Chapter 10

TEN

Cold damp air seeped into every crevice of Jenna’s clothes as she walked back to the Beast. Raindrops splattered her cheeks and she pulled down the hood of her slicker, slightly annoyed by Mrs. Campbell’s almost total refusal to answer questions when it was obvious that she had full recollection of the night in question. It seemed incredulous to her that someone could remember bits and pieces of a night so horrific in their lives but absolutely nothing about the two people who went missing or who else was there at the time. She tore off her slicker and tossed it into the footwell, climbed into her seat, and clicked in her seatbelt. As they drove away, she turned and looked at Kane. “I have the distinct impression that that woman is withholding information. I know we can be a formidable couple but her hands were shaking from the moment we stepped inside her house. She was doing everything possible to avoid eye contact with us and was doing things to give herself time to reply to my questions. One thing’s for darn sure, she knows exactly what happened that night and is keeping it a secret.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Kane turn the truck toward Main. “We need to get back to the office and discuss this with the others. Either she’s covering up for the person who murdered these kids or she’s involved.”

Dabbing at her wet cheeks with tissues, Jenna looked at him. “There is another reason. If she does know who the killer is, she might be keeping quiet because she’s in fear of her life. We don’t know what happened that night, and if others were involved, there’s a good chance that the killer threatened everyone. College kids do crazy things sometimes. For all we know they could all be involved with the murders and burials. It was Halloween after all, and you know as well as I do that things sometimes get out of hand. They could all be involved and therefore equally responsible. Getting one of them to break the code of silence is going to be very difficult. I guess we just keep interviewing everyone in that yearbook until we discover the truth about what happened to Abby and Cole.”

Jenna’s phone chimed and she looked at the caller ID. It was Wolfe. “Hi, Shane. This case is going to be a little more difficult than we imagined.”

“Yeah, and it has yielded a little more evidence.” Wolfe’s footfalls echoed on the tiled floor in the mortuary. “I’ve been working with Norrell on the bodies, and considering they’ve both been in the river, I can only attribute the findings to the fact that they were mummified. We discovered sand in the lungs of both victims.” He sighed. “This makes this crime more sadistic than we’d first imagined. These kids were buried alive.”

Horrified, Jenna stared ahead at the rain-soaked blacktop. People moved around hunched against the rain or under umbrellas. Everything appeared to be normal, but nothing was normal in Black Rock Falls. Twelve years previously, two young people had been brutally murdered and their slaughter covered up. The killer or killers could still live in the same community as her. She could be raising her children in this town, never knowing if the parents of the kids Tauri played with at school had been involved. The thought that psychopaths moved among them on a daily basis chilled her to the bone. “What do you want us to do, Shane?”

“I figure if we let some of this information out to the public, we might draw out the perpetrators. There would have been others around that evening who weren’t involved and don’t want to be marked with the same brush. Norrell could hold a press conference and explain how she deals with the forensics of a case like this and how nothing can be hidden from science.”

Jenna nodded. “Okay, make the arrangements and we’ll be there. Thanks, Shane.” She disconnected and looked at Kane. “I hope this works.”

“So do I, Jenna, so do I.” He pulled into his parking space out back of the office. “I just hope Norrell isn’t painting a bullseye on her back because we have no idea how many people we are dealing with right now.”

Gathering her things, Jenna climbed out glad of the undercover area in front of the back door of the office. Being wet and cold all day wasn’t her idea of fun. She headed straight for the counter to speak to Maggie. “Have we had any response to the media release this morning?”

“Yeah, the phones have been ringing off the hook.” Maggie smiled and waved a pile of notes. “I’m not sure how I would have coped without Cade and Piper here to help out.” She handed the notes to Jenna and leaned on the counter. “Things have settled down now, so can I send these guys home? It’s been a long day for them and I don’t want them to be reluctant to come by again.”

Nodding, Jenna gathered up the paperwork. “Hey, Piper, Cade. Thank you so much for dropping by today and helping out. We really appreciate you being here. Maggie believes the rush is over now, so why don’t you head on home and enjoy the rest of the day?” She waved a hand toward the window and the relentless rain pouring down outside. “Well, as much as you can enjoy a wet rainy freezing cold day, I guess.”

“That would be good.” Cade stretched and then slid his coat from the back of his chair. “We’ll eat junk food and watch Netflix when we get home. We’d planned on going hiking over spring break but the rain ruined our plans.”

