I decided to level with her…a little. "Well, you don't have to worry because he's dead now. So you can come out of hiding and join us if you want."
She didn't react to what I'd said about Chad. Instead, she shook her head. "I'm fine here."
So, maybe this wasn't about Chad and it was about Hilly. I looked around the tent. She had a sleeping bag and a backpack. She looked like she hadn't eaten much. The plan was that Maria would join us and share in our food. Of course, we weren't going to have much left after dinner. I'd packed for eight, not fifteen.
"You have to eat," I insisted.
"I'm fine." She waved me off. "I've got protein bars."
This was getting me nowhere. "If Hilly isn't the problem, why won't you come join us?"
Maria said nothing. We sat in silence for a moment.
Finally, I offered, "I can bring you some food, at least. But you're going to have to tell me what's up."
Maria looked nervously at the tent flap where I'd come in but didn't say anything.
I tried again. "Why did you want to meet me here?"
"Oh. That." She started picking at a loose thread on her sleeping bag. "I'm working on something. I need you and Riley to hack into the CIA and delete my files. Erase any history of my existence."
My jaw dropped. "You're joking." From the look in her eye I could see she wasn't. "You could've emailed or texted me that! Why all the subterfuge?"
She looked at me hopefully. "So you can do it?"
I threw my arms in the air. "Hell no, I can't do it! My only connection there is Ahmed, and he's an idiot! Seriously, he was once imprisoned by the dominatrices who work in HR for something I'd asked him for. There's no way he'd even think of helping me again!"
"Riley might have connections." She sounded a little defensive.
"I don't know about that. I mean, I can ask him. But I don't know if he has that capability."
There may have been the slightest chance Riley could pull some of that off. I wasn't sure. But I wasn't going to tell her that. She had to know she was asking for the impossible. I'd never even heard of that happening in the history of the agency. I mean, people tried to get their past records altered but never wiped out.
Maria stood up and began to pace.
I stood up. "You came all the way out here to ask me that?"
"Of course," she said as she bit her lip—which was a total giveaway.
"You want me to do something that epic…a literal Mission Impossible, and you're not going to tell me what this thing is you're working on?"
She just shook her head.
I tried something else. "Tell me about Chad."
"Chad?" Maria stopped pacing and stared at me.
From my pocket I pulled the driver's license Riley had shown me. "Frederick Salt, I mean. He'd told us his name was Chad, and we've been calling him that because, you know, saying Chad who is really Frederick is very annoying."
She sat back down on her bunk. "I don't know if I should tell you anything. You know…plausible deniability?"
Now we were getting somewhere. She'd just admitted that she knew something about him. "Well, now you have to tell me. You can't leave me hanging like that!"
Maria waved her hands in front of her. "It's nothing. Trust me."
I tried to sound soothing. "Maria, you came all the way out here for a reason. Now you're starving in this tent for a reason. I need to know what that is."
There was a muffled sound outside the tent. I put my finger to my lips and stepped out the door facing the campfire ring.
"Hey Merry." Hilly waved and then walked over. She looked at the tent. "Exploring?"
"Yes." I nodded. "I was wondering if we shouldn't move into the campground closest to the lake since the girls loved it and all."
"We're staying another night?" Hilly's eyebrows went up.
"I was thinking of doing a campfire on the edge of the lake," I lied. "I've always wanted to do that."
Hilly punched the air with her fist. "And then we can catch Old Eisenhower!"
It was kind of adorable that she'd fixated on the old reptile—even if she just wanted to use him to pluck the guinea fowl. "Hilly, you can't be serious. He must weight two hundred pounds."
"Three hundred twenty five," she corrected me. "I sized him up."
"First of all"—I spoke a little louder to give Maria cover if she wanted to slip out the back—"you can't steal a turtle from a nature preserve. It's probably a federal offense."
