Chapter 12

CHAPTER

12

LINDSEY

Present Day

RYAN DROVE IN silence for several miles, and I was glad. I didn't know whom to trust. All I knew was that I sure as hell couldn't trust Ryan McKay. I felt like such a moron for ever thinking I could.

I gripped the cardboard box on my lap. I didn't want to let it out of my sight.

"There's a great little greasy spoon up ahead. Should I stop so we can get something to eat? Maybe go through the file together?" Ryan suggested cautiously.

He hadn't said anything about what I had revealed at Sergeant O'Neil's house. He hadn't asked how I knew he had dated Jess. He hadn't tried to explain himself. He simply let the dark truth dangle between us, not acknowledging it. How could he act like everything was the same, when it clearly wasn't?

I scoffed at the very idea that he would think I would want to go anywhere with him ever again, even a crappy diner.

Perhaps he was too focused on getting his hands on Sergeant O'Neil's file. The thought of letting him have it was abhorrent. I had to protect whatever it contained, which meant keeping him away from it.

I refused to look at him, keeping my attention outside the window.

I was grateful to Sergeant O'Neil for finally doing the right thing after all this time, but I was angry with him, too. He had ignored obvious leads. He had purposefully looked the other way when suspects were practically thrown in his face. If he had actually done his job decades ago, then maybe it would have saved us all a lot of pain.

And while I was glad the retired detective had decided to try and help now, it would never make up for how little he had done when it actually mattered.

A clear conscience was something he would never have.

Ryan pulled into the parking lot of a small, rundown diner.

"What are you doing?" I snapped. I glared at him, my disgust for Ryan and the aging detective blending together. "Take me home, now."

Ryan put the car into park and turned to me, his brown eyes pleading. "Like I said, I thought we could get something to eat and look through the file … together. Maybe we'll get lucky and find something he missed. Sergeant O'Neil clearly never took the cases seriously enough."

I hugged the box to my chest, my eyes widening in disbelief. "Are you serious? I don't want to be anywhere near you. How can you think everything is fine between us?"

"But—"

"You lied to me, Ryan," I yelled. "From day one, you were dishonest. Right from that very first meeting. You could have come clean and told me who you really were, but you didn't. You chose to keep me in the dark about everything." It was too much. I was overcome by a combination of rage, sadness and grief.

"Lindsey—" He reached for me and I pulled away.

"Don't you dare touch me," I hissed. "You've been flirting with me. Making me think you … liked me," I hissed. "What is wrong with you? How could you do that to me?" I broke down, wrenching sobs left me gasping. "How could you do that to her ?"

"Jess hasn't been my girlfriend in a very long time," Ryan tried to explain, as if that made this any better.

"You purposefully deceived me," I spat out.

Ryan looked appalled. But there was nothing he could say to justify his behavior.

"You and Jess fought on the day she disappeared. That doesn't look great for you," I accused. I realized, almost as soon as the words left my mouth, how precarious my position was. I was confronting a man I was beginning to suspect of horrible things, and we were alone … in his car.

Ryan threw his hands in the air in frustration. "We always fought, Lindsey. That's how our relationship worked. We'd fight. Then we'd …" he swallowed, "then we'd make up."

I thought I was going to vomit. "What were you fighting about that day?"

Ryan stared out the window. "I really don't remember."

He was lying. I could see that, clear as day.

He turned back to me. "Our relationship was like a roller coaster. We were up and we were down. At the time, I loved the ride. But now that I'm older, I can see how toxic it was. We weren't good for each other. No one should love so hard it hurts."

Hearing him talk about Jess like this wounded me in a way I wasn't sure I could stand. Sure, we weren't really involved, but I had come to think of him as mine. My potential something. It was a blow to my heart—and my pride—to know he never really had been.

"You love her." It was a statement of total truth.

Ryan looked contrite and almost sad. "It's hard to get over someone when there's no real closure. It took me a long time to mend what she broke."

I didn't believe him. I didn't think I ever would again.

"What can I do to help make this better?" he asked, his voice thick with emotion.

