can hear the sound of the dog panting as he follows them to the Jeep.

  Nate looks up at the sky, which has turned alarmingly grey. “Looks like rain.”

  “Good, I’m ready for a break from the heat. It’s too humid for me and the bugs are so annoying.”

  Nate agrees. “Yeah, I’m sick of being eaten alive. The humidity’s making them worse.” As he opens the car door, he looks at the dog. “Not this time, buddy.”

  Madison laughs. “He can’t understand you.”

  But Brody barks at him and tries pawing the door behind the driver’s seat. Nate pushes his paw away and checks for scratches. “Careful!”

  Brody barks again.

  “Maybe he’s got cabin fever too,” says Madison. “Poor thing probably never gets away from this place.”

  Nate relents and opens the back door. “Fine. Just don’t destroy anything.” Brody jumps in.