Hilly shrugged. I guess if you once scared two suicide bombers into wanting to live in order to escape you, something like that wouldn't stop you. By the way, that happened to her in Syria. They both became Jesuit Catholic priests immediately after, which was strange since they were Yemeni.
I continued, "And then it's ethically wrong. Old Eisenhower has lived here for decades. This is his home."
"Yeah, but I'd really like him," Hilly explained as if that was a good reason. "He can stay in my apartment."
"And what's he supposed to do when you're out of town for work? I doubt you can find a giant snapping turtle walker in your neighborhood." Seriously, she needed to let this go.
For the first time since I'd known her, I saw doubt in Hilly's eyes. Was I getting through? There was no way I was putting Old Eisenhower in my minivan with Riley and six girls for the trip back. And I couldn't turtle sit either. He might be huge and dangerous, but the fat feline führer at my house would have him intimidated and cowering in a corner in about five minutes, and that was all I needed.
I went on, "And then there's the fact that we can't just carry a three hundred…"
"And twenty-five," she corrected.
"…pound turtle out of here. It's logistically impossible. Not to mention the fact that he's a dangerous animal."
"Okay." She shrugged. "Still, I'm gonna go visit him." She started back toward the trail. Just before she disappeared, she shouted, "Say hi to Maria for me!"
"I thought you didn't know her!" I shouted back before realizing I'd just let the cat out of the bag.
Hilly didn't respond as she disappeared into the trees.
"Maria…" I opened the door and stepped into the tent.
Maria, and all of her gear, were gone.
Great.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I finally had Maria spilling the beans, and she was gone again. Had she run off when Hilly first appeared? Or was it Hilly's shout out that sent her scrambling? Maybe she was afraid she was going to be fed to a three hundred twenty-five pound turtle. In any event, it was fairly obvious that Maria didn't want to talk to Hilly.
Back at camp I pulled Riley aside and filled him in. He seemed horrified the minute I told him what she wanted us to do.
"She wanted me to do what? I can't do that! I'm pretty sure no one can. And you can't ask Ahmed to do it because Debs would eat him for lunch."
"Debs?" I asked.
"The head of HR," he answered.
"You're on a first name basis with a dominatrix?" I narrowed my eyes. "Did you sleep with her?"
Riley gave me the tiniest of smug smiles. "Don't knock it until you've tried it."
I pictured Riley tied up, being whipped by the woman. I gagged a little. "Why don't you ask Debs to help you?"
He waved his hands in front of him. "Oh no. That woman is tough. She'd kill me. Painfully. She really seems to like causing pain."
I looked up at the sky for a moment. "Why do you think Maria wants us to do that?"
He shrugged. "It's not that weird an idea. If she wants to get her life back, being erased from the CIA's memory would be a good, if impossible, start."
That was a good point. "She hid from Hilly," I explained. "And didn't want to talk about Chad. She said she's working on something."
"That could be anything, or it could be a lie," Riley reasoned. "Maybe she's just trying to live her life."
"Then why all the subterfuge?" I asked.
Hilly stepped off the trail at that moment, heading toward u
s with a huge smile on her face. She was walking very slowly, which was odd for the hyperactive spy.
"Something's up," I said.
"Now, don't get mad," she cautioned.
And then I saw it. Old Eisenhower stepped forward. He'd been following her.
"What are you doing?" I backed up, shoving Riley in front of me. "I told you that you couldn't…"
She held up her hands to stop me. "I didn't. We just had a conversation, and he decided to follow me back here."
The old turtle stopped in his tracks and lifted his head. I could swear he was looking right at me.
"And," she continued, "he wanted to talk to the cicadas."
A shriek came from behind us as the girls raced over and swarmed him. They stayed a safe distance away as they gushed over the giant beast.
Hilly walked over and crouched down. Old Eisenhower stretched his head toward her as she reached her hand out to him.
"Hilly!" I shouted. What was she doing? That was her shooting hand! What if she lost her trigger finger? The CIA would probably hold me responsible. Then I really would get fed to the turtle.