"You can't do anything ." The space inside the car felt too small. Suffocating. I felt trapped by his guilt and lies with nowhere to go.

"I do like you, Lindsey. I really like you. And I know you like me, too." The words seemed to choke him. "I know what I did was wrong. I should have said something. But I was scared. Particularly after I got to know you and I felt all of these things I haven't felt since …" He hesitated.

"Since Jess?" My voice sounded flat.

Ryan lowered his head, staring into his lap. "I miss Jess—I always have, and I always will. But being with you …" He lifted his eyes to look at me and I wanted to slap him and kiss him all at the same time. It made me sick. "I can't explain it. I felt like me again. Like the man I used to be before all of this consumed my life. Before she consumed my life." His smile was mournful. "It felt like maybe, I could finally move on." He was close to crying. He was clearly having a deeply profound moment. But his words had the opposite effect on me.

I didn't feel like crying. I felt like hitting something … hard.

"I'm not her, Ryan. I'm not Jess. I'm my own person. I'm not some placeholder for the woman you really love. That's not fair to me and it's certainly not fair to her." His pupils dilated as he watched me warily. "She's not coming back. Ever. She's gone. Accept it." I opened the door to get out of the car, but before I could, Ryan grabbed my wrist.

"I don't want you to be her, Lindsey. Please don't go," he begged.

I extracted myself from his grip and got out, struggling to hold onto the box. "Do not follow me. I'll find my own way home."

"Let me take you—I'll drive you straight there, I promise."

I let out a short, humorless laugh. "As if your promises mean anything. Stay away from me, Ryan. I'll call my dad to pick me up, and if you're still here when he arrives, I don't know what he'll do."

"Your dad?" he chuckled darkly, "because he's such a stand-up guy."

"You don't know anything about him, or me."

"I know enough," he seethed. "I know that he can't be trusted."

I wanted to scream at him, but somehow I held it together. "You're in no position to talk about trust."

His mouth thinned with contempt. "He's not who you think he is, Lindsey."

"And neither are you." I slammed the door shut without waiting for a response. I backed away, waiting for him to get out and follow me, even though I told him not to.

But he didn't. Instead he put his car in drive and peeled out of the parking lot.

I watched him speed off down the road and then I walked into the diner.

I sat down at a booth, putting the box down beside me, and pulled my cell phone out of my pocket. I needed to call my dad to come get me because I knew he would ask me a lot fewer questions than my mother would. At the moment, he was the lesser of the two evils. With a deep breath, I dialed his number and felt disappointment when he didn't pick up.

I knew I had to call my mom, but I wasn't in a rush to face the inquisition that I would have escaped if I had gotten ahold of my dad. So, instead I lifted the lid off the box and pulled out a pile of papers, placing them on the table in front of me. A waitress came over with a menu and I ordered a coffee and a slice of sweet potato pie.

The older woman gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Whoever he is, he ain't worth the tears," she said and I quickly wiped my face, realizing I was crying.

She was right. Ryan wasn't worth it. But I wasn't only crying about him. I was crying for the four missing women and how everyone had failed them. The police, the college, even their loved ones. What chance did they have when no one listened? The injustice was too much to think about. I could only hope that Lieutenant Jane Higgins kept her promise and solved their cases.

Tammy, Phoebe, Meghan, and Jess deserved it.

After the waitress left to get my coffee and pie, I turned my attention to the file, expecting piles of useless information, given the ineptitude Sergeant O'Neil had displayed in his investigation. To my surprise, there was much more than that.

The detective had, in some respects, been very thorough. There were photocopies of all of his notes. There were copies of official statements on old police forms. There were transcripts of interviews, some dozens of pages long.

And there were photographs. Lots and lots of photographs.

There were pictures of all the missing girls. A glamor shot of Tammy Estep with her frizzy brown hair. Meghan Lambert holding a hockey stick for an official school photo. A picture of Phoebe Baker smiling in her high school cap and gown. And there were pictures of Jess. So many pictures.

But there were also police photos of things the detective had thought relevant at the time. Snapshots of dorm rooms. Photographs of Doll's Eye Lake haphazardly marked off with police tape. Pictures of Jess's car, an older model of my own Toyota, parked in front of our house.

