Ares_Was_Here1234
"If you are reading this, then I am most likely already gone..."
"If you don't know what is happening, let me tell you that..."
"...Do not tell..."
"...will be dead if I'm found out."
"I'm counting on you."
"Don't let them find me."
In 1954, thirteen-year-old Shelly Fennel vanished without a trace.
Three weeks later, her body was found floating in Tripp Pond.
The case was closed almost immediately. Authorities claimed local bank cashier Leroy Piper murdered Shelly before taking his own life.
Whitewater accepted the verdict.
His family never did.
Seventy years later, Detective Lucy Piper and historian Jane Molvey uncover a weathered notebook buried beneath the rotting remains of the swing Shelly's father built for her. Its pages contain impossible maps, strange symbols, forgotten names, and a torn letter that suggests Shelly knew she was in danger long before she disappeared.
As they retrace the final weeks of Shelly's life, the official investigation begins to unravel. Witnesses lied. Evidence vanished. Entire pages were ripped from police journals. Deep within the Forest, an abandoned shed waits exactly where Shelly drew it decades earlier.
The deeper they dig, the clearer one truth becomes:
Shelly Fennel was never supposed to be found.
And someone is willing to kill again to keep Whitewater's darkest secret buried.