Secrets and Lies (Cassie Scot)

by Amsden, Christine

  “Is that when you learned about it?” I asked.

  “Yes. I sent half a dozen counselors out looking for them, but by lunchtime, no one had found any sign of them. So I called the police and their parents.” Nora lifted a hand to her head and rubbed her temples. “Most of us have been up all night.”

  That didn’t give me a lot of new information, but at least I had a good time-frame now. I made a mental note of all the people I would need to talk to, starting with all the girls who had been in that cabin.

  “What were the girls wearing when they disappeared?” I asked.

  Nora shrugged. “How would I know?”

  “Well,” I said evenly, “normally you’d look at what they left behind. If they went out in their pajamas, they’d be missing.”

  Vera jumped in. “I can go through Regina’s things. I’d love to do something useful. I’m going crazy just sitting here.”

  “Thanks, can you take Mrs. Webster with you?”

  Vera looked hesitantly in the direction of the other mother. “I don’t know. I’ve tried to talk to her, but she’s fallen apart.”

  I’d gotten the same impression, so I just nodded. As Vera stood to leave, however; I thought of one more question. “Wait.”

  “Yes?”

  Giving Nora a furtive glance, I asked in a hushed voice, “Did your daughter have any talents?”

  Vera shook her head. “Not that I know of, at least. Of course, great-grandma didn’t even bother to test her before she died – wrote off my branch of the family, I think.”

  “All right.” The answer was remarkably indecisive, so I was far from ready to check yes or no in the talent box where Regina was concerned. If I could emerge completely talentless from the mixed genes of two powerful sorcerers, then Regina could easily have a talent that had skipped several generations. In some ways, that was more likely than what had happened to me.

  “Here’s my business card,” I said as an afterthought, handing one to Vera. “I don’t have a cell phone anymore, but the e-mail address is still good.”

  She took it and read. Then she reread. I could see her mouthing the words “normal detective” several times.

  Partly to distract her, I turned back to Nora to start making a list of people I would need to talk to. “Who knew the girls best?”

  “Their counselor, Renee, and Mackenzie, who’s in charge of the stables. They spent most of their time with him and the horses.”

  “I’ll need to talk to both of them.”

  “They’re out searching right now.”

  And unfortunately, given how poorly the search was being run, there was no telling when they would return. “Well, let me know when they get back. If I’m not here, let them know I need to talk. I’ll also want to talk to the girls’ cabin mates.”

  “Two of them have already gone home. A lot of parents are coming to collect their kids. If we don’t find Laura and Regina tonight, then tomorrow we’re going to officially close down.”

  That meant my first priority would need to be to talk to the other campers, to find out anything I could about the girls’ week-and-a-half at the camp – especially whether or not they had any enemies. “I’ll want a list of every camp employee who might have had any contact with the girls during their time here.”

  Nora hesitated, her cheeks turning faintly pink. “You seem to be treating this as if you suspect foul play.”

  I did, but I wasn’t sure if I should come right out and say so in front of Vera. Quickly, I glanced her way, but Vera seemed lost in her own little world.

  “I’ll have you know I did a thorough background check on every member of my staff,” Nora said.

  “I’m sure you did.” I tried to make the words sincere, but it’s possible they didn’t come across that way, given that I thought it was pretty ridiculous to protest such a thing when two girls were missing. No, there was no evidence that they had been abducted or harmed except for obstacles to magical scrying, but even without involving magic, it seemed reasonable to suspect such a thing after thirty-six hours with no sign of them. “It’s just that I have to look at all possible angles, and the fact is, you haven’t found them. If they had just gotten into an accident while out for a stroll in the woods, we probably would have run across them by now. But even if they did have some kind of accident, I want to know where they were likely to have gone in the middle of the night, and I can find out by talking to the people they knew.”

  Vera was staring at me, her eyes wide. “Regina knew the outdoors. We grew up in the country. Her father wasn’t good for much, but he took her camping every summer since she was three.”

  “Is her father here?” I asked. I carefully did not ask after her husband, since she gave the impression that he wasn’t. At least, not anymore.

  Vera nodded. “Was too drunk yesterday to be good for much, but he sobered up enough today to go out searching.” She scowled. “Drank and gambled us into bankruptcy before I divorced him.”

  Not wanting to get into the middle of some long-standing domestic dispute, I just nodded. “All right, I’m going off to the cabin to talk to those bunkmates.”

  “We can go together,” Vera said, standing. “I’ve got to try