I flipped through the pages hoping to find something glaringly obvious. But there was so much that I decided to start at the beginning and work my way through it methodically.

A paper near the front of the stack caught my eye.

It was Ryan's police interview. I skimmed the page and wasn't surprised to find it disorganized and aimless. Sergeant O'Neil never followed up on anything that Ryan said. There were no probing questions. And given that Ryan hadn't even bothered to have an attorney present, it was clear he didn't feel that he needed one. Even though Ryan was a potential suspect, the whole thing read like it was merely a formality.

Mt. Randall Police Department Official Interview: Ryan James McKay Report Date: 04/28/1999 Time stamp: 14:45

Description: Interview with Ryan James McKay

Occurrence From: 04/28/1999, 14:45

Occurrence To: 04/28/1999, 15:50

Reporting Officer: O'Neil, Liam (Sergeant, lead detective of Mt. Randall Police Department)

Case/File Number: A413TR5

Sergeant L. O'Neil: Okay, Ryan, let me start by thanking you for coming down to the station today. I know things are probably real busy for you at school.

Ryan McKay: Yeah, it is, but of course, I wanted to come.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: Great, well let's get started. First off, can you tell me what your relationship is with Jessica Fadley?

Ryan McKay: Jess is my girlfriend.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: And how long had the two of you been dating?

Ryan McKay: I don't know, a couple of months.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: And were the two of you monogamous?

Ryan McKay: Yes, sir, we're as serious as you can get.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: Did Jessica have any other boyfriends?

Ryan McKay: No, sir, only me.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: How certain can you be about that?

Ryan McKay: Come on, a guy knows when his woman is stepping out on him, don't you agree detective?

Sergeant L. O'Neil: You're right, son. There are things a man just knows.

Ryan McKay: Men like us don't mess around with women like that, right?

Sergeant L. O'Neil: Sure, sure.

Ryan McKay: And Jess definitely wasn't like that.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: Okay, when was the last time you saw Jessica Fadley?

Ryan McKay: I think it was the night she went home for her sister's birthday party.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: April 23?

Ryan McKay: Yeah, that's right.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: Where did you see her?

Ryan McKay: Out in front of her dorm.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: And how did Jessica seem?

Ryan McKay: Umm, anxious … like, nervous, I guess

Sergeant L. O'Neil: Why do you think that?

Ryan McKay: She didn't like going back home. She didn't like her mom and dad. She didn't really get along with either of them, but particularly her father. It was a strained relationship.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: So why go home then? If the relationship was strained, why would she go back there?

Ryan McKay: Because she loved her little sister.

It seemed that Ryan had always been a liar. What he said about our family wasn't remotely true. Jess loved us. Everything I had ever known about her proved that she was a family girl through and through.

But then I thought about what I had found hidden in her room. Her failing grades and photos of a lifestyle far from the straight-laced girl she had been when she was younger. She had clearly gone buck wild after she'd left home, but a lot of kids did that. And it wasn't uncommon for a teenager to keep secrets from her parents—especially ones they wouldn't approve of. It didn't mean anything.

I flipped the page.

Description: Interview with Ryan James McKay

Occurrence From: 05/01/1999, 11:23

Occurrence To: 05/01/1999, 12:05

Reporting Officer: O'Neil, Liam (Sergeant, lead detective of Mt. Randall Police Department)

Case/File Number: A413TR5

Sergeant L. O'Neil: Thanks for coming back in, Ryan. I have a few more questions to ask you.

Ryan McKay: Sure, no problem. Anything to help, Sergeant.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: Can you tell me what you and Jessica talked about the last time you saw her?

Ryan McKay: I don't really remember.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: That's interesting. Because she's your girlfriend. You two are close, right? That's what you told me the last time you were in here.

Ryan McKay: Yes, we are.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: Then it should be easy for you to remember what you talked about the last time you saw her.

Ryan McKay:

Sergeant L. O'Neil: Let the record show that Ryan McKay did not answer the question.

