I stared down at the lukewarm cup of coffee on my desk in front of me and tried to focus on anything other than the dull throb of pain in my head. But every time I thought about the meaningless little assignments Wayne had given me, I felt even more nauseated. I had no desire to write about the ongoing legal battle between the city of Cold Hollow and the owners of a used car lot who would have to change locations due to a new commercial zoning law. What a cliché, I thought; the maverick journalist who spent too much time in the bar due to frustration with a story she shouldn’t have been working on in the first place. I suppose clichés are what they are for a reason. Still, I shouldn’t have let Owen buy me so many cocktails at the Drift, I grumbled to myself. It was unprofessional on a lot of levels. Just a few days earlier I had come to work with a hangover, and here I was hungover again. Wayne was sure to think he had hired an alcoholic.

In the world outside the Chronicle’s offices, there was a palpable dissonance. It seemed like everyone else in Cold Hollow was talking about Senator McClinton and the missing girls but the reporters. Every morning I scoured the Burlington Free Press, The Messenger, and all the other local rags, but there was absolutely nothing on Nicole or Lilly. It was as if the entire state was part of a conspiracy to keep it all quiet.

In the next room, I heard Wayne searching loudly through desk drawers. “Where are the goddamned staples,” he lamented to the cosmos. That was my cue to look busy. I knew he’d be popping his head into my office any minute, so I shuffled some papers around to uncover my stapler and placed it at the end of my desk to keep Wayne’s time with me to a minimum. I then sipped at my coffee and started typing gibberish.

“Hey Kelly, you got any staples?” Wayne said, standing halfway in my office.

I didn’t look at him and pretended I was writing feverishly. I just pointed to the stapler strategically placed at the corner of my desk.

Wayne grabbed it and vanished. I thought I was off the hook for the moment, then another voice rang out from the lobby of the Chronicle.

“Helloooo! Anybody home?” It was Mariah, an “activist” with the local faction of the Progressive Party who fancied herself a political writer because she constantly wrote letters to the editor. She carried herself like a celebrity, as if people took her seriously as a real political intellect. Anybody who actually paid her any notice, however, considered her an obnoxious know-it-all or a unwitting stooge for the Burlington-based political machine. She was the last person I wanted to talk to.

Mariah poked her head into my office. “So, you think McClinton will win re-election after all this?” she asked, but she didn’t really care what anyone else thought. She just used questions as a way of opening up a space for her to tell you her theories. But there was a sure fire way to shut her up. Seem interested, let her say what she wanted to say, then act impressed by saying something like, Wow, I never thought of it that way.

“I don’t know, Mariah. I don’t do much political writing. What do you think?”

“Oh, you didn’t hear?” she said, and stepped into my office. My plan had backfired. Her brittle, nasally voice traveled into my ears and pressed hard into my brain until I thought my eyes might start bleeding.

“Hear what?” I asked, wishing for nothing more than silence and a handful of aspirin.

“McClinton’s daughter, she came back. Said she went off on a little Spring Break trip and didn’t tell her parents because she knew they wouldn’t let her go. I think she went to Florida or something.”

“Wait, wait,” My mind was struggling to catch up with my ears. None of what Mariah was telling me made any sense. “She wasn’t... missing? But-but Nicole is dead. Her best friend. She just––?”

Mariah shrugged. “I suppose the mystery is over. If you ask me, it was all a ploy to build sympathy for McClinton’s reelection campaign, but since it was building into a first-rate scandal, they called it off. Now the little brat is safe and sound again, and everyone can breathe a sigh of relief. Except the other candidates. News of McClinton’s story will be on the front page of every paper in the county.The courage he and his wife had displayed during their ordeal, and blah, blah,” then the real purpose of her visit became clear. “I suppose the Chronicle will run something like that too,” she said, probing.

“Not me,” I said, and for once I was happy I wasn’t covering the story. “You’ll have to talk to Wayne about that.” And without another word, Mariah jerked out of my office to beset poor Wayne.

