COLD CASE AT CAMDEN CROSSING by Rita Herron Page A

In fact, he’d driven the theory that she’d been hiding something and demanded she stop faking the amnesia.
    But his father didn’t want her here, and he had a hunting rifle. Deer hunting was his sport.
    Then he’d talk to Barry Dothan about those pictures and see if he was stalking Tawny-Lynn.
    * * *
    T AWNY -L YNN SHIVERED as she stepped into her sister’s old room. It was as if she’d walked back in time.
    Peyton had always been his favorite because she was more of a girly-girl, and her room reflected her personality.
    Though she and her father had argued those last few months. Mostly about the length of Peyton’s skirts, her makeup and boyfriends. Peyton had been hormonal, determined to date when their father told her no, and had snuck out several times late at night.
    Her father had also found her slipping alcohol from the house.
    Twice, she’d come in so drunk she could barely walk, and Tawny-Lynn had covered for her. She and her sister had argued the next day, and Tawny-Lynn had begged her sister to stop acting out.
    Peyton had yelled that she was almost eighteen, that she was in love, and that she’d do whatever she pleased.
    A couple of weeks later, she’d run in crying one night, and when Tawny-Lynn asked what was wrong, Peyton refused to talk.
    She’d figured it was boyfriend trouble, but then she’d heard Peyton and Ruth arguing over the phone later, and thought the two of them had had a falling out. But Peyton had never shared what had upset her or what happened between her and Ruth.
    She slid into the desk chair in the corner and searched the drawers, finding assorted junk—spiral notebooks with old algebra problems, a science notebook, movie ticket stubs, old hair bows, ribbons and report cards. Peyton had been an average student, but popular because of her good looks.
    She checked the other drawers and found a few photographs of her sister and Ruth. The two of them at pep rallies, Peyton playing midfield, Peyton in her homecoming dress, Ruth in hers on the homecoming court.
    Her finger brushed the edge of something, and she discovered another photo jammed between two school albums.
    Her heart squeezed as she stared at the picture. It was Peyton, her and their mother. Peyton had probably been two and she was an infant. Her mother was smiling as she cradled her in her arms.
    Tawny-Lynn wiped at a tear and placed the photo in her pocket to keep. If her mother had lived, how would their lives been different? Would her father have stayed away from the bottle?
    Satisfied the desk held no clues, she checked the nightstand by the bed. Her sister had kept a diary, but Tawny-Lynn searched for it after Peyton disappeared and never found it. It could have been in her gym bag in the bus and burned in the fire.
    Another lead lost.
    In the drawer beneath an old compact and brush, she found a box of condoms. She opened the box of twelve and noted they were half gone. Peyton had always had boyfriends, but she hadn’t known her sister was sexually active.
    Who had she been sleeping with?
    Hoping to find some clue about the mysterious boyfriend or the missing diary, she rummaged through the closet, searching the shoeboxes on the floor but found nothing but sneakers, sandals, flip-flops and a pair of black dress shoes.
    Deciding it was time to throw out her sister’s clothes—she could donate them to the church along with her father’s belongings—she gathered several garbage bags and began pulling sweaters, shirts and jeans off the shelves and rack and dumping them inside.
    She spotted Peyton’s letter jacket and pulled it off the hanger, but a folded scrap of paper fell from the pocket. She opened the note and read it.

    Dear Peyton,
    Please don’t leave me. I love you, and you said you loved me. Call me tonight.
    Love & Kisses,
    J.J.

    Tawny-Lynn struggled to remember J.J.’s last name. The class yearbooks were in the desk drawer, so she grabbed the latest one and searched the names and photos from the