Chapter 2: Lakeview Search (underway)

With that, they were off to ask questions to people. They approached a townie in the middle of the main road, a man with a flannel shirt and jeans, a trucker hat and a long black beard. “Agents Watts and Brightman, FBI. We want to question you about something. Do you know him?” Agent Watts asked a local, showing an image of the victim.

“Yeah, I do! He the big city guy! The visitor! Sean Leap! The man that wrote those cool novels and stuff.” The local answered. “Folks told me he was staying in the Lakeview Motel, on the outskirts of town. Can’t miss it.”

“Yes,” said Agent Brightman, “we found his body in the gift shop.”

“Body? Wait… He was killed? How?!” The townie was startled. “The town is peaceful, nothing ever happens here…”

Something clicked inside Agent Watts’ mind, she heard that before, inside that page she found. The questioning continued, many townies were questioned and it led them to hearing the same sentence, like it was some sort of mantra.

“Let’s stop for a moment, get a coffee.” Agent Brightman said to his partner, no one had a clue about anything related to Sean.

Agent Watts didn’t enter the diner, she was looking at the page she found. “Here, double caf coffee for you, Jess.” Agent Brightman offered his partner a cup of coffee, with a classic orange color.

She grabbed the coffee and before taking a sip, she slapped the page lightly with her finger. “I knew that I heard that somewhere. Here.” She read it out for her partner.

“‘Lakeview was unassuming, easy on the eyes. The distant vistas were great, scenic, and made tourism pretty easy. You could see Earth’s curvature as well, making a good place to debunk flat-earth theorists. But one thing is that the town was secretive. Everyone knew everyone and the people they didn’t know were outsiders. That was a common thing, as tourism made its way into town and tourists weren’t exactly nice people to be around in. So they ran an open secret thing, where they claimed the town was always peaceful and calm, almost like a script. ‘The town is peaceful, nothing ever happens here’. This was the line used in the local school, the diner, the sheriff’s office, the motorbike club, the park…

‘Yet, the town had a harder and deeper secret. Deep inside the woods, a cult existed, maybe made by the townies, maybe by forces beyond understanding. The location was considered a place where tourists turned out dead after arriving within a few days. Things like this happened for ages, apparently.’

‘Once the writer picked the destination, he might have weighed in the choice of trying to get out of his block by heading to a place that had plenty of urban legends. Lakeview Mountain was a dangerous place in autumn because of the fog, and the rest of the year, the cult took care of the rest of its issues. It was the perfect set-up to be murdered in. The perfect place to write a killer story. Or a story of a killer.'”

“Well, shit,” Agent Brightman almost whistled. “This guy is legit. Loving the prose.”

“We need to investigate the town, Remy… IF this is real, we might have a couple hundred suspects to clear up…” Agent Watts didn’t seem happy to be back as a field agent, but the whole idea of being led by the victim to find the killer who might have been himself was unique enough to not pass up. “We need some lodging. Might be around for a few days… Against my wishes…” Agent Watts complained. But it was necessary, if they were to get to the bottom of this. Housing themselves where the victim was located was not a good idea. So they went to the town itself for it.