“Clara is a doll,” the woman said, leaning against the counter. “Everyone around here looks out for her. Terrible what happened to her brother, though. That was years ago, but folks around here still remember.”
I paused, surprised. “Her brother?”
“Yes, Arthur,” she replied softly. “He was older than Clara. Looked after her like a hawk after their parents passed. But he died back when he was just a teenager. Tragic accident at the old lake campsite near the county line. The family was never the same after that.”
The mention of the lake campsite made my stomach drop. When Daniel was fourteen, he had gone on an unchaperoned summer camping trip with a few boys from his youth group near that exact same lake. He had come home early from that trip, pale, withdrawn, and refusing to speak about why the trip ended ahead of schedule. My parents had assumed it was simple homesickness or a teenage disagreement, and over time, the incident was completely forgotten.
Driven by a sudden, chilling suspicion, I drove straight to the town library near the campsite and requested microfilmed archives of local newspapers from twelve years ago. It took hours of scanning through grainy black-and-white pages, but finally, I found the article.
The headline was brief: Teenager Rescued After Near-Drowning at Pine Lake; Local Boy Honored for Bravery…
