AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Laura looked up at Nate, giving him a significant expression, her lips pulled tight in a grimace. He nodded back. This needed some further exploration.
“Why are you sleeping rough, kid?” Nate asked.
“None of your business,” he said, wrapping his arms around himself tighter and hunching forward to physically avoid the question.
Nate moved his head to the side, indicating for Laura to go over and get back on the phone to figure out what was going on – they’d been working together for long enough that she could interpret that easily. As she stood up, he moved closer, taking her place.
“I can see about getting you a place in a hostel,” he said, but the kid shook his head and spat to the side.
Laura wanted to see how the conversation played out and whether Nate could convince him to get some help, but she wanted to know what the hell was going on here even more. She took out her cell phone and quickly realized the signal was spotty. Walking backwards and forwards over the clearing, she found the one spot where she actually had enough signal to get anything.
Which was when the messages started coming through.
Just found a link to an old case with that location. Call me for the details.
It’s an unsolved murder – call me!
Laura, why aren’t you answering your phone? You’ve got half an hour and I’m calling your Chief!
Laura winced and quickly dialed Dean’s number, putting the phone to her ear.
“Laura?” he exclaimed, clearly having been anxiously waiting for her to make contact. “Jesus! I was starting to think you’d been murdered for digging into this old case!”
“I’m sorry, there wasn’t any signal here,” Laura said. “I only just got your messages. What’s going on?”
“I found a case linked to that old hut in the woods you were talking about,” Dean said. There were a couple of mouse clicks in the background. “Listen to this: a young woman was found dead right next to the hut, strangled to death. She was just laying on the ground there – she’d been missing for a couple of days before they did a sweep through the woods and found her.”
“What did she look like?” Laura asked, her heart pounding hard in her chest. A vision of… the past? Had this crime already happened?
“She was about five-six, Black, with I guess mid-length curly hair. She was wearing a thin black jacket over a sequined minidress when she was found. There were a couple of heeled shoes found in the woods as well, like she’d run and kicked them off.”
“That’s her,” Laura said, closing her eyes momentarily. It all made sense now. The disrepair of the hut and Mickey’s, the extra growth in the trees, this new kid living in the hut. It was the passage of time. “When did this happen?”
“Four years ago,” Dean said. “Her name was Joy Kingsley. She was reported missing by her roommate. There wasn’t enough forensic evidence to go forward with the case and they never found any suspects. The buildings there didn’t have security cameras out front, so there’s no information at all on what might have happened.”
“Jesus,” Laura muttered, holding a hand against her head. Joy Kingsley. No one had seen what had happened to her.
Except for Laura.
But what she was supposed to do with this information, four years after the fact, was something she had yet to figure out.
“Laura, how did you know about this?” Dean asked. “If you have footage of it happening, then you should hand it in to the lead investigator.”
“No, it’s not that,” Laura said. “I don’t have any kind of lead. I didn’t even know that kind of thing happened here.”
“Are you sure?” Dean didn’t sound convinced at all. “Why did you need to know what she looked like?”
“Because…” Laura closed her eyes for another moment, wishing that she had put Nate on the phone instead so he could tell one of his so-called more convincing lies. “There was someone in the video, but she wasn’t the victim. And she doesn’t appear to come to any harm. I think it’s just kids playing a prank, you know? Thinking it’s funny to send in a video reenacting something that already happened to make us panic.”
“Are you sure?” Dean asked. “The way you described it sounded a lot more sophisticated than just kids, if they have the ability to make it disappear like that.”
“Isn’t it usually kids that make the most damage hacking into government systems and stuff like that?” Laura pointed out. “Look, it’s fine, Dean. I wouldn’t mind getting the file sent over since we’re here in the neighborhood anyway and we can take a look, but we don’t need to do anything else about the video. Thanks for your help, anyway.”
“Alright,” Dean said, still sounding unsure. “Well, I’m always here if you need me.”
“Thanks,” Laura said again, before hanging up.
She turned to look at Nate, but he was still deep in conversation with the kid – who had now turned towards him with more open body language, like he was actually ready to listen. Laura didn’t want to interrupt that. She walked back into the woods instead, retracing the way that she had seen Joy come.
