Wolfhunter River (Stillhouse Lake #3)(39)

I suddenly wonder if Sam brought it with him. The thought actually frightens me, that something Melvin’s defiled might be traveling with us right now, like a parasite waiting to take hold inside us.

I can’t ask. I can’t start this conversation here with the kids.

Motel 6 looms out of the darkness like a neon oasis to the left; it’s not in Wolfhunter, but it’s close, a couple of miles from what looks like the center of town, such as that might be. We make the turn, and Sam parks in front of the office. “Two rooms?” he asks. I nod.

“Preferably with connecting doors,” I tell him. “For sure next to each other.”

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” he says. There are only four cars in the parking lot, and most likely one of them belongs to whoever’s working the front desk. It’s a modest-size place, just one level and no more than fifteen or sixteen rooms set in an L shape around the lot. No swimming pool, but I think most motels have done away with them for liability reasons, and I don’t want my kids attracted to lounging around one anyway. “Be right back.”

He slides out and walks into the office. I wait, watching him inside through the dim glass, and I’m startled when Connor suddenly leans forward and says, too loudly, “Mom!”

“Oh come on, volume control!” Lanny moans, and pulls her hoodie over her face. “What the hell.”

I turn to look at my son. He’s ignoring his sister completely, totally focused on me. He holds out his phone, and I take it.

He’s pulled up a blog. True Crime something, I don’t really pay much attention to the site’s title once I recognize I’m going to be dealing with an amateur’s opinions . . . until I read the headline on the blog entry.

SECOND WOMAN MISSING IN WOLFHUNTER, TN. COVERUP?



Okay. It has my attention. I start reading.

As you might recall, late last year I covered the case of Tarla Dawes, an eighteen-year-old woman who left her trailer in the sticks outside of Wolfhunter, Tennessee, to get groceries . . . and vanished into thin air. Dawes had a history of drug abuse and more than a little tension at home; the police were quick to dismiss it as a voluntary departure, though how she departed with just a secondhand purse and no extra clothes is a question the Wolfhunter PD (such as it is) seems to want to avoid. Tarla’s mother doesn’t believe that Tarla would have left of her own accord, even though there are plenty of reasons to believe that Tarla and her unemployed nineteen-year-old husband were on the verge of divorce. At least one domestic violence call is on record.

But what eighteen-year-old disappears without posting or texting a friend? At least calling her mother?

Now we have a second young woman gone. Bethany Wardrip, twenty-one. Another one with a troubled history, some arrests, nothing unusual for around Wolfhunter: drug possession, public intoxication, disturbing the peace. She griped to a coworker that night that she wanted to leave this town and never come back. Did she? Bethany didn’t own her own car; she often walked or hitchhiked with friends and neighbors. But no one reports seeing her that night, or giving her a ride out of town. Bethany, like Tarla, left with only a purse. Her clothes still hang in her closet. Her three extra pairs of shoes—an old pair of Converse high-tops, a heavy pair of hiking boots, and a pair of worn black high heels—were all left behind. More significantly, so was a coffee can found in her small kitchen cupboard with a roll of cash inside: $462.

That’s a decent amount for a woman who works for minimum wage. The careful savings of a woman who bought little, and according to those who knew her, rarely went out with her old crowd.

Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like something’s rotten in Wolfhunter.



I read through it twice, and feel my heart rate speed up. This blogger could be onto something. Maybe it’s the same thing that Marlene felt she needed help with. I don’t know how or why that might have led to this horror show with the daughter, but this feels like something. “Thanks, baby,” I tell him. “This is good information.”

“I know it is,” he says, with not a small amount of smugness. “Told you I could find stuff.”

“Yes, you can,” I tell him. “That’s your job from now on, okay? Head researcher. Tomorrow I want you to find out if there’s any more posted about either of these two ladies, okay? Tomorrow, not tonight. Don’t stay up. Promise?”

“I promise,” he says. “Can I borrow Lanny’s laptop?”

“Ask Lanny,” my daughter says without taking the hoodie off her face. “I’m right here, doofus.”

“Okay,” he immediately says, and turns to her. “Can I borrow your laptop tomorrow?”

“No.”

“Mom?”

“It’s your sister’s laptop,” I say. “If she doesn’t want to help finding missing young women who might be in trouble, that’s her business.”

That brings Lanny bolt upright, clawing the hoodie back and glaring at me. “Mom. That’s not fair!”

“If the two of you work together, you can get things done. You always do,” I say. “I’m going to have to be at the police station tomorrow. Sam will stay with you guys. I know he’d appreciate the two of you getting along for a day.”

“We get along,” Lanny says. “Mostly.”