The town appeared almost pristine under the pale morning light, as though it had not been constructed but merely depicted. The smoke coming out of the chimneys was thin, mingling with the foggy air. It was quite and serene yet it conveyed an unfamiliar silence. The storm had discreetly masked each road, rooftop, and footprint to maintain the pretence that nothing dreadful had occurred there.
Missing Posters. They were everywhere.
Pinned outside the stores.
Along frozen bus stops.
Near the lamp post buried under snow.
Girls smiling from the paper that was curling at the edges due to the winter storm, and now one more face has joined them.
Clara Whitmore
Age: 17
Last seen: Friday night
However, fear was more difficult to conceal when people stood behind frosted windows, watching silently as police vehicles parked along the narrow streets near the forest road. No one, however, walked into the scene directly as in a winter curiosity is rarely greater than caution.
The Barricading tape blocked the road near the forest edge while the officers moved cautiously in the deep snow.
The storm had been raging all night without a break.
They saw a dark vehicle that rolled slowly to a stop near the scene.
A police officer lifted up the yellow tape line while the other figure without speaking stepped underneath it.
Tall.
Dark coat covered with snow.
Black gloves.
Sharp collar of a charcoal turtleneck peeking out from under his long wool overcoat.
He was the type of person that carried absolutely restrain, not carelessness, not arrogance, but the quiet control of someone used to watching before speaking.
Jason Reed often appeared as the kind of man that the newspapers portrayed him to be.
The Blackthorne media loved to give him dramatized
titles:
the detective who has never dropped a case,
the guy who uncovered the ministerial corruption,
the ghost of the legal system.
Jason hated all of them. He was less of a famous investigator at that moment and more like someone who hadn't slept properly in days. Opening buried cases was his specialty, which was the reason why the local police of Ashford were so afraid of him.
Snowflakes, melting slowly, lit up his dark hair as he crouched near the edge of the scene.
The footprints started near the road.
Bare.
Small.
Too clean leading to the forest.
Jason silently analyzed them. Most people try to find evidence, at first they look for what stands out. Jason, however, looked for what tries too hard to fit in, and these footprints fit too perfectly.
Not scattered.
Not panicked.
Measured.
Controlled.
Like a type of evidence made for stories not for solutions.
Cameras flickered behind him and officers moved cautiously through the area.
Woman with beautiful shiny black hair got out of the forensic unit bringing a silver case.
"You're contaminating my area, "
Jason looked up, flashed a smile and stepped back a little.
Dr. Nina Hayes, revealing tired amber eyes and a few dark curls, removed her hood and a wool cap. Her expression was that of someone who trusts evidence far more than people.
"See anything interesting?" Jason said.
Nina, after studying every part of the prints, said, "It depends."
"On what?"
"Whether or not you believe in ghost stories."
Jason almost smiled at that, "I don't."
"Good, " she muttered while still looking at the snow, "There should've been deeper compressions but the pressure points are all over the place."
Jason crossed his arms. "So, what's the point?"
She only glanced up momentarily.
"That could mean the person who walked here has just lost a few pounds …"
Her gloved fingers lightly traced the outline of one of the footprints.
"… or someone has changed this scene afterward."
Jason's eyes returned again to the woods.
The area of the forest outside the tape looks so still, almost unnatural, through the fog.
No birds.
No wind.
No sound.
Only the white silence that seemed to be hiding something.
A few feet away, officers were questioning scared witnesses in the bakery district.
All statements were almost the same.
"The fog was unexpected."
"I heard the bells."
"She shouldn't have been outside."
"On Fridays, the Hollow Woman walks."
Jason kept his silence and listened from a distance while his jaw tightened a little with every sentence repeated.
No one was talking about facts.
Only about fear.
And fear often spreads fastest in those places that are most ready for it. An elderly woman grabbed his sleeve when he was about to leave. "You should stop looking into it."
Jason looked at her with a serene face.
"Why?"
Her tone dropped instantly.
"Because, this town notices people who ask too many questions."
She left before he could say something and disappeared in the crowd.