Her fingers connected with the top of his head, and he closed his eyes as she stroked his head and the back of his neck. What was happening here?
I heard a gasp and turned to see Betty Sr., Laura, and Esme staring at Hilly and the snapper. Hey, that sounds like a good band name. Hilly and the Snapper. Actually, it kind of sounded like what she really did for a living, so maybe it was a bad idea. I stopped designing the T-shirts in my head.
"He's never left the lake before." Esme's voice was tremulous. "What if he starts coming here all the time now?"
"I wonder if he likes potatoes," Betty Sr. mumbled.
The girls waited, watching. Lauren seemed to be the most curious, most likely due to her junior zookeeper status.
"Why is he here?" I asked.
Hilly looked at me as if I was crazy. "I invited him to dinner, of course."
Of course. Because when encountering a giant, dangerous animal in the wild, that's just what you do…at least, in Hilly's world.
The girls couldn't hold back anymore, and they carefully stepped forward and began petting the old turtle's head and neck. He closed his eyes and stretched out his neck even more, which I guess meant that he liked it.
"He's still a wild animal, guys," I warned.
"He's soooo cuuuuute!" the two Kaitlyns said.
And that was that. For the next hour Old Eisenhower explored the camp with six little girls following him. The old reptile seemed to like the attention. Riley and I didn't approach him. I know better than that. Okay, so I own a poison golden dart frog, but he's not poisonous anymore.
"Did you find anything out?" I asked Riley.
"I talked to Esme and the Sharons," he said quietly. "They all told the same story about coming from that town and being here for fifty plus years. And they all seemed genuinely clueless as to Chad and who he was. By the way, they believe the commies killed him, which explains why they weren't freaked out."
"What about Ada, Betty Sr., and Laura?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Esme and the Sharons kept me busy asking what life is like on the outside. I think they want to come back with us." He gave me a long look. "Have you considered that? What would you do with them back in civilization?"
"Well, I told them they could stay in my house. How about if I hire you to track down their families?"
He nodded. "I'd do it pro bono. No charge."
I wanted to hug him, but I rarely did that ever since he turned up in Who's There with an interest in getting back with me. We had some rocky moments, but in the end, we settled on friendship. He and my husband get along just fine, and my best friend works for him.
"Thank you," I said. "I'm going to go talk to Laura. You take Ada. Then I'll do Betty Sr."
"Do you want me to see if Old Eisenhower knows something?" He nodded his head in the direction of the turtle, who was now covered in pink bows. He didn't seem to mind.
"I think he'd bite you if you intervened," I said.
My target, Laura, was in the kitchen, it turned out. So I asked if there was anything else I could do for dinner and was told to peel potatoes. Apparently, they were the side dish for dinner.
"We had a very good potato crop this year," the woman explained.
"I guess so." I began peeling the tubers and putting them in the sink that didn't have running water. "Have you given any thought to coming with us tomorrow?"
Laura put down the pot she was carrying. "I have, actually. But I don't know. Things seem safer here." She looked in the direction of the freezer, which I noticed had been covered in a tarp and tied shut with some kind of vine.
"I still can't believe Chad is dead…possibly murdered." I turned back to the potatoes.
Laura's voice seemed tight. "Well, I'm sure he got what he deserved."
"What do you mean?" I looked up.
She shrugged. "I don't mean anything. I suppose I'm just making an assumption."
I pointed at her with the peeler. "Who do you think killed him?"
"Maybe he killed himself." She picked up the pot again.
"Do you really think that?" I pictured the man, sitting in a chair, poisoning himself.
"Not really." She headed for the door. "I should go fill this with water."
"I'll come with you," I offered.
I followed her to a stream I didn't even know existed, out behind the lodge.
"It comes from underground," she explained as she took a cup and scooped the water into the pot. "But we still boil it. Safety first."