I stared down at my desk and tried to put the pieces together. Something wasn’t right. Something didn’t fit. Lilly and Nicole had been at the party together. Did Lilly leave for Florida that same night? And why didn’t Nicole or anyone else go with her?

It occurred to me then that all of this new information was hearsay, and had come from one of McClinton’s most bitter critics, not the most reliable source. I had gotten so many of my leads from people telling me things they had heard, and it dawned on me that my story was, at that point, built mostly on rumors and gossip. I felt like an idiot. But now there was someone I could talk to who had first-hand knowledge about the circumstances that led to Nicole’s death. I had to talk to Lilly McClinton. But before I did, there was a question nagging that I had to answer. The McClinton’s car had been found at Lake Carmi. And yet, both he and Lilly were supposed to have been out of town at that point. Could it be that Nicole had left Lilly at the party and driven away in the Senator’s car?

It was risky to leave my Chronicle assignments unfinished, but I knew the longer I waited to get some answers, the more time Lilly and her family would have to concoct a better story to explain everything, so I grabbed my notebook and bag, and left the office. I knew there was a chance that Wayne would fire me, but at that point I didn’t care. I had come to Cold Hollow to find out why young women were disappearing without a trace, but this time two of them reappeared. One was a Senator’s daughter with a flimsy story, the other was dead.

First thing, I had to find out what Owen knew about Lilly’s sudden return.

I tore down Route 105, whipped into the parking lot of the Saint Albans’ police barracks, and made a beeline for Owen’s office. The building was a little more bustling than usual and I had to weave my way through a small gathering of officers on my way down the familiar drab hall. I didn’t bother knocking on the door this time.

“She’s alive? Lilly McClinton is alive?” I burst into Owen’s office and found him with his feet up on his desk and his phone nestled in the crook of his neck. His hat was tipped low and he glared at me, holding up a finger as he spoke into the receiver.

I dropped down into the seat in front of his desk, but I was restless. I stood up and paced around while he finished the conversation. Finally, he hung up and put his feet down on the ground.

“I swear, I’m gonna start locking that damned door,” he said. To my surprise, he seemed largely unaffected by the previous night’s drinking apart from a deeper rasp to his voice.

“It doesn’t make any sense, Owen. Someone is lying. They’re trying to hide something. Lilly McClinton shows up without a scratch and no clue that her best friend died the night of the party?”

Owen put his finger to his lips to shush me, but nodded in agreement. “Miss Kane, thank you for stopping by,” he said as he rose up from behind his desk and closed the door to the hallway to give us some privacy. He pinched the bridge of his nose and winced. “You’re right, Kelly. It’s a bit of a stretch, but that’s all we know—or all we’ve been told so far.”

“So, what now? What about all those human trafficking charges against McClinton?” I asked. “That shit doesn’t just come out of nowhere, you know? They’re up to something, and you know it.”

Owen motioned for me to keep my voice down.

“Well, first of all, the charges against McClinton you mentioned never amounted to anything, and in America you don’t arrest anyone – and you certainly don’t convict them – on accusations alone. You need evidence, evidence linking the crime to the suspect. Evidence that will hold up—”

I stopped him, slapping my hands on the back of the chair and sighed up at the ceiling. “You have details, don’t you? “Tell me what you know about Lilly’s mysterious Spring Break trip and her sudden return. Did she seem distressed? What did she do when she found out about Nicole?”

“I’ve got a few details, but before you go jumping to conclusions, I want you to know I was good and liquored up last night. So, if I suggested that the Senator had anything to do with any of this, you should be taking that with a grain of salt––”

Before I could protest, a polite knock sounded on the other side of the door. Owen glared at me as if to say I should try that method the next time I visited his office.

“Come in,” he said to the knocker.

A young officer, no older than I was, poked his head inside. “Captain wants to speak with you, Detective.”

Owen’s chair groaned as he stood and pushed the brim of his hat up slightly. “Okay, tell him I’m coming,” he said, then turned to me. “And you,” he wagged a finger at me as he passed by, “have a seat and don’t get any funny ideas.”