Ryan McKay: No, I can answer. I just had to think—

Sergeant L. O'Neil: It's not really something you need to think long and hard about, Ryan. I'm not asking you to solve algebra, I'm simply asking what you spoke to Jessica, your girlfriend, about, on April 23.

Ryan McKay: It was no big deal. I was annoyed that she ditched our date. I was asking her about it.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: You were only asking her about it? You sure?

Ryan McKay: It really wasn't anything important—

Sergeant L. O'Neil: Because I have an eyewitness statement who says you two were seen fighting in front of Westwood Hall. This was around three in the afternoon, which is only a few hours before she went home.

Ryan McKay: I don't know if you could call it a fight—

S ergeant L. O'Neil: Well, according to this eye witness, it was a very heated argument and you grabbed her arm.

Ryan McKay: No, it wasn't like that.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: Did you or did you not put your hands on Jessica Fadley in an aggressive manner?

Ryan McKay: I would never hurt Jess!

Sergeant L. O'Neil: No one's saying you hurt her, Ryan. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

I stared at the words in front of me, but my mind was thinking back to earlier when Ryan had grabbed me in a fit of anger. I subconsciously rubbed my wrist still feeling the ghost of his touch on my skin. It was clear he had a temper—I had seen it several times already. But did having a temper equal hurting my sister?

Sergeant L. O'Neil: So. tell me more about this argument. Did her ditching your date really make you so angry that you grabbed her?

Ryan McKay: It was nothing.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: So, do you remember?

Ryan McKay: No comment.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: No comment? Son, that doesn't work here, not with me. This isn't TV and I'm not the FBI. Now, answer the damn question, or I will make you answer it. What else were you two arguing about?

Ryan McKay: She … she wanted to break up with me.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: Did she say why?

Ryan McKay: She said she wasn't who I thought she was. That she didn't think she was good enough for me.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: And what did you say to that?

Ryan McKay: Jess is the best person I know. I love her. I will always love her. That's what I told her. Then she left and I went and got drunk.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: Can anyone corroborate that?

Ryan McKay: Yes. I was with Daisy. I spent the night with her.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: Daisy Molina? Jessica's roommate?

Ryan McKay: Yes.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: And she can vouch for your whereabouts?

Ryan McKay: Yes, I never left her room.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: So, your girlfriend, who you're madly in love with, dumps you and you then go and take up with her best friend? And then later, the now ex-girlfriend goes missing? Am I getting this right? Sounds like a bad made-for-TV movie, if you ask me.

That clinched it for me. Ryan was a grade-A liar. There was no way in hell he didn't remember what he and Jess had argued about. How could he forget that the woman he loved had dumped him without warning on the day she disappeared?

As for his alibi … I was shocked. I wondered how close Daisy and my sister could have actually been, for her to sleep with Ryan. It was definitely implied that's what had happened.

I noticed that Sergeant O'Neil never bothered to follow up on the argument between Ryan and Jess. It had seemed like he was on to something, then unceremoniously dropped it and never brought it up again. It was incredibly frustrating. Sergeant O'Neil never seemed to ask anything of importance after that. It was almost like he wanted the interview done with as quickly as possible. Ryan must have been convincing, because that was his last interview.

I put the papers down, needing a breather. This was all so much worse than I had expected it to be. There were so many more questions that should have been asked but weren't. How could the detective let so many things fall through the cracks?

Those women never stood a chance of being found.

What did stand out to me was that Ryan had gotten drunk and spent the night with Daisy. He was nowhere near our house when Jess went missing. Though, that's not saying he couldn't have ditched Daisy at some point.

I flipped through more pages, coming across photographs taken of possible evidence. There was a photograph of Jess's car, the trunk still open. There were separate pictures of the contents, including a wrapped present I knew was for me and a three-tier cake. There was a photo of a black duffle bag sitting on a table, and placed beside it the items that must have been inside. It was all fairly common stuff; pajamas, a spare set of clothing, a makeup bag—all things one would expect to be packed for a couple of nights away.

There were copies of letters from the parents of Phoebe Baker and Meghan Lambert. I didn't spend much time reading them, as they were only the enraged sentiments of sidelined families demanding answers. I did notice there was no correspondence from Tammy's family. Or from mine.

