Page 73 of Veil of Silence

Wren frowned. “Dad mentioned the money but not the other groups.”

“He didn’t know about them,” Nora said. “Austin and I found that out yesterday.”

“Who was paying for these things?” Marlowe squinted before taking another sip of her drink.

“We still don’t know.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” Wren crossed her arms as if disturbed by the whole conversation.

“No, it doesn’t.” Nora took a breath. “But that isn’t the worst part.”

She told them about Zander Dalton, the teenager who had disappeared while his family toured with a Southern Gospel group a year or two before Christian vanished.

Wren’s fingers tightened around her cup. “They never found him?”

Nora shook her head. “His family and the police believed he ran away.”

“But you and Austin don’t believe that.” Marlowe’s voice held no accusation this time. Only certainty.

“We don’t know what to believe yet. One missing boy could have nothing to do with the other.”

“But you think it might.” Wren locked her gaze onto Nora’s as she waited for the answer.

Nora looked down at her coffee, trying to decide whether or not to soften her words.

Finally, she said, “I think Jeff Donnelly may have wondered the same thing.”

Austin had been awake since six.

By seven-thirty, he’d given up pretending he might fall back asleep and left the lodge in search of coffee.

He had checked out of the Mountain View Motor Lodge in Knoxville the previous afternoon. Staying four doors down from his father’s room had made sense for one night, but the investigation had shifted to Fog Lake. So had Austin. A last-minute cancellation had opened a room at one of the motels in town.

He’d returned there sometime after midnight, but sleep had never really come. Every time Austin closed his eyes, he saw Christian walking in a trancelike state through the dark and moving those rocks.

Sinner, come home.

Preston Dawson was still missing, and a search party was gathering at the church in less than an hour. Several people on the sidewalk wore orange vests or carried backpacks and walking sticks. A pickup passed with cases of bottled water stacked in the bed.

The search didn’t mean investigators had decided Preston wandered away. It meant they had ground to cover and daylight they couldn’t afford to waste. The volunteers might find the boy. They might also find something that showed where he had gone—or who had taken him.

Fog Lake was already stirring. Cars lined both sides of the main street, many with out-of-state plates. Couples in fleece jackets wandered past storefronts carrying cameras, and a family with three kids stood beneath a maple tree taking turns posing in front of leaves so red they hardly looked real. At the edge of the square, a group sold pumpkins from the bed of an old green pickup, a hand-lettered sign propped against the tailgate.

Apparently, September was busy season. Austin could see why.

He had known Fog Lake through his father long before he’d spent any real time here. Christian Loveless had disappeared here. Murders had happened here. People had vanished here. The town had accumulated enough crime and tragedy over the years that Austin had privately wondered why anyone voluntarily vacationed there.

Walking through downtown with the morning sun catching the trees, he understood a little better.

Fog Lake was pretty. Not polished pretty. Not the kind of place built for tourists and then disguised to look old. The brick storefronts really were old. So were the benches lining the sidewalks and the courthouse rising beyond the square. Pumpkins sat outside shops, mums filled barrels near the intersections, and fallen leaves skittered along the pavement whenever the wind picked up.

Beyond the buildings, he caught glimpses of the lake, fog hovering over the water as if it had been put there for effect. According to Nora, that was normal. The lake had earned the town its name long before anybody had thought to capitalize on it.

His father had always talked about Fog Lake differently. Not as a tourist town. Not even as the place where Christian Loveless disappeared. To Dad, Fog Lake had been unfinished business.

Austin wondered what his father would think about him standing here now, preparing to join the search for another missing boy.

He’d probably be thinking that Austin was doing it wrong.