Page 36 of Vanished in the Mist
“That’s not what happened. Tristan didn’t… I mean…” She swore beneath her breath.
Shanna exchanged a knowing look with Kaden. They were close to a break. She could feel it. “Peyton,” she asked, “If it wasn’t Sam, or Tristan, was it Jessica?”
“It was Jack, okay? There. I said it. He’s the one who did it.” She pressed a hand to her mouth, a horrified expression on her face as she dropped her face into her hands.
“What did he do?” Shanna went for the jugular, not giving Peyton a chance to regroup. “Did Jack beat her? Do something worse?”
When Peyton remained silent, Shanna nodded at Kaden, trying to let him know that she wanted them both to jump in and firequestions, increase the tension. They both did exactly that, taking turns, barely giving Peyton enough time to answer before asking another one. Kaden had a real knack for knowing where Shanna was heading and playing right along. He was the perfect Dr. Watson.
He tapped the bonfire photo again on Shanna’s phone. “The date stamp on this tells us this was a week before your graduation. A few weeks before Tanya went missing. She didn’t say anything to her parents about it. And they certainly didn’t mention anything about bruises or cuts, no black eyes, so no one hit hurt. Not that anyone could see anyway. Peyton, what did he do that’s so bad that you’re afraid to tell us? Did he rape her?”
Peyton’s head jerked up. “What? No, nothing like that. It’s just that…” She bit her lip, glancing back and forth between them with a panicked expression on her face. “None of us hit her or—or…did anything to her. We saw her taking the picture and Jack wanted to erase it. That’s all. We—we were smoking weed, okay? Jack’s the one who got it for us and he was scared he’d get in trouble with his parents if they found out. His dad would beat the crap out of him if he ever knew he did drugs. And the rest of us were worried she would show the picture to the cops. That’s it. That’s all.”
But that wasn’t all. Shanna could see that Peyton was still covering up something, hiding the full truth. It was obvious in the way she was wringing her hands, the tortured look in her eyes, how she could barely look at either of them. Shanna glanced at Kaden, and waited, letting him continue since he was doing so well.
He motioned toward the phone. “I don’t see any drugs in that photo.”
Peyton glanced at the screen, then looked away. “Maybe not that one. But there were others. Jack chased her down, took her phone, deleted everything. I meaneverything. All her photos,not just the ones she took of us. She—she begged him not to, said she’d delete the ones of the bonfire. But he held the phone up to her face so it would unlock and he deleted everything in her photo app. And he warned her not to follow us ever again. I don’t… I don’t know how you got that picture. I thought they were all gone.”
Shanna shook her head. “Maybe Tanya’s just smarter than you and your friends. Haven’t you ever gone to the recently deleted photo folder on your phone to recover pictures?”
Peyton’s face reddened. “What are you talking about?”
Shanna sighed. “Never mind. What happened after Jack deleted the pictures?”
“I don’t—”
“No more lies, Peyton. What happened after Jack caught up to Tanya?”
Her lower lip quivered. “Nothing. I mean, like I said, he warned her to stop following us around. She was a pest, you know? Always trying to talk to us at school, asking us over to her house, wanting to go shopping in Chattanooga with Jessica and me.” She made a disgusted sound. “Like we’d ever do that.”
Kaden stared at her. “You were upset at her for trying to be your friend?”
Peyton lifted her chin at a defiant angle. “You had to be there to understand. We weren’t trying to be mean or anything. We just…had nothing in common with her, okay? She was a kid, a sophomore. I guess she was desperate or something, trying to fit in, and thought we could help her. She was trying to use us to become popular. It was ridiculous. She wouldn’t stop. Just kept bugging us, following us around at school and—”
“She followed you again, didn’t she?” Shanna asked. “After the bonfire, after Jack deleted those pictures and warned her. Was there another bonfire? More weed? Maybe the night she disappeared? And you caught her again?”
“Of course not.” Peyton started to shake.
“She saw you illegally drinking alcohol?”
“No.”
“Something worse? Heavy drugs? Meth?”
A single tear coursed down her cheek as she shook her head no.
“Peyton.” Kaden took the lead again. “What did Tanya see the night she went missing that she shouldn’t have seen?”
She shook her head again. “It wasn’t like that. That’s not what—”
“Happened?”
She drew a ragged breath.
Shanna stared at her, waiting. But when Peyton remained silent, she nodded at Kaden to try again.
“You know where she is,” he said, his voice kind but laced with steel. “Tell us.”