Eventually, I found my own transcripted interview. It was strange how I could remember so little of my life before and directly after Jess went missing, but this one moment, I recalled with total clarity.

I couldn't be sure how long it was after Mom called the police that they came to the house. What I do remember was sitting at the dining table, asking when I could open my gifts. I was upset that my party had been canceled.

I'd been asked over and over if I had seen where Jess had gone. I tried to recall but there wasn't much to say. I had been watching her from the living room window. She said she was going to get a surprise for me from the car. I had gotten distracted—I couldn't say by what—and when I looked back, she was gone. It was then that I became upset, a sliver of the awful reality setting in. I had cried, wanting to see my sister. I howled that I had only looked away for ten seconds—but in truth it was probably much longer than that. I hated everyone's questions. I wanted them to leave.

I wanted Jessie.

The next report was my mom's statement. From the Sergeant's notes, she had been "hysterical and inconsolable." He wrote, "Unable to extract any information. Mrs. Fadley was unable to answer questions, no matter how many times she is asked. Not sure if she understands what's going on." I rolled my eyes at the Sergeant's condescending tone. Then I found my dad's statement. The questions all seemed pretty standard—nothing of note—until I saw a barely legible scrawl at the bottom in what I had come to recognize as Sergeant O'Neil's handwriting.

It read, ‘Possible suspect—Meghan Lambert.'

I frowned, not understanding.

Possible suspect—Meghan Lambert?

It had been written on my dad's statement, so there was no mistaking what Sergeant O'Neil was thinking at the time and who the suspicion was directed at. But why?

How was my father connected to Meghan Lambert, let alone how was he a potential suspect in her disappearance?

That couldn't be right.

I leafed through more of the pages, coming across a photograph of a 1965 yellow Boss 429 Mustang. The photo was paperclipped to a statement from an eyewitness who claimed to have seen Meghan getting in this car on the same day she was reported missing by her friends.

And there was yet another picture of the same car, only this time parked in front of my house.

I found an official police evidence report covered in handwritten notes.

Description of Evidence retrieved from vehicle belonging to Benjamin Fadley:

1.

Hair sample taken. DNA to be confirmed.

2.

Semen sample collected from seat fabric. DNA to be confirmed.

3.

One adult female's bra, white lace.

My stomach plummeted.

I would know that car anywhere, despite my dad never driving it. He still cleaned it and waxed it monthly. And I would often find him sitting in the driver's seat while it was parked in our garage, staring out of the window absently, listening to the same cassette tape over and over. I'd asked him a million times why he never drove it anymore, but he could never give me a straight answer.

Was this why?

Had my father really been involved with Meghan Lambert?

The idea didn't align with what I knew of my dad. Of his relationship with my mom. While he may be distant with me, he deferred to her in all things. He wouldn't cheat on her and definitely not with someone so much younger than him.

It didn't make sense.

But why were police searching his car? And why was there an eyewitness putting Meghan Lambert in the Mustang on the same day she disappeared?

What about the semen sample taken from the fabric seats?

There was only one reason something like that would be found next to a woman's bra. I had always thought my dad to be a great guy. Easygoing, if distantly loving. And while he seemed to keep me at arm's length, I excused it as a heartbroken father grieving the loss of his first child. He wasn't creepy. He didn't put people on edge. He was your average American dad who worked too much and was obsessed with cars.

But this … this changed everything.

Just after the picture of the Mustang was a five-page interview transcript.

Description: Interview with Benjamin Fadley

Occurrence From: 02/11/1999, 09:32

Occurrence To: 02/11/1999, 10:15

Reporting Officer: O'Neil, Liam (Sergeant, lead detective of Mt. Randall Police Department)

Case/File Number: A313TR7

Sergeant L. O'Neil: This will only take a few minutes, Mr. Fadley. But I need to talk to you about your whereabouts on February 8.

Benjamin Fadley: I was with my wife and daughter, Lindsey, at home all day.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: I will corroborate that with your wife, of course.