I decided to stray from the who murdered Chad thing. "You and the other ladies were friends when you came here, right?"
Laura dumped another cupful into the pot. "Oh, I guess so. Maybe we're still friends now."
That was interesting. "Maybe?"
Laura stopped filling the pot and looked at me. "People grow apart sometimes."
"How can you grow apart in a place like this, with only each other for five decades?" I wondered.
She put down the cup and set the pot on the bank. "Everyone has little things that annoy people. For example, you think it's tough being around two women named Sharon who look alike and finish each other's sentences? Try doing that for such a long time. And Ada is always bossing us around because she thinks she's in charge."
I thought about my four Kaitlyns and how it wasn't annoying when they said the same things at the same time. It was creepy but not really annoying. And then there was Ava who, like Ada, was bossy. Would I survive being stuck with them in the woods for fifty years?
"Why didn't you just go back?"
"Oh, we thought about it," Laura said. "There were times when we fought so hard I thought we'd all go home. But we didn't. It just seemed easier to stay, I guess."
"Easier?" My jaw dropped. "You have no electricity or running water. The world has changed significantly. Technology has made more leaps and bounds in fifty years than it has in all of our history before that."
"It does sound nice. But overwhelming." She smiled. "Here, we have nature for our front and back porch. Sure it gets tough to live here in the winter, but we've managed to make it work."
"I have to ask you something." I decided to cut to the chase in hopes of throwing her off guard. "One of the girls heard you muttering about killing Chad."
There was a flash in her eyes that I couldn't translate.
"Oh, I didn't like the men being here. We've always waited for the commies or, worse, Boy Scouts to show up. I'm sure I didn't mean it."
I've interrogated people as a profession. I know when someone is lying or holding back. I got the impression Laura wasn't lying but was holding something back.
"He said there was something familiar about you." I twisted the truth just a smidge.
She laughed. "I don't know how that's possible, since he was probably born after we came here."
"Maybe it was a family resemblance. Maybe he was from
your town and he thought you looked like his mom or someone like that?"
She shrugged. "I didn't really have any close family. None of us did."
"What do you mean?" How was that possible?
"Well, we were a special troop," she said slowly. "We weren't like the others."
I shook my head. "I still don't follow."
Laura took a deep breath. "We were orphans. The six of us grew up at a convent school run by nuns. We never knew our families. Maybe that's why we are so close. We became our own family."
I opened my mouth then closed it. I didn't know what to say. It never occurred to me that they had no families. Orphans nowadays had extended family to live with or were in foster families.
"Oh! I'm so sorry. Do you think Chad might've been related to your birth family?"
She shook her head. "Who knows?"
"Why didn't anyone come looking for you?" I asked.
"We were eighteen. We'd aged out of the orphanage. So, Betty had the idea to tell everyone we were heading out West to find our families and thanks for taking care of us all these years. We were within our rights to do so. No one suspected we'd come here."
That made sense, I guess. They were legal adults. And if they left to go out West, who'd go after them?
Laura patted me on the arm. "Now come on. We've got some potatoes to boil. I've been waiting for meat and cheese an awfully long time, and I don't want the others to get hungry and eat it all. And believe me, with the way Betty started drooling when you offered to share, we'd better make it fast."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
"I don't think I'll ever eat a potato again." I patted my stomach.
"I thought the seasoning was good," Riley said.
"The seasoning was summer sausage and cheese." I burped softly and covered my mouth too late. "Do you think that might be enough to lure these ladies out of the woods?"
Riley didn't reply. He was probably wondering how his perfect, washboard abs were handling all these carbs.
We'd finished dinner and were sitting in chairs we'd pulled from the lodge, across the firepit from the old ladies who were sitting on the logs, next to the girls sitting on the ground with Old Eisenhower, who had his head rested on Lauren's knee. I really hoped Hilly was right and that the animal wasn't considering biting anyone.
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