Girl in the Mist (Detective Morgan Brookes #18)

Chapter 1

ONE

Tori had her baby pink Converse on the dash of Dawson’s car as she stared at her reflection in her phone screen. Scarlett was sitting in the back, leaning so far over Dawson’s shoulder her hair was tickling his face. She let out a loud giggle. Tori snapped her flip phone shut and stared at her.

‘Are you purposely trying to make him crash, Scarlett? Sit back, you’re distracting him and getting on my nerves.’

Scarlett pouted. Her lips were full without having any lip filler, and the envy of Tori and most of the girls in their class.

‘You’re in such a bad mood, Tori. What’s wrong with you tonight?

Nobody forced you to come, it was your choice, so stop being so angry about everything. I mean am I bothering you?’

Tori rolled her eyes at Dawson, who gave her a resigned shrug then turned back to stare at the road which had the worst visibility she had ever seen.

The higher the car climbed up the side of the fell, the lower the clouds and mist came to meet it, giving the narrow, twisty road an almost ethereal glow in the light of the car headlight’s full beam.

Her stomach clenched as Dawson slammed the brakes, sending Scarlett forward so fast her nose connected with the back of his head with a loud crunch.

Tori turned to look at her. There was a thick line of blood running down her top lip, and she tried not to gloat or say I told you so.

‘What the hell, Dawson, you broke my nose.’ Scarlett’s voice was a little higher pitched than normal.

‘Did you see that?’

Tori turned back and looked out at the road. She couldn’t see anything for the ground mist that looked even thicker than it had moments ago.

‘See what?’

‘Someone ran across the road, I think it was a girl; I almost killed them.’ His normally deep voice was almost as high-pitched as Scarlett’s, and Tori could hear how shaken he was.

‘You almost killed me, you dick.’ Scarlett slapped the back of his head.

Tori pulled a wad of tissues out of her pocket and thrust them in her friend’s direction. ‘Your nose isn’t broken; it’s busted. It will stop bleeding soon, and if you hadn’t been leaning over like that it wouldn’t have happened.’

Scarlett snatched the tissues from her and held them to her face.

‘I think we should turn back. You’re never going to find that old haunted, summer camp in this awful weather. It’s too dangerous,’ Tori told Dawson.

Dawson was unclipping his seat belt, one hand on the door handle.

‘Don’t go out there, it’s dangerous. You need to start driving before someone crashes into the back of us and wipes us all out.’ Tori’s fingers were gripping his arm as tight as she could.

He turned to her, his face ashen. ‘But I can’t be certain I didn’t just hit someone… something is out there…’

Tori shook her head. ‘You didn’t hit anyone; there was no bump or crunch.

You saw something, probably a deer or a stag running across the road.

You know what they’re like; they don’t care about any vehicle, they just jump out without a care in the world.

Nobody in their right mind would be out here in this weather, especially not a girl, it doesn’t make sense. ’

‘We are,’ muttered Scarlett, her voice sounding thick and nasally.

Tori couldn’t argue with that, it had seemed like a great idea at the time.

They had been talking about going up to the old Buttermere Summer Camp for months, ever since Dawson had heard his grandad talking about it to his dad.

He hadn’t stopped mentioning it in what seemed like forever, and both Tori and Scarlett – who were obsessed with spooky stories and ghost hunting – had agreed to go with him.

They had decided to record as much footage as they could at the run-down camp, and when they could figure it out, they were going to start a podcast. They even had a title and a logo that Dawson had designed.

They would record every week and call it Legends of the Lakes.

Dawson began to drive at a snail’s pace.

‘The entrance to Buttermere is around here somewhere, we can’t be far away now. I need to check on that girl. What if she was running away from something and needs help,’ Dawson muttered.

Tori wished he’d turn around, not that there was much room on this road. If it got much worse there was a chance they were going to get stranded, or even worse, he might drive off the side of the fell.

The pocket of mist cleared as quickly as it had arrived, and she could make out the overgrown gateway a little further ahead of them. She recognised the gnarly gatepost that the sign had once hung from. The sign was long gone, but the distinctive post was still there.

‘It’s just there. You were right, Dawson, we were so near to it.’ Scarlett clapped her hands together.

Tori’s stomach clenched, and her palms felt a little too hot.

‘I think we should come back another night. I mean it’s not as if we’re going to be able to see much if that fog comes back.

It’s dangerous to walk around an abandoned camp in the pitch black at the best of times, never mind when you can’t see your fingers in front of your face. ’

Scarlett tutted. ‘She’s scared; I didn’t come here and bust my nose for nothing.

I say we go and take a peek. If it’s too foggy, we can leave it, but it will look so cool on the videos if we’re wandering around a supposedly haunted old campsite in the middle of the night.

That, my friends, is going to get us plenty of likes and followers. ’

Tori rolled her eyes; she focused on Dawson. ‘What do you think?’

‘I agree with Scarlett. We’re here now, so we might as well go have a look around and check if someone needs help.

If we can make sure nobody is injured then I’ll be glad.

Plus there is no way that crazy old caretaker is going to be out in this weather.

We’ll have the place to ourselves, and the footage will be sick. ’

Scarlett smiled slyly at Tori. ‘You can wait in the car if you’re scared.’

‘I’m not scared,’ she snapped back. ‘I’m just thinking about the chances of us hurting ourselves or getting lost.’

Dawson patted her arm and his fingers left burning patches where he’d touched her skin. Damn he was fine, and for the hundredth time she wished it was just the two of them, but it never was – Scarlett was always there.

‘We won’t, let’s just have a quick look, film some stuff and then we’ll leave, okay?’

Tori nodded. Why did this seem like the start of a horror movie? How many stupid shows had they watched where the idiot teenagers went sneaking around in places they shouldn’t have? Too many to count, that was for sure.

Scarlett and Dawson got out of the car at the same time. She opened her door and wished she was at home, tucked up under her duvet with her book and not about to do the stupidest thing of her entire life.