Benjamin Fadley: Actually, I'd appreciate it if you didn't speak to Cara about this. It's … a bit sensitive.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: I'm not in the business of busting up families, Mr. Fadley, but I need to know if you were having a sexual relationship with Meghan Lambert.

Benjamin Fadley: If I can keep this from my wife and family, I'll tell you what you want to know.

Sergeant L. O'Neil: Mr. Fadley, please answer the question.

Benjamin Fadley: Yes, I was having a sexual relationship with Meghan Lambert.

I couldn't read anymore, the words blurring on the page. I felt hot and sweaty, and tears pricked my eyes. My father had been sleeping with one of the missing girls. He had seen her the day she went missing.

Was he involved with the other missing girls, too?

It seemed like Mt. Randall had an overabundance of creeps perving on young women, my father being one of them.

Had Jess known this? Is that why she stopped calling my parents as my mom had claimed? Is that why she rejected our dad?

Ryan's words from earlier echoed back to me. "He's not who you think he is."

What did he know?

One thing was for sure, according to Sergeant O'Neil's notes, my dad was also a suspect. At least when it came to Meghan Lambert.

I flipped over the piece of paper to find more of Sergeant O'Neil's messy handwriting on the back.

Respectable family man. Doesn't fit any kind of profile. No further investigation required.

I shuffled through the rest of the items in the file, trying to see if my dad was ever questioned again. But it seemed after his less-than-forthcoming interview, as with Clement Daniels and Ryan, he was dropped as a suspect for no other reason than he seemed like a good guy incapable of hurting young women.

It was disgusting.

With a frustrated sigh, I started to put the lid back on the box but stopped. A photo of Jess stared back at me, her blue eyes piercing.

I lifted it, touching the glossy surface. I didn't know this woman, not really. She was my sister, and we shared blood, but she was a mystery.

"I will find out what happened to you, Jess," I whispered to her. "I will bring you home, one way or another."

A chill ran up my spine. The sensation of being watched made me shift in my seat. I chanced a look around, but no one seemed to be paying me any attention. Yet I couldn't shake the feeling.

I finished putting everything back in the file and then called my mom. She answered quickly, as she always did.

"Please, don't worry, but I need you to come and get me." I hated having to ask her, but what choice did I have? I couldn't exactly try calling my dad again. Not now that I had seen the file and knew what I knew.

How would I ever be able to face him again?

"Are you safe?" she asked as calmly as she could. I appreciated the effort.

"I'm absolutely fine. I went out with a friend and we got into an argument. I'm at a diner outside of town, but I don't have my car." I kept my voice as neutral as possible.

"I'll be right there."

I gave her directions and hung up. Knowing my mom and her penchant for worrying over me, I expected her to be there in a matter of minutes. She would no doubt drive through every red light.

I finished my coffee, which was now lukewarm, and pushed aside my uneaten pie, letting my thoughts consume me. Finally, I looked up at the TV mounted on the wall. A local news show was playing. The location of the report caught my attention.

"Do you mind turning that up?" I asked the waitress behind the counter. She pointed the remote at the TV. A camera panned around Doll's Eye Lake. Police vans were parked beneath the trees. Masked divers came up from the water. Something was placed on a black tarp on the ground.

"We're standing by at Baneberry Lake in Mt. Randall, North Carolina, where a second body was recovered only two days ago. The remains of Tammy Estep were found buried here, several feet from the water, last month. Now a dive team has found more remains in the reservoir previously searched twenty-four years ago," A reporter stated, looking directly into the camera.

Another body.

"While DNA testing needs to be conducted to officially identify the remains, sources say that preliminary tests, including the use of dental records, show that the body is that of missing Southern State student, Phoebe Baker, of Leonard's Creek."

"Hey Lindsey-bug," Mom said as she sat down across from me. She was out of breath, almost as if she ran the whole way. "Are you going to tell me what on Earth you are doing half way to Grantville?"

I couldn't answer her. My eyes were glued to the news report.

"Lindsey?" She said my name when I didn't respond. "What is it?" She turned in her seat to watch the TV.

