"What did you lock away, Lauren? Where did you go?" May asked the question aloud. Her words felt empty in the stillness of the room.
Sitting at the table, staring at that evidence, she agonized over all the questions that she still had about the day her sister had vanished.
If only she could ask someone, anyone, even all these years later, what had really happened.
She felt terribly guilty that Lauren had walked out after a fight with her. The two sisters had a screaming match about something irrelevant that May couldn’t even remember now. She had never been able to get rid of the thought that Lauren's disappearance was her fault. The fight was the reason her sister had stormed out of the house and taken the hiking trail leading to the lake.
And she'd never come back.
Now, May wished she could have apologized for that fight. She missed her sister so much. That day was the last time anyone had seen Lauren.
Except perhaps the person who'd killed her, May thought.
Or was she still alive? Since her body had never been found, May always kept that hope in her heart. She found herself thinking more and more of Lauren recently, especially since Kerry had gotten engaged.
Having her older sister on the way to getting married had caused family to be top of mind for May. Especially since she was going to be involved in organizing this wedding, whether she liked it or not. And that brought a whole new layer of stress to her life at this time.
May knew it would end up being a dream wedding. A fairytale wedding, to a super-successful high-flying lawyer. Being Kerry, her sister was already starting to get into the details of the wedding which would take place the following spring, somewhere in the vicinity of Fairfield.
Also being Kerry, she was already delegating the demanding job of organizing these details to her immediate family, i.e., May. May had already been inundated with questions and ‘small favors’ over the past week. She feared bigger ones were to come.
Her biggest fear was that Kerry would ask her to be the maid of honor. Thrilled as May would be to stand at her sister’s side for this momentous occasion, she knew that being a maid of honor would be like having a full-time job for a number of months.
She would have to take leave from work to cope with the demands on her time this would involve as the wedding drew closer. And she couldn’t take leave from work! She, too, had a job that was getting much busier after her promotion. There was a whole different level of responsibility she now had to shoulder, and many new aspects of the job that she was still learning.
May was dreading being put in the situation where she might have to choose between family loyalty and work ethics. It would be terrible if she was forced to choose between hurting her sister and causing a family conflict by saying no, or compromising the job she was so passionate about by agreeing to be the maid of honor. She was looking forward to attending the wedding. What an occasion it would be. She was sure she’d cry buckets of joy when Kerry walked down the aisle to stand next to her handsome, caring fiancé. But the preparations brought a whole level of complexity and expectations that was already threatening to split May’s head apart.
Deep down, she sincerely hoped that Kerry would ask someone else who had more free time.
At that moment, her phone rang, jolting her focus back to the present moment.
Immediately, the sound prickled her instincts because a call at this hour was never going to be good news. It could only mean that somewhere out in Tamarack County, a serious crime had been committed.
She snatched up her phone from the table so quickly that she sloshed her coffee over her hand. Frowning, she swiped at the liquid with a paper towel as she glanced at the screen.
Sheriff Jack's name appeared.
May answered the call without hesitation.
"Good morning, Sheriff Jack," she spoke crisply. Even in the early hours of the morning, Jack deserved nothing less than her full professionalism and courtesy.
"Deputy May. Good morning. Sorry for the early call."
She could already hear that her boss sounded worried. May jumped to her feet.
"What's happened?" she asked.
His voice was heavy as he gave her the bad news.
"There's been a serious incident called in. A female student has been killed at the post-prom celebration near the Hazelwood Pavilion."
May drew in a shocked breath.
The Hazelwood Pavilion was a community center near the lake, a few miles outside of Fairshore. This was disturbingly close to home.
She felt horrified that another death had occurred near this lake. They'd dealt with two serious murder cases in the vicinity of Eagle Lake recently. Now, tragedy had struck here again.
As she rushed over to the door to put on her shoes, May asked, "How is this related to the post-prom party? Did you get any details on this death?"