Back in my car, I jotted down a couple of notes in my composition book and took a minute to sketch out a timeline of Shannon’s recent months. Around March, according to J.J., she started working at Baker Beverage; in mid-July, she became a churchgoer again. And in late September, she vanished. Why the sudden return to Catholicism? I wondered. J.J. had sworn Shannon wasn’t stressed, but perhaps somethinghadbeen eating at her, a concern that eventually led to leaving her life behind.
It was after noon by this point. After picking up take-out tacos and returning to the Breezy Point, I tore off my jacket and composed my next post, naturally including the earbud news but not revealing what I’d learned about Shannon and the church. It seemed smart to keep that to myself for now.
The moment I hit send, I felt overtaken by a wave of fatigue. I’d hardly been working my ass off, but the day had been mentally draining. I flopped on the bed and closed my eyes, promising myself no more than a ten-minute catnap.
It must have been far longer than that because when I woke with a start, the room was dim and utterly silent. I pushed myself up on an elbow, taking a few seconds to recall where the hell I was. Right, the Breezy Point Motel in Lake George.
I fumbled for the bedside lamp and switched it on, castinga small pool of light around the room. My head hurt, a result of napping too long.
From the desk, my phone suddenly rang. Beau? I wondered. He’d promised to call when he was settled, but I hadn’t heard from him today. I stumbled toward the desk and grabbed my phone. Not Beau. Number blocked. I answered, wondering if the caller might be one of the locals I’d given my card to.
“Bailey Weggins?” The voice was deep and weirdly quivering, and I couldn’t tell if it belonged to a man or a woman. The speaker, I suddenly realized, was using a voice-altering device. My pulse quickened.
“Who is this?” I demanded. Super-dumb question—as if a person using a vocal disguise was going to tell me who they were.
“Do you want to know what kind of Catholic girl Shannon is?”
“Whatkind?” Could it be Tom Nolan on the other end?
“You’d be surprised if you knew.”
My heart was racing by this point. “Do you know where Shannon is?”
“Go to Sunset Bay.”
“Wait,what?”
“Sunset Bay.”
“But where in Sunset Bay? Please—please tell me.”
“You’ll find it. And you’ll see the kind of Catholic girl she really is.”
And then the call disconnected.
Chapter 5
IFROZE IN PLACE, STARING AT THE PHONE.FINALLY,Ijerked my head toward the door, relieved to see the chain link was in place.
Had I just been pranked? Was Matt Wong or another reporter trying to divert my attention and have a cheap laugh at my expense?
It didn’t feel that way, though. The call had seemed too sinister.
I grabbed my composition book and a pen and quickly jotted down what I’d heard. Where was Sunset Bay and why was it important for me to know what kind of Catholic Shannon was? Was it possible that something weird was going on with St. Tim’s, which had led to her disappearance, and the caller wanted the word out? The tone of voice had been taunting, though, hardly reflecting a desire to help.
And no one besides Tom Nolan had known I’d been probing on that subject.
But hold on. People had seen me talking to Nolan in theparking lot after the press conference, and anyone observing us could have easily guessed I was asking about Shannon’s role in the parish. And I’d given out business cards to a horde of people in the past two days, even to some of the canvassers I’d interviewed.
I scribbled down a few names: Cody, Kelly, Hank, J.J. They’d all been at the press conference this morning. Perhaps it actually had been Nolan himself calling, wanting to pass along additional info about Shannon without me knowing it was from him. And yet wouldn’t he have realized it would be suspicious coming so soon after our conversation?
And what, he just happened to have a voice adapter in the glove box of his car?
I tossed the notebook aside. There was no way at the moment to determine who the caller was, or if it was even someone I knew. What I needed to do was figure out what he or she was talking about.
I grabbed my laptop next and typed in “Sunset Bay.” It turned out to be a hamlet by a small bay of Lake George and near the town of Bolton, only a fifteen-minute drive north from my motel. Back in the 1920s the location had featured a tony hotel known as the Sunset Bay Inn, but it had burned to the ground in the 1950s and had never been rebuilt.
I searched next for “Sunset Bay, Catholics” but nothing popped up, other than a mention of a Catholic church in Bolton—St. Mary’s, which, from its website, looked to be more of a chapel. It was possible that Shannon had attended mass in Hague when its schedule lined up with hers on a given Sunday, though from the little I knew from old friends,people generally didn’t jump from one parish to another. They stayed put, unless they moved or were traveling.
