Chapter One
2006
Dayton Culver was well aware he was trespassing when he and his golden retriever, Lulu, veered off the path in the woods. If he had known the nightmares the transgression would bring him after that horrifying spring day, maybe he wouldn’t have strayed. Lord knew he was going to spend the rest of his life wishing he’d never climbed that hill.
The forest had grown up so much in the last couple of years that the PRIVATE sign that marked this particular corner of the property was mostly obscured—enough that he could plead ignorance if discovered roaming around.
His family had known the Lakes for decades. Dayton’s older sister, Cadence, had gone to school with Jeff Lake, who had taken over the property when his daddy died a few years back. Jeff visited more often than his parents ever had. Mostly he’d come up to check on the place, but sometimes he’d bring that good-looking wife of his with him. The two had made a lot of changes to the cabin, the most recent of which was an outdoor hot tub. That was why Dayton had a pair of swim trunks and a towel waiting in his backpack. The Lakes wouldn’t be there on a Tuesday and he could have a soak with no one ever being the wiser.
He let Lulu run ahead. He rarely had her on a leash, since she wouldn’t hurt a fly. She was a good girl with a sweet disposition.
She did, however, love to dig, and when he spied her digging at the ground about a hundred yards from the cabin, he hollered at her to stop. Jeff Lake had started a new landscaping project—he was always planting something—and Dayton didn’t want the dog to ruin anything. But when he reached the retriever, he realized she hadn’t dug up a shrub.
She’d dug up a body.
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered as horror threatened to shake his bowels loose. He knew the girl. Knew of her. He’d seen her on the news the other night. She was missing from a nearby town.
Dayton grabbed Lulu by the collar, pulling her away from the body as his trembling fingers fumbled in his jeans pocket for his phone. Reception out here wasn’t great, but the nearest cell tower was close enough that he ought to be able to reach someone.
He called Daniel, his cousin who was on the local police force. He knew the cops believed the girl had been taken by a predator—the kind of monster no town ever wants to believe it could house.
Daniel told him to sit tight, so he sat, frozen on the steps to the cabin, far enough from the body that he didn’t have to see the girl’s empty gaze. Lulu sat with him, occasionally giving a low whimper, as though she sensed his distress.
A short while later, Daniel arrived, along with the sheriff. Daniel eventually drove Dayton and Lulu home and told him to keep quiet about what he’d found. Dayton called in sick to work the next day so he wouldn’t be tempted. The day after, it was all over town that Jeff Lake had been arrested. Police had caught him “revisiting” the body—whatever that meant. Dayton didn’t want to know.
Soon word got out that he’d been the one to find the girl, and Dayton became something of a local celebrity. When the police found more bodies on the property—some of which had been there a long time under the landscaping Jeff Lake obsessed over—the horror of the situation became all too real. Dayton didn’t want to be a celebrity, let alone a hero. And he didn’t want to think of those murdered girls being fertilizer for rosebushes and Japanese maples.
After that, anytime someone praised him for finding the girl, he told them it was Lulu who was the hero. He did this hoping that eventually he could pretend he’d never been there at all. Maybe then he’d forget that poor girl’s face.
Dayton gave several interviews after Lake’s arrest. His mother was so proud and recorded every news show he was on, clipped the articles from every paper he was in. They quoted a lot of things he said, but the one that got used the most was something that years later he would wish he had never said, or at least had phrased a little differently. He’d said it in response to a reporter speculating about Allison’s involvement in her husband’s crimes and what that might mean for her daughter.
“That poor child’s going to grow up knowing her father was a monster,” he said into the microphone held in front of his face. He was too nervous to look into the camera, so he kept his attention focused on the reporter. “What kind of life is she going to have? Everywhere she goes, people are gonna talk about her behind her back—if she’s lucky. To her face if she’s not. Her father’s crimes will haunt her for the rest of her life. God help her. I don’t reckon she’ll ever get a moment’s peace.”
Copyright © 2022 by Kate McLaughlin.
