Death Lake

By Paul Nadeau

A small central Texas town is baffled by a bizarre series of missing children. Some are found dead while others are still missing. Each disappearance has a weird circumstance that ties all of the missing kids into a common plot. As police unravel the mystery, the more bizarre the story gets. Each chilling twist leads to the next completely un-predictable story line. You won't be able to put the book down once you start reading it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Nadeau
• Release date: Aug 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311780805

Paul Nadeau

Paul Nadeau is the author of the mystery novel “Death Lake”. Paul was born on December 18, 1970 in Lewiston, Maine. He grew up the last of six children in the Texas Hill country attending catholic schools from kindergarten through high school. Paul entered the US Navy at the age of 17 and is a desert storm veteran. After an honorable discharge from the US Navy in 1988, he graduated the San Antonio College Police academy where he worked as a deputy sheriff before going back in the US Navy in 1995 through 1999. He served in Sasebo, Japan while in his second four years. He retired from Law Enforcement with twenty-one years in 2014. Paul’s last tour was on the Task Force for the Drug Enforcement Administration as a Task Force Officer at the resident office in Austin Texas. He has also worked as a telecommunications systems engineer for over 20 years. Paul is also a licensed instrument rated private pilot. He is married and has four children.

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DEATH LAKE

Copyright © 2015 Paul Nadeau

License

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to one of the authorized online resellers or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidence are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, whether electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission from the publisher.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

About Paul Nadeau

Connect with Paul Nadeau

Chapter One

This evening on KVUE news at 5, another teen disappears while swimming at Lake Georgetown today. Leann Brothers is on scene to report more on this situation. Leann.

Thanks Dave. Today another sixteen year old boy was swimming in the lake here in Lake Georgetown around 4pm, when he just disappeared. Friends of the missing teen tell us that he jumped into the lake from a piece of wood that was half in the lake and half out of the lake. He came to the surface and started swimming toward shore when he just went under water and has not been seen since. Fire rescue as well as Georgetown Police continue to look for the teen. This will be the 12th missing teen in Lake Georgetown this summer. Last year there were seven teens that went missing from the lake. This is what fire battalion chief Rick Evers had to say about the situation.

Rescue crews are doing everything we can do to find the missing teen. Parks and Wildlife officers are working with the rescue crews using Doppler radar and underwater cameras to try to find the teen. Keep in mind the lake is normally pretty murky so it isn’t like we can just look into the lake and see anything. You can’t see more than a few feet in front of you at any given time.

Back to you Dave.

Thanks Leann; on to the other top stories.

Georgetown 1435 a call could be heard over the police radio.

1435 go ahead.

1435 Lake Georgetown for a possible drowning. Fire Rescue and patrol is on scene now and is requesting CID.

10-04 I’ll be enroute. Log me code.

Detective Lee Richards is a missing person’s detective with the Georgetown Police department. Georgetown, Texas is a mid-size town in the central Texas area just north of Austin. It has about fifty-thousand people and is a landing place for mainly mid-income families who work in Austin.

As Lee starts towards the lake from downtown Georgetown with the sound of his siren going, he started thinking of possibilities of what could have happened. His older model silver Crown Victoria with dark window tint made it slowly through traffic as he was making his way to the scene. His red and blue flashing lights reflected down onto the windshield. Could someone have taken the kid? Maybe an undercurrent caught the kid and he couldn’t swim that well. Maybe they will find him before I get there and everything will be ok. After all the water levels are down in the lake because of the drought. Maybe the kid got caught in some underwater brush and couldn’t make it to the surface? Who knows he thinks. I will find out when I get there. He turns off of the main road and shuts his siren off. He passes cars that are all parked along the long roadway leading up to the park. The cars pulled onto the shoulder and off on the grass as people left their cars there as they went swimming in the lake. As he pulls into the overlook park area he passes a Georgetown marked patrol vehicle with the red and blue lights on. The sun is in the far west blinding him as he pulls into the circle.