I was alone with my thoughts, again. I kept thinking about the Senator’s car being found at the lake. If he and Lilly were really out of town, then could it have been another party-goer? Then again, it could have been just a random act of drunkenness. Nicole could have taken the car herself, bumped into some psycho and…My head started aching the more I thought about it. I could feel manic energy rising inside of me, a desperate need to figure out what had happened. I didn’t know it at the time, but looking back, I feel that this may have been the moment I lost sight of the case and what it meant for this frigid little town.

While waiting for Owen to return, I saw a manila folder on his desk with the name “McClinton” written on it. I couldn’t help but lift the cover to see what might be inside. At the top of a few pages of reports, there was a pile of photographs, obscured slightly by the envelope they must have arrived in. I don’t know what possessed me to do it, but I got up and walked around the side of Owen’s desk to get a better look at them. Careful not to disturb the other contents of his desk too much, I peered into the envelope to examine each photo as best I could without removing them, and realized that they were close-up images of a car tire. At first, I couldn’t really tell what I was looking at so I removed one and turned it over to read a handwritten inscription.

Tire tread

License plate JWP 943

10/05/1994

The next photo in the stack showed the back right tire of a champagne-colored Lexus SC. I would have to cross-reference the car make and model to be absolutely certain, but I was almost positive it was the Senator’s car. The photo behind it was a shot of the Lake Carmi shore and the thick ingrained pattern of tire treads in the mud. If the tire pattern on the car matched the tire tread found at Lake Carmi, that would be proof that his car had been present near Nicole’s body.

I heard the loud clack of boots on the tile floor and panicked. I’m not sure what possessed me, but instead of putting the photos back in their envelope, I grabbed them all and shoved them into my bag, then quickly sat down in the chair in front of the desk again.

Owen stepped back into the office and I could tell from his expression that whatever was said during his conversation with the Captain had upset him. He looked annoyed as he searched around his desk for a fresh pack of chewing gum. When he finally found it, he motioned for me to follow him.

“C’mon,” he said commandingly.

We walked together in silence as he led me out of the building and into the parking lot, but instead of leading me to my car, he stopped at the edge of the building and stepped beneath the shade of a large maple tree.

“Listen to me, Kelly,” he said, his voice low and serious. It was almost as if he was scared. “This, you coming here, asking questions. It needs to stop, okay? I didn’t mind helping you out with your story, but it’s getting hairy, okay?”

“Hairy? What do you mean? What happened with the Captain?”

I could tell he was getting exasperated, despite wanting to protect me. “Just leave it alone, kid. Okay? People disappear around here for a lot less than what you’re doing. It’s a miracle you’ve made it this far, but now it’s time to give it a rest.”

My stomach turned onto itself. Had the Senator gotten to the police? Was he threatening Owen to get the investigation dropped?

“He did it, didn’t he? The Senator killed Nicole and he’s threatening people so he won’t get in trouble. Am I right? You can tell me, Owen. Just-just nod your head yes or no, okay?”

“I don’t know Kelly and I’m not going to find out, and neither are you. Now, just go, okay?” he said, raising hands as if he were pushing me away without touching me.

I waited for a few seconds, half-expecting him to break and tell me whatever he had just learned from his Captain.

“You can’t be serious. Owen, this is huge. What about the trafficking charges? The witnesses who kept overdosing? Come on, Owen, you’ve got a stake in this, too!” I stopped myself just before mentioning his son. I knew that topic was off-limits.

He just turned and went back inside the barracks without another word. I knew then I was basically on my own. I was more frightened than before, but at the same time I was juiced. The idea of a state senator having his tendrils so deep that even local police departments could be swayed by him was horrifying. It also made it all the more necessary that the story be told.

It occurred to me then that I still had the photos in my bag, and that Owen would put two and two together any moment, so I decided I’d better take the opportunity to go before he came looking for me again. I drove off the barracks lot and headed straight for Lake Carmi. It was the first piece of evidence I’d been able to get my hands on that wasn’t rooted in rumor or conjecture. I had to at least prove to myself that the Senator’s car tread matched what was found at the lake. If it was a match, it would be hard for anyone to deny the McClintons’ involvement in Nicole’s death.