We watched together in silence as the screen cut away to pictures of items on a white examining table. There was a close-up of a decomposed blanket the reporter stated had been wrapped around Tammy's body. There were only scraps left, but it was obvious that at one time it had been a colorful plaid pattern of blue and green.

Mom made a strange mewling sound and I tore my gaze away from the television to look at her. Her hand was clasped over her mouth.

"It can't be," Mom murmured, her chin trembling. "How in God's name did it end up there?"

"What is it?" I asked, growing concerned as her face went white.

Mom's eyes seemed deadened with shock. "I would know that blanket anywhere. My mother made it when I was pregnant with Jessica."

Then the memory hit me. A memory of that same plaid blanket in Jess's room at home. The one mom had draped over the end of her bed for years.

The very same blanket Jess had taken with her to college.

Ten Seconds to Vanish: The Unsolved Disappearance of Jessica Fadley

Episode 7

Stella: Welcome back true crime, babes. I'm your host Stella—

Rachel: And I'm Rachel.

Stella: And this is Ten Seconds to Vanish: The Unsolved Disappearance of Jessica Fadley.

*Theme music plays*

Stella: It's been a wild seven weeks. So much has happened!

Rachel: I know! I definitely wasn't prepared to be solving this in real time, that's for sure.

Stella: Did you see the news report last night? This story has gained some serious national attention. It was even on the BBC!

Rachel: And CNN. I had popped my popcorn and was glued to my screen. Another body, Stel, and it sounds like it's Phoebe!

Stella: I know, and that's not all. I've heard that there are even more remains, if you can believe it. Right after they pulled one body up from the water, divers found another.

Rachel: Goes to show you that the police really did a crappy job during that initial investigation. Because didn't they search Doll's Eye Lake before?

Stella: Yes, though from all accounts, it was a quick in-and-out job. They didn't even look in the water.

Rachel: But now they've found three bodies there. What the hell is going on in Mt. Randall? Remind me to never vacation there.

Stella: We've been methodically pulling these cases apart, so let's do a quick rundown on what we've uncovered so far. Take it away, Rach.

Rachel: We've established that Tammy, Phoebe, Meghan, and Jess all had connections to the same math professor. And …

Stella: And this same professor is reportedly a massive predator. He's been pervy toward his students since before I was a gleam in my mum's eye.

Rachel: Ew, gross Stel.

Stella: And listen to this, after talking to a few people who went to school with Jess and the other girls at Southern State University, we've found out that there's more than the creepy teacher connecting all these women together.

Rachel: Like another guy?

Stella: That's right Rach. This has turned into a case with more than one potential suspect. So, you know that hottie boyfriend we talked about in the early episodes? The one Jessica was seeing when she disappeared?

Rachel: Yeah …

Stella: well, I interviewed a couple of Jessica's sorority sisters, and it turns out that the hottie boyfriend dated Phoebe Baker in high school. We were lucky to talk with Erica Stead, who pledged with Jessica back in 1998. We'll be playing part of that interview next week.

Rachel: Why is it always the hot ones that are bad?

Stella: And that's not all, get this, he also shagged Tammy Estep and Meghan Lambert.

Rachel: The dude got around.

Stella: He clearly waved his man-whore flag with pride.

Rachel: You know what people would be saying if he was a girl.

Rachel & Stella: Mm-hmm.

Rachel: I really wish you could tell us these guys' names.

Stella: I know, but no one's looking to get sued here. All I can say is you can probably figure out who they are if you Google for more than thirty seconds.

Rachel: So, we have not one, but two sketchy men circling around the female coeds of Southern State University in the late nineties. And these men are like fleas, where there's one, there's always more.

Stella: What do you think about the theory that these girls were victims of a serial killer? Do you think it has any merit?

Rachel: I don't know. It's easy to point the finger in that direction, as there were killers operating in the area at the time, but when it comes to murder, it's often best to look close to home.

Stella: Right, like someone the girls all knew.

Rachel: Exactly. Though I don't want us to rule out the serial-killer angle, I think we need to dig deeper into these other dudes. Because it seems like there's something there.

Stella: And one thing we've learned since starting this podcast is there's always more to the story than we think.