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The bakery was located almost at the street's corner and its warm yellow light could still be seen faintly through the frosted windows.
Whitmore Bakery.
The smell of bread was still faintly present inside; the cold had only made the scent of fresh loaves hiding behind the glass counters more noticeable which was totally in contrast with the time that had seemed to have been abruptly frozen halfway through the closing of the shop.
Jason took off his gloves gradually as he got in.
The warmth indoors seemed quite strange considering the freezing silence outside that they had just experienced.
Behind the counter was Stephan Whitmore, Clara's father, looking more like a young man than his age would suggest. He seemed deeply tired. His hands shook slightly as he was filling a cup with coffee which t hey both were not going to drink because of the gravity of the moment.
"Did you find anything?" asked Stephan quietly.
Jason gave no reply initially.
"Not yet."
Stephan gave a slight nod at this as if he had anticipated it.
Jason's glance naturally wandered around the bakery,
family photographs
receipts
a crooked winter festival picture hanging just by the kitchen door
locks recently fitted to the doors.
Too many locks for a bakery
Jason remarked, "You have made security upgrades here."
Stephan somewhat tensed.
"People stop coming out after the dark here."
"Is it because of the disappearances?"
There was silence.
Jason immediately caught that.
The hesitation.
It was not sorrow.
Recognition.
Then he concentrated on a framed photo on the wall. Two girls smiling in front of the bakery counter.
One of them is Clara.
The other one is the elder.
They have similar eyes.
Jason moved closer.
"Who is she?"
Stephan looked up and said, "My younger daughter."
Jason twisted his body a little.
"She's not listed in the papers, though."
Stephan's face changed in a moment. He was so scared it almost looked like he was in pain.
"It's been many years since she passed."
"Why?"
Stephan was holding the mug of coffee as he.
"They say the cold winter got her."
Jason kept showing no feeling.
"People say all kinds of things in this town."
The silence prolonged.
Longer in fact.
Eventually Stephan muttered, "It's on a Friday when she also went missing."
Jason's gaze rose slowly. "And no one reported it?"
Stephan diverted his eyes to the snow-laden window.
"They actually did."
He went on in an even lower tone. "But Ashford is a place that forgets."
Jason gave him a hard look.
"You believe Clara is alive?"
Stephan hesitated for a moment.
Instead, he reached under the counter and took out Clara's scarf.
Red wool.
Still damp from melted snow.
He murmured, "They discovered this one near the woods."
Jason accepted it gently. The scent of the fabric was that of smouldering wood.
Not a forest.
Not a snowy mountain.
Smoke.
Jason's eyes twitched just a bit.
How odd that was.
Very odd indeed.
After all, the fire was not reported anywhere near the place. AS Jason thought Stephan immediately saw the change of his look.
"What happened?"
Jason is glancing at the scarf.
"Nothing yet." But his voice said otherwise,
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It was already a dark night when Jason got back to the investigation cabin outside Ashford. The cabin was located in front of the snow-covered forest partially hidden by the fog coming from the hills. It was not really a place for short-term stay but rather a physical manifestation of obsession. Nearly all walls were covered with pictures.
Missing girls
Dates
Maps
Timelines connected with red threads.
Besides the coffee cups, there were piles of open files while the papers covered almost every surface.
An electric heater was humming quietly in the corner.
Daniel Cross was reading witness statements while Rachel Moore was typing fast on the laptop surrounded by collection of the town records. Daniel and Rachel were not just some members of a team to Jason. They were his most loyal companions who have never betrayed him and whom he trusted the most. Not only have they all met the last, but even in the worst scenario they have proved that their relations are far stronger than those of steel ones.
Nina was standing at the evidence board and studying the forensic photos.
Jason very slowly took off his coat and then hung it up by the door. No one asked him how it had gone at the bakery.
They didn't need to. It was evident from his face that uncertainty still lingers in fact, it was a bigger problem now.
His hair wet from the melting snow, dark strands fell slightly over his tired eyes as he walked toward the wall of missing girls.
