Full Summary:

Tyler and Jess were inseparable as kids and Jess's little sister Anna was always hanging around them. What happens when Anna disappears one day while the three are out and about? Will she be found? And what really happened?

A Day At The Lake:

January 13, 1990:

We were headed out towards the lake; it was a cold and windy winter day. The lake had been frozen solid since Thanksgiving and even though we knew that we should probably not have been on the lake, Anna had wanted to go ice skating so we had gone out onto the lake. There were kids and adults alike skating on the lake so we knew that we would be safe as long as we stayed where everyone else was. We didn't count on the ice starting to melt or that the mystery surrounding our small lake was really true.

The mystery was said to have started when the lake was made, after the damn was built as a power station. We lived on the outskirts of the damn, right on the lake. It was a small town, only about 400 people in all. And it was a mostly a factory town. Most of the people worked either in the damn or in the factories around the town. The school housed all of the kids from kindergarten through high school so we knew all the teachers we were going to have before the next school year started.

This particular day was a Saturday. We had headed out the door when Anna had yelled saying that she wanted to go ice skating and our parents said to take her with us. But we never minded. Anna and my parents weren't the best kind of parents to stay stuck inside with all day. We tended to always want to get out of that house, no matter what the cost was. Anna was holding onto my hand as we sat down on one of the benches and put our skates on. Anna and I had been in competition ice skating for a few years so we always took whatever time we had on our frozen lake and used it to practice, which always won us ribbons since most of the kids that we competed against didn't live in our home town or near the lake.

As we stepped foot onto the lake and skated to where everyone else was, Anna started skating backwards. For a six-year-old, skating backwards and doing tricks was a big thing. Not only were we the only ones that competed, but we were the only ones that were willing to teach the other kids as well seeing as they thought it was cool. Anna didn't get paid for teaching the other kids but because I was twelve, I did. Tyler normally took the money home with him and kept it safe because the whole town knew that if our parents got ahold of that money, I never would see it again.

Everyone was having fun, we were laughing, I had just skated over to a particularly vacant part of the ice and was about to turn around to go back when I heard the first crack. Anna and Tyler were already headed in my direction but by the time they were close enough for me to yell at them to turn around, the ice split under all three of us and we went crashing into the icy lake below. People screamed. Our first reactions were screams. I made a grab for Anna and was able to keep ahold of her until the both of us were pulled under by something. That's when the mystery of the lake became a reality for the three of us.

Tyler was trying to grab at the both of us but because a few of the adults had braved the ice, they had started to pull him out. He kept yelling for us, our names, saying that we were still under the water. The cops and firefighters were called, rescue parties that would go under the water to rescue the two of us. Anna was pulled from my grasp and as we were dragged deeper, I thought I caught a glimpse of some sort of animal pulling us apart. I screamed under the water for Anna and though she struggled to get back to me, we both knew that it wasn't going to happen. I blacked out from all the water going into my body and I saw no more of Anna.

I was pulled from the frigid waters without a pulse. They got me to shore, where Tyler was huddled in a blanket in the back of one of the ambulances. The searchers were still looking for Anna; they started CPR on me to bring me back to the land of the living. They were still performing CPR when Tyler was pushed to the seat in the side of the ambulance and the gurney I was on was pushed into the back of the ambulance. We were raced to the hospital where we were both then raced into the ER. They got me breathing and my heart beating again right about the time our parents showed up. I had an intubation tube down my throat breathing for me and was wrapped in so many blankets to bring my temperature back to normal that my parents didn't even realize that it was me until they were allowed to see me. Tyler's parents hugged him the moment they saw him.

My parents then turned to the cops and asked about their other daughter Anna and were told that the rescuers were still looking for the little girl. They waited by my bedside for news of my sister and for any change in my condition. The news came that the rescuers had to stop looking for Anna as the only thing they were able to find of her was one of her ice skates, which was found floating at the bottom of the lake. No change in my condition was reported and though they were told to go home, my parents stayed by my side, waiting for me to wake up and get better.

Tyler was allowed to see me as soon as he was released from the hospital and into the care of his parents. My parents only nodded at him, but they could tell that he felt responsible for not being able to grab us before being pulled out by the onlookers. He was unable to visit me except that one day because his parents wouldn't let him leave the house. Reporters seemed to be flocking our small town, trying to get a look at the two survivors of a tragedy everyone wanted to forget about.

After The Accident:

Two weeks later, I was awake and almost back to my normal self. My parents took me home, and though I was recuperating, I could tell that they blamed me for Anna's death. When I was finally recovered to where I could go back to school, it was Tyler I wanted to see first. Though I still was expected to do the things I did before the accident, I gave up competitive skating for good and both Tyler and I refused to go anywhere near the lake since the accident. After I graduated from school, Tyler and I drifted apart as I was sent to live in Toronto with my aunt and away from my parents, who had become increasingly hostile towards blamed me for Anna's death and told me regularly that they had wished Anna had been found and not me, that Anna was the one that was supposed to be alive and I was the one that was supposed to be dead.

Present Day: 2011:

I was sitting in Parade, watching as everyone filed into the room, waiting for Parade to start. I had just graduated from Rookie Academy, top of my class. And to top it all off, I had just turned twenty-one. Nobody cared that I had just turned twenty-one, though some were a little surprised that someone as young as myself would want to be a cop. I still thought about Anna and what would have happened if the three of us had all made it out of the lake alive, though mostly I was more concerned about what my parents thought now.

They had never stopped looking for Anna's body, though nothing was ever found after the accident. I went back home periodically to see Tyler, and though we both talked about our lives, we knew that they had inexplicably been changed that day so long ago. And we both never went onto the lake again. He had become a guard at the damn and seemed to like it. He was happy that I had chosen to become a cop. He said it showed that I was willing to turn my life around after something so horrible could happen to me. And I would tell him that it had happened to the both of us.

I had been assigned to Training Officer Gail Peck who seemed not to want a Rookie to look after. I didn't seem to mind, we got the job done. I wasn't the only one that had been assigned to the 15th for my probationary time after the Academy. Two other rookies had been assigned as well, and though they had made fast friends with the other cops in the 15th, I was still having a hard time. Most of the cops there seemed to think that I was hiding something from them because I never talked about my past. So what if I didn't want them to know what had happened when I was a child. I didn't mean anything at all, it just meant that I was a private person when it came to my past; most people are.

As it turned out, the year I started at the 15th, they had a new type of squad within the division, completely and totally dedicated to solving the Cold Cases from around Toronto, consisting of cops from different divisions as well but based out of the 15th. On my third month at the 15th, they decided to have a look at one particular Cold Case file to see if they could put an end to the mystery surrounding the case. It was Anna's case and I knew that I couldn't say anything for fear of being kicked off of the case and being told that I was a suspect, even though it had happened to me as well.

When they read Anna's name out loud, my head came up from writing in my notepad. Officer Peck and the other Training Officers had noticed as well at my attention to this particular case. The 15th would be heading to the town to try and locate the missing girl's body and try and solve the case. They were asked to pack a couple bags since they would be staying at the local hotel and working closely with the town's Detectives. I had to look away because I knew that if I went back, people would start to put the pieces together.

The only reason they didn't boot me from the case the second they read Anna's full name (first and last) was because I had taken my aunt's name because I didn't want anything to do with my parents. My aunt had basically raised me from high school on up and she was the one I looked to for support, not my own biological parents. I knew that I would have to tell her as well as call Tyler and let him know what was going on, but those conversations would have to be done in private, away from everyone else.

Would I be able to face my past without alerting those I worked with what was really going on? And how will my parents react to hearing that Anna's case has been reopened?