Lee good to see you again brother Rick says to Lee as he gets out of his patrol car. His tall slender body with freshly pressed Wrangler jeans, cowboy boots, button down short sleeve shirt and cowboy hat. Lee gets his portable radio and presses the button 1435 is 10-23. 10-04 dispatch returns. Lee looks around and sees the five fire trucks and an ambulance with the lights on scattered around the overlook park area. Numerous firefighters in their dark blue shirts are walking around the area as they are getting equipment off of the fire truck and walking it down toward the water. Down on the water he sees divers from the Williamson county Sheriff’s office going into the water with the diver flags set out a little ways from the landing. A soft sided, dark colored, small boat is a couple hundred yards off of the boat slip in the water. As he looks over the top of the lake he can hear the far away sound of a helicopter and sees the bright yellow helicopter of STAT AIR flying around the lake slowly. He could feel the hot breeze blowing on his face as he stood there looking around.

So Rick what the hell now? Another kid gone? Lee says as he looks around.

Yep looks like it. I talked to the Mom. She is really shook up. The best I can make out of it the kid jumped into the water off that log over there. The Mom says the kid can swim pretty well. He went under when he jumped in and came up. He wiped his face off while he was treading water for a few second then started swimming towards the shore right there. That is when he just went under. The Mom thought he was just kidding around until a few seconds went by and he didn’t come back up. He didn’t scream or act like anything was unusual at all.

Ok where is the Mom now? Lee asked.

Rick looked around for a second and pointed and said Right there.

Ok I’ll go down there and talk to her.

As Lee walked down toward the Mom he could hear the loud engines coming from the fire trucks with the firefighters yelling at each other to check different spots around the lake. Their voices blended in with the engine noise. The fire radios were busy with traffic as fire units around the lake were talking to each other on the radio. He walked across the uneven hard dirt with dead grass as he walked. The lake is a rather large lake actually. About a mile across and some areas around sixty foot deep from what he had heard. When he made it to the Mom he said

Hello Ma’am. I am Detective Richards with the Georgetown Police Department. I will be investigating this incident as he showed her his badge and credentials.

Detective? Why would you be coming down here? My son was swimming and we can’t find him. Do we really need a detective? We need more people looking for him not walking around asking questions the Mom stated with a tremble in her voice.

I know it is hard for you to understand right now, but we need to make sure we cover every base we can to see what happened to your son Lee said as he was getting a small spiral notebook out of his shirt pocket in a matter of fact voice. His tall slender body and cowboy hat towered over the middle aged Hispanic woman sitting on the ground.

We just came here to have a good time the Mom said as she sat on the ground. Why in the hell would something like this happen to us? What have we done?

I don’t think it is anything that you have done Ma’am. I think it is just something that has happened Lee said as he stood there adjusting his cowboy hat looking around at the fire crews still moving around looking for the teen. What is your son’s name Ma’am?

Ricky. Ricky Jimenez. He is such a good kid too. The Mom said as she started to cry. Lee crouched down and looked at the Mom and asked

What is Ricky’s date of birth?

January 14, 1997 the Mom answered.

What was he wearing when you last saw him?

He had a blue and black bathing suit on. He didn’t have a shirt on. the Mom said as she stared at the ground.

What is your address Ma’am?

We rent a house over here in Georgetown Village. We have only been here for about a year now. I got divorced from Ricky’s father and we moved here to a house.

The Mom started explaining what had happened as her eyes filled with tears. Her voice was getting so broken that he could hardly make out the words any longer. Her story matched exactly what Rick had told him at the top of the hill. Lee thought of his two daughters at home and started to feel like a parent with something to be very grateful for. He had to stay firm and collected as this was his job. The human factor of kids disappearing was mind wrenching even for a seasoned police detective.

We will look for him and we will find him. I will let you know when we do as Lee put the notebook back into his pocket standing up. We will find him. Lee started to walk off as he thought to himself what the hell could have happened to him? This doesn’t make any sense at all. Lee walked across the dead short grass toward Rick.

Hey Rick are there any under currents that you guys are aware of here in the lake?

Rick answered with a serious look on his face Not if the gate to the dam is not opened there isn’t.

Gate to the dam?

Yeah there is a gate over there that lets water out of the lake in case it starts to overflow as Rick pointed toward the dam. It regulates the water in the lake Rick explained.

Has that gate been opened lately?

Hell no we are in a drought. That gate hasn’t been opened in a few years Rick said.

So as a twenty year veteran fire chief what do you think happened? Lee asked.

You will think I am nuts if I tell you what I think happened Rick said with a smirk on his face.

Try me Lee said with a smile.

"I think there is something in this lake that isn’t