“How are the roads out there?” Piper looked past her and out onto Main. “Any local flooding? Will we be able to get home okay?”

“Yeah, you’re good to go.” Rio walked up to the counter. “I checked the weather conditions five minutes ago and the highway to our place is clear. Drive safe.”

“I always do.” Cade smiled at him. “See you at dinner.” He led the way out of the office, with Piper close on his heels.

Flicking through the notes, Jenna could almost see a pattern. There’d been a number of people concerned about the missing college students and remembered the incident clearly, even after twelve years had passed. She headed up the stairs as Kane was walking down with Duke. She waved the notes at him. “We have a result. Head up to the conference room when you get back. We’ll spread these out on the table and work through them together. She leaned over the railing. “Rio, grab Rowley and come up to the conference room. Bring any notes you have about what you’ve been doing all day.”

Once inside the conference room, she went about filling the coffee pots and kettle to make herself a cup of hot chocolate. She turned and smiled at Rowley as he arrived carrying a box of takeout. Being out in the rain and cold all day, she would appreciate a hot drink and a pastry. “Oh, can I smell donuts?”

“Yeah, Susie told me that Aunt Betty’s has purchased a new donut fryer. She has been selling them as fast as they can cook them.” Rowley slid the box across the table toward her. “Eat them while they’re hot. I’ll make you a cup of hot chocolate. I’ll even thrown in a few marshmallows.”

“Do you want a rundown of what we’ve been doing or do you want to go through the hotline calls first?” Rio dropped into a chair and yawned. “I can’t imagine why Kalo enjoys hunting down people. I’ve scanned so many images of college students over the last few hours my head is spinning.”

“What did I miss?” Kane walked into the room with Duke close behind. He peered into the box of takeout and then went to the counter to pour a cup of coffee. “Mmm, hot cinnamon donuts.”

Savoring the bite of the delicious sugary treat, Jenna licked her fingers and then, after pulling a legal pad from a drawer, picked up her pen. “Okay, Rio, what have you got for me?”

“We compiled a list of everyone in that year at the college and added kids from the year before as Wolfe is convinced that both the killer and Cole were part of the football team. We separated the players from the others but kept all the girls’ names from two years previously as well. Mainly because guys date girls younger than they are some of the time.” He blew out a long sigh. “Then we went through those students who were in social clubs together. We found most of this information from the yearbooks and put them into groups.”

“Yeah, we found the majority of the football players dated the cheerleaders, going on the prom photographs we found in the archives of the local newspaper. We made a separate list of them.” Rowley handed Jenna a cup and slid one across the table to Rio. “The newspapers covered the missing students as well.”

“Hmm.” Kane licked sugar from his fingers. “All these responses from the public, the media, and yet the sheriff didn’t make so much as a note about it in his daybook. That’s very strange.”

Unable to comprehend why such an important thing had been overlooked by the local sheriff, Jenna sorted the hotline information into four separate piles and handed three to the others. “We’ll need to follow up on every one of these.” She glanced at her watch. “However, as we don’t have a killer roaming around murdering anyone at the moment, we will finish at five and take this up again first thing in the morning. I figure we just call each of these people and try to get them to expand a little more on their information.” She moved her attention to Rio and then Rowley. “Did you get the name of the local reporter at the time, or find anything that might assist with the case?”

“I did.” Rowley smiled. “They still work at the local newspaper and they have a very good memory. Main problem is that when the local sheriff and the media interviewed the kids, they all came up with the same story. A group of them read the flyer and a large group camped alongside the river. Where they stopped was a long way from the Whispering Caves. It was bitterly cold at that time of the year and none of them wanted to go that high up the mountain and camp out overnight. Many broke away from the main group and left before midnight, saying they’d decided to drop by the Old Mitcham Ranch to see if they could see any ghosts. A couple of the kids mentioned that they noticed Cole and Abby heading up the mountain trail toward the Whispering Caves. Nobody took any notice as cheerleader Abby had been getting the attention of Cole for some time. None of them stayed there overnight. It was so cold that by a little after one, without any sight of the Whispering Caves Axman’s ghost, people had started wandering away. Nobody knew anything about Cole and Abby going missing until one or two days later.”

“That’s just about the same story we got from Josie Grady, now Josie Campbell.” Kane reached for another donut. “This is going to take some detective work. Someone out there knows the names of the close group of friends who hung out with Cole and Abby.”

Sipping her drink, Jenna looked from one to the other. “When we do, we’ll split this case wide open.”