For a few moments, no one spoke.
The cabin air seemed quite heavy already.
Rachel finally said, "Records of the town prior to 2008 are incomplete."
"To what extent?" inquired Jason.
She seemed a bit disconcerted. "There are files missing. Entire census sections erased. And some death certificates just don't match burial records."
Daniel quietly scoffed and remarked, "Maybe Ashford just has really bad filing."
Nina snapped her head up, "That's not what I would call bad filing."
Jason continued to concentrate on Clara's photograph located under the other photos.
"No."
Suddenly the room seemed as if it had been bombarded by a cold breath.
He examined the girls who had been taken quite thoroughly.
Different times.
Different households.
The missing girl was not on his mind.
Neither was the mythology.
The thing that was on his mind was the way the whole town was acting like the disappearance was just the weather.
It had come to be,
Expected.
Scheduled.
Normalized.
Jason was looking at the pictures on the wall.
Then eventually said, "Something is very wrong here."
The whole group became silent.
"You just figured that out?" laughed Nina as she folded her arms.
Jason simply ignored her remark.
"The footprints were completely fake."
Daniel looked uncertain. "You really think so?"
"Definitely." said Nina in a very firm tone.
"And the witnesses?"
"They were scared stiff even before the questioning started."
Rachel seemed hesitant. "It could just be the way they panic."
Jason gave a small nod but it wasn't an agreement.
"No."
His gaze went to Clara's scarf on the table.
To the almost imperceptible smell of smoke that was still on it.Then moved on to the dates that had been connected on the wall.
Friday.
Winter.
Fog.
Again.
Again.
Again.
His jaw clenched a little.
"This doesn't feel like a disappearance to me."
Snow buffeted the cabin windows fiercely.
The lights flickered one time.
Jason spoke once more but this time only quietly, "It's like someone is bringing back something."
JASON'S POV
From my experience, I have come to know that some crime scenes speak at a glance when something is out of place. Ashford was out of place to me.
The town itself was not.
The element of fear.
When confronted with a tragic event, most people tend to panic. There are emotional, irregular, irrational types of reactions.
However, Ashford?
Ashford was acting as if it had gotten used to this at one time or another.
Every witness gave the same account: the fog, the ringing of bells, the Hollow Woman.
Not a single one voiced the question that really counted.
Who has taken Clara Whitmore?
I was standing right up against the wall where the cabin evidence was displayed, looking at the photos while snow was hitting the windows with such force that it sounded like scratching nails on glass.
Disappeared girls.
Different years.
Different families.
Yet all cases have been consumed in the same way, no evidence, no body, no verdict.
Too neat.
Disappearance cases tend to be quite complicated.
People do mistakes.
Someone witnesses an event.
Evidence still exists somewhere.
But not here.
Ashford deleted things so well.
My eyes involuntarily moved to Clara's scarf lying on the table.
Smoke.
That was the thing that upset me the most.
There was no fire near the scene.
No burned buildings.
No newspaper columns.
Nothing.
So how come the scarf smelled of smoke?
I ran a hand over my face slowly, very tired.
The police locally wanted everything to be closed within no time. I could read their refusal to talk details in the way they looked at something, the way their reports bypassed inconsistencies as if they were terrified of noticing them.
And then there was Stephan Whitmore.
He had a hard time looking like a father who had lost his daughter…
he resembled, instead, a man who is waiting for someone to tell him that the thing he dreaded the most has come true.
Such look was engraved on me.
Because, as a matter of fact, I'd met it before. People only show such expression when a tragedy stops being something that shocks.
I looked back at the wall.
Friday.
Winter.
Fog.
Repeating the same things too exact across the years. That kind of repetition does not occur by nature.
It is somebody who makes them.
Or somebody preserves them.
A sudden creaking was heard from the cabin as the wind was howling outside. For a second, the silence inside felt as if it was heavy enough to kill. Then a thought came to me so clearly that it made my stomach churn.
This town is blind to disappearances.
It gets used to them.
And, somehow…
that was much worse.