Chapter Forty-Three
Through the rush of adrenaline, she read the short article of vague details.
The crash had occurred thirteen years ago on a narrow road on the same mountain where the Corrigan estate was located.
The victims were a vacationing family whose car careened off the road and rolled downhill.
Witness accounts were even vaguer. The coroner ruled that the victims had died on impact.
The police report offered little clarity, citing “driving too fast for conditions” and “driver error due to unfamiliarity with the area” as possible factors.
It was the only article about the accident, written by a Nathan Collins.
The family’s name had been withheld pending notification.
Bowen tapped the screen as he sat next to her, practically breathing in her ear as he leaned in. “I think I remember this,” he mused. “Happened a couple of years before you showed up.”
“Looks like it.” She studied the contents on the screen.
“Are you family or something?” Half joking, half serious. She was entirely something else.
“Did this turn into an interrogation, Officer Bowen?” she asked, turning to him.
He pulled a face. “That’s Detective Bowen,” he said, mildly offended. “Put some respect on that.”
She apologized, motioning he should continue.
“I don’t think they ever followed up and said anything more about it. It was a tragedy. Whole family.”
“I see,” she said as he pointed out the obvious.
Something didn’t add up. The road described was one leading directly to the Corrigan gates. Why would a family from out of town go there at that time of night instead of nearby, to Jefferson’s Monticello? That was the tourist attraction, not the Corrigans. Isla pieced together what she knew.
Thirteen years ago, Eden would have been a junior in high school—around the same time her demeanor suddenly changed, according to Sara, and she eventually left for Daytona.
And the lack of information in a town this size for an accident so tragic was odd.
It was as if Isla’s team had swooped in and sanitized all the identifying information and the PR firm had pushed this story, or lack thereof.
Who had called in the accident? Who else had been there?
And why wasn’t there more? And the most glaring question . . .
What was it about this accident that had had Eden so shaken?
Isla was deep in her thoughts, barely hearing Bowen speaking to her.
“Back then, you mentioned something bad had happened. You looked scared as hell, but you wouldn’t talk. You ran before I could get more out of you.”
“You’d run too if cops were chasing you in some strange town.”
Detective Bowen continued, “It was more than cops chasing you, Isla. You were worried before we got there. You wanted to tell us something.”
Isla debated if she could trust Bowen. She didn’t know him.
But she needed someone closer who could help if she needed it.
She needed an ally, and if he was still anything like the kindhearted officer from ten years ago, he could be trusted now, with limitations.
She couldn’t decide where to begin. “My best friend disappeared, and I was a runaway who could have been sent back if I was caught. I’m back to find out what happened to her. ”
“Care to share a name? I can run it through the missing persons database.”
She gave him a quick smile. “Not yet. There are things I need to figure out first.”
Bowen’s expression was grim. “I won’t press,” he said.
“But I advise you to be careful. Whatever you’re digging up, whoever you’re trying to find, I don’t know how that relates to the Corrigans.
But when you’re dealing with that family, if you’re not careful, they’ll chew you up and spit you out, just like they’ve done to everyone else. ”