Bitter Past by C.J. Carmichael

Author:C.J. Carmichael
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery
ISBN: 9781966593676
Publisher: Tule Publishing Group, LLC
Published: 2025-08-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

“I’d bought a new camera that summer,” Zak said. “And I shot a lot of pictures, almost all of them candid shots. After a while the people around me stopped noticing.”

“So how did Brent get three of your pictures?”

“After that summer, I sent copies to everyone. I guess I felt we all needed to remember what had happened.” He’d felt guilty was why. Not reporting that body haunted him to this day.

“If you were there, then maybe you can be upfront with me. I’ve tried asking Shawn, Amanda, and even Myrtle about this body that the note mentions. Amanda mentioned there was an end-of-summer party in the forest. I’m assuming that was when you found the body?”

“Brent found her,” Zak said. “He’d gone into the woods to take a leak. When he saw the body, he freaked out and called all of us to see.”

“Was it Eve Brooks?”

“With hindsight, I think so. The night we saw her body, she hadn’t even been reported missing yet. That wouldn’t happen for another week, and by then we’d all left Lost Trail. I was helping with harvest on a family farm in South Dakota.”

“Here’s what I don’t understand. If the body did belong to Eve Brooks, wouldn’t the authorities have figured it out?”

Zak cringed. “The authorities never knew. We decided not to report finding the body until the morning after we’d sobered up.”

“Oh my God.”

“Really not proud of that. But I wasn’t the Sheriff back then. I was just another wet-behind-the-ears summer employee. The plan was to drive out to the trailhead in the morning. But Shawn ended up telling his folks, and then Wyatt’s parents got involved too.”

“You had a pancake breakfast.”

Zak wondered how she knew that, then he remembered. She’d seen the picture. “Yeah. Sam and Edward told us they’d hike back to the body and report to the Sheriff. We were able to give them a really detailed explanation of where to find her. But when they got there, the body was gone.”

Joelle took a few seconds to digest that. “So who do you think disappeared her body?”

“That’s the million-dollar question. If a predator had found the body and dragged it away, Sam and Edward would have seen signs in the undergrowth, track marks, debris from her clothing, maybe bones, or teeth or blood. But despite being expert hunters and trackers, they saw nothing. No body and no sign that there ever had been one.”

Joelle sighed. “Which brings us back to square one. Brent’s recent involvement started with the blackmail note. You know all the players. Who do you think sent it?”

He picked up the letter and reread it. Whoever sent this had a lot of information about that summer. “I honestly don’t know. That part about having a photograph of the body? That was a total bluff. They must have been counting on Brent not being sure if I had snuck in another of my candid shots.”

“Well then, let’s think about motive. I’ve heard that the Flint Creek

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.