For now, though, she had to meet Tyler, at least one last time and tell him—
She heard voices. Whispers.
Crap! She couldn’t be seen. Not by anyone.
From the sound of their voices, they were getting nearer. Monica caught sight of the thin beam of a flashlight. Oh, shit!
She slipped off the path, stepped on a twig that snapped loudly, then bolted to the far side of a fir tree, where she pressed her back against the rough bole and silently prayed she wouldn’t be discovered.
“What was that?” a voice that she recognized as belonging to Reva Mercado whispered.
Monica’s heart sank. Reva Mercado was tough and smart and blessed with a mercurial temper that Monica had witnessed more than once. Monica didn’t trust her, and she sure as hell didn’t like her. The flashlight beam quit bobbing, remaining steady. Footsteps halted. The thin stream of illumination swept the surrounding area as whoever was holding it attempted to find the source of the noise.
Monica tried to meld into the rough bark of the tree, to disappear. She couldn’t risk the chance of them finding her when she intended to leave them all stranded. Her mind raced. What would she say if they found her hiding in the woods? That she had to pee? Or that she’d heard them coming, seen their flashlight, and hidden because she’d thought maybe Reverend Dalton or one of his sons was on patrol?
“What?” The voice that answered belonged to Jo-Beth Chancellor.
Great. Just fucking great. Jo-Beth was a piece of work, a willowy redhead who planned to attend some fancy Ivy League school in the fall. She came from money and smelled of it; the only reason she’d agreed to be a counselor here at Camp Horseshoe was because she was in love with Tyler Quade, who’d come for the adventure of it all, to get away from his smothering parents, to taste a little freedom before he headed to Colorado State. Of course he hadn’t anticipated running into the iron-fisted rule of Reverend Dalton.
Monica swallowed hard when she thought of Jo-Beth and what Monica had done behind her back.
Reva said, “Didn’t you hear it?”
“Hear what?”
“I don’t know. Like a cracking sound. Someone stepping on a branch, maybe?” Reva said nervously. “I think someone is out here.”
Oh, God, no. No, no, no.
“We’re all out here,” Jo-Beth reminded her. “Because of Elle. Remember?”
“I know, but—”
“For Elle. That’s the reason we’re meeting the others,” she said in an undertone that was nearly a threat, as if Reva might not have their mission clear in her head, which was odd because, if nothing else, Reva was a schemer, knew how to cover her ass.
Not so ethereal, head-in-the-clouds Elle Brady, the missing camp counselor who had been in charge of cabin 5. No one knew what had happened to her, or so they said, but everyone had a reason to lie about it. If she wasn’t found soon . . .
“Don’t remind me. Elle’s a whackjob.” Dark-eyed Reva, with her sly smile and wide eyes, had never been one to keep her opinions to herself. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she jumped off Suicide Ledge in some kind of sick romantic gesture.”
“Oh, God, why would she do that?”
“Because Lucas dumped her. For that bitch Bernadette.” Reva seemed sure of her theory and, in truth, it sounded good. One the police might buy. Lucas was the first-born son of Reverend Dalton and the handyman of the camp. “Elle’s unstable. Everyone knows it. She should never have even been considered to be a counselor.”
That much was true. And Bernadette, one of the two Alsace sisters who were counselors at Camp Horseshoe, was a whole lot saner than Elle ever thought of being.
Jo-Beth didn’t answer for a second and Monica could almost hear the gears whirling in the brainiac’s mind. “That sounds good,” she said.
“Good? What are you talking about? What do you mean?”
“The story about her flinging herself off the ledge into the sea. We can run with it.”
“In what way?” Reva asked suspiciously.
“Oh, come on. You know. We need a story, right? So that the cops won’t think we had anything to do with it.”
“I know, but—”
“All of us need one. Even you,” Jo-Beth snapped. “The cops are coming to investigate tomorrow.”
“Shit.”
“So we all need to get our stories straight. And I mean everyone who’s meeting us at the grotto, okay? They’re coming, right?”
“Right. Jayla said she’d be there for sure.”
Jayla Williams was the African-American counselor who hailed from Portland. She was supposed to have a boyfriend up there, practically engaged, apparently, but she’d obviously had a wandering eye. Monica had seen her looking over some of the male counselors and some of the workers, too.
“The klepto?”
“Yeah,” Reva said.
If rumors were true, Jayla had a bad case of sticky fingers.
“And Sosi? She’s not gonna bail, right?”
“She said she’d be there and I made her swear to it,” Reva assured Jo-Beth.
Sosi Gavin, the pixie-like religious gymnast, had her hopes pinned on a scholarship.
“And the sisters?”
Reva snorted. “Bernadette and Annette both said they’d be there. But Nell’s supposed to be staying back at the camp. She doesn’t know about our plans.”
“I don’t care about her. Just the others.”
“I worry about the sisters,” Reva admitted. “Bernadette’s . . . I don’t know. Too much of a goody-goody, and her sister’s weird, always listening in at conversations, though she pretends not to. Kind of gives me the creeps.”
“Doesn’t matter. We just need everyone on board!”
“Including Monica?” Reva asked with a sneer in her voice.
“Riigghht.” Jo-Beth let the word linger in the air over a long pause as Monica’s heartbeat soared into triple-time. “None of us are innocent now, are we?”
“But if we can help the police find Elle—”
“The police with their manpower and computers and everything. They don’t need help, trust me.” Jo-Beth’s voice was withering.
“But if we withhold evidence—”
“We’re not! Did I say that? Did I so much as suggest that we try to cover up something or . . . or whatever? No. What I said is we just propose a theory, tell everyone how sad she was, like morose, and maybe she didn’t want to go on living. And that’s the truth, isn’t it?”
Reva was silent. Only the sigh of the wind and the distant roar of the sea and the pounding of Monica’s frantic heart disturbing the quietude of the forest.
“Isn’t it?” Jo-Beth repeated as a breeze rustled through the branches overhead. God, she could be such a pushy bitch.
“I guess.”
“You know!”
Monica imagined Jo-Beth pointing a long finger at the shorter girl’s chest.
“Right?” Jo-Beth said.
“Okay. Fine. Right.” Reva could hold her own. Even against Jo-Beth at her most aggressive. Reva had grown up in East LA, had only moved to Oregon to the small town of Woodburn a couple of years earlier. Wily and street-smart, Reva was beautiful, bold, and didn’t back down easily.
“Good.” Jo-Beth sounded satisfied. “Now. Where’s the knife?” A pause.
The knife? What was she talking about?
“I forgot it.”
“You what?”
“I’m sorry. I stashed it beneath a rock. I’ll go get it. It’s not far from here.”
“Fuck!” Jo-Beth exploded.
“I said I’d get it. Hold on to your damned horses. It’s just . . . wait, okay?”
“We don’t have much time!”
And then there were footsteps. Reva was running away to go and get a knife? Why the hell? Monica held her breath, wished she could just sneak away. But she couldn’t risk it. Not with Jo-Beth out there. The wind crept through the branches overhead, rustling the leaves, and she waited, feeling time slip a
way, wondering if Tyler would wait for her or give up.
“Come on, come on,” Jo-Beth muttered under her breath, and for once Monica agreed with the bitch. God, she hated her.
She checked her watch. Reva had been gone for at least ten minutes, and Monica was actually considering trying to slip past Jo-Beth, who was blocking the path, risk taking off through the trees, but without a flashlight . . .
No, for now, she had to wait.
* * *
Jo-Beth was seething. Burning. Wanting to spit. To scream. But she didn’t. Instead, she waited for Reva at the split in the trail near the old chapel. Jesus, where was she? If she didn’t show up soon, this would all be a huge waste. How could she have forgotten the damned knife?
For this plan to come off without a hitch, the knife was critical. Reva knew that and she’d failed. Shit!
“Come on, come on,” she said, antsy as hell, her nerves strung tight as bowstrings as she waited in the dark. Ears straining, she considered lighting a cigarette but couldn’t risk it. She had so much to do and so little time.
And then there was talk of an escaped prisoner? A murderer, no less? Isn’t that what Doctor Dalton or Reverend Dalton, or whatever you wanted to call the director of this camp, had said? He hadn’t issued a warning, had intended to soothe any of the campers’ or counselors’ jittery nerves, but for Jo-Beth at least, his confirmation of the rumor that had been spreading like a wildfire stoked with gasoline had produced the opposite reaction. Now, she was more stressed than ever, paranoid even. But that was probably because of her own sick situation with her cheating boyfriend.
“Ridiculous,” she muttered quietly between clenched teeth.
She didn’t know who to be more pissed at, Tyler or Monica, but she decided to go with Monica because the girl was such a conniving, fake bitch. But who would have guessed that she would have crossed the line and flirted, then kissed, then made out with, then fucked Tyler? No, it was all Monica’s fault. Guys were just so stupid and horny they never thought straight, so . . . she deserved everything she was going to get.
But was she really pregnant?
Tyler, that dick, had come to Jo-Beth two days earlier, before that head case Elle had disappeared. He’d pulled her aside after the flag ceremony and the final benediction of the evening, when the stars were just beginning to show and a fuchsia glow had glimmered through the trees, the remains of a brilliant sunset over the Pacific. She’d thrilled at the touch of his hand, and when he’d pulled her behind a hedge of salal and other brush, she’d actually thought he was coming to apologize, to tell her he’d made a big mistake, that he loved her and only her, and that Monica was just a slut who had turned his head, but that he was back.
Not so.
He’d been sweating and nervous and running his hands through his hair and, damn it, near tears.
“What?” she’d demanded.
Blinking hard, he’d rasped, “She’s knocked up.”
The knell of doom. And it echoed in her heart. “What?” she’d whispered, pretending not to comprehend as her insides turned to ice. “Who?” But before he could answer, she knew; oh, dear God in heaven, she knew. The panicked look in his eyes was more than enough to convince her, and she saw remorse on his shadowed features, but more than that he was scared to death. She’d forced out the words, “Oh, God, Tyler, what have you done?”
Sniffing and sniveling, he’d wiped his nose with the back of his hand and glanced away for a second, toward the fading sunlight. The muscles in his face worked as he tried to speak. “I . . . Jesus . . . I, oh shit, you know what I did. I mean, it was stupid and dumb and . . . oh, I am so fucked.” He’d dropped into a squatting position and held his hands over his head as if he thought his brain might explode. “So fucked.” With an obvious effort, he’d looked up at her, tilting his face toward the darkening sky, his big eyes shining with tears, and squeaked out, “What the fuck am I supposed to do?”
Like she should know. But then, hadn’t it always been that way? He’d fuck up and she’d clean up? They’d been together, dating exclusively, at least on her part, since homecoming of their sophomore year and she’d always fixed things. For herself. For him. For both of them. He was, after all, the catch of the class: tall, athletic, handsome as well, and came from some money.
“This is your baby,” she’d spat out. “You goddamn fix it.”
“Jo, please. Help me.”
The muscles in her back had tightened. “Your baby. Your problem. Take care of it!”
“I can’t! Not without you.”
She’d tried to walk away, to find a place to hide and bawl her eyes out, but he’d gotten to his feet, caught her wrist, and stood, drawing her to him. “You have to help me, Jo. It’s you and me. It’s always been you and me. You know that.” In the moonlight he looked so sincere, tears causing his eyes to shimmer. “And . . . and I know I mess up. Shit, all the time. I’m so, so sorry. But it’s always been us, babe.” He’d brushed her hair away from her face, so damned tenderly that her heart had nearly broken. Except that it was already in pieces, shattered at the magnitude of his betrayal.
“Then how the hell did she get pregnant? Huh? If it’s ‘you and me,’ why is another girl having your baby?”
“Jo—”
Smack! She’d slapped him then, so hard that her hand stung and his fists balled reflectively. “It’s over, Ty. Fix your own damned problem. A baby? You’re going to be a father? To her kid?” She stared at him with wide eyes and felt tears of shame and pure fury pool in her eyes. “You’re on your own this time. Good luck, Daddy! You’re gonna need it with that one!” She’d meant to leave, but he still held on to her wrist. His grip had been hot and like steel clamped over her arm.
“I love you,” he’d whispered rawly. He’d sounded tortured, as if in physical pain.
“Then why?”
“I don’t know. Jo, please . . .” Letting go of her wrist, he’d wrapped his arms around her. “Believe me. I love you. Just you.”
“You prick!” Furious, she’d started hitting him then, her hands curled into fists as she pummeled his chest, wildly, her anger and embarrassment exploding. “You dumbass prick! What’s wrong with you? Why did you have to fuck her? To get her pregnant? I hate you, you fucker. I hate you.” She pounded away, intent on killing him, but as he held her, not flinching, taking blow after blow as if it were some kind of penance, she couldn’t keep up the fight and collapsed against him.
“Are . . . are you sure it’s yours?”
A beat. If possible, she’d crumbled even more inside. Then he’d said, “I . . . I don’t know.”
“You don’t?”
“She told me it was mine, but . . . I don’t know.” He’d seemed excited, as if the cretin had never considered the possibility that someone else could have slept with the bitch and gotten her pregnant. “She does . . . she does hang out with David and Ryan, and she told me she thought Ryan was hot.”
The Tremaine brothers. Sister Naomi’s boys, stepsons of Dr. Dalton.
“Do . . . do you even know she’s pregnant, for sure?”
Another beat. “Nooo . . .” His breath whispered across her crown and his arms tightened around her. “But why would she say it if . . .”
Could he really be so dumb? “It happens all the time. A girl says she’s pregnant, marries the guy, and then oops, no baby.”
“What? Like in a miscarriage?”
“Like in a lie, you idiot!” She’d whispered so harshly that some creature, a bird or rabbit or squirrel or who-knew-what, rustled quickly away through the undergrowth.
“You know, maybe she did lie, set me up.” There was a change in his voice, an excitement, new hope. “I wouldn’t put it past her.”
Me neither, Jo Beth had thought, but that wasn’t exactly the point. The true problem was Tyler had cheated on her.
To think that Tyler would step out on her? Jo-Beth Chancellor? She knew she was beautiful, hadn’t she been asked to model? You don’t get to do
that unless you’re slim, and beyond attractive, and she had a 4.0 plus GPA, was destined to go to Yale, and . . . and she was a goddamned genius. Make that a gorgeous, rich, sexy as hell genius, and Monica O’Neal was what? Little more than trailer trash. Oh, okay, she was kind of pretty in a slutty kind of way with big lips and big boobs, the way guys liked, but she was a nothing. A zero. Lower than a zero.
And now, the slut thought she was pregnant. Fury had burned through Jo-Beth and she’d wanted to hit, to kick, to scream at the injustice of it all. “Pull yourself together,” she’d said as she’d stepped away from him and had started thinking clearly again, trying to come up with a solution to the problem. His. Not hers. And yet to let that cheap, sleazy whore fuck with Tyler’s life, with Jo-Beth’s life? An idiot skank who was so stupid she couldn’t bother to get herself on the damned pill? No, that wouldn’t do. Monica needed to be taught a lesson, or at least have the crap scared out of her but good.
“Look, baby, I’ll come up with something. We’ll handle it.”
“You’ll help?”
“Don’t I always?”
Deep in her heart she knew she was a fool where he was concerned, but at that time it hadn’t mattered; she just wanted to get even. Jo-Beth had never backed down from a fight and she certainly wasn’t going to start now. Already a plan was forming deep in her vengeful soul. What she’d like to do, what she’d told Reva, was to wrap her fingers around that horrid bitch’s throat and squeeze until Monica’s eyes popped out of her pathetic little skull, but she couldn’t. Smart as she was, incensed as she was, betrayed as she was, Jo-Beth Chancellor was into self-preservation. Already she had her mind set on law school, and no dirty little whore was going to stop her. She couldn’t murder the bitch, much as she’d like to. She’d end up in jail. So, she’d figured she had to come up with something that wouldn’t kill Monica, just scare the bejesus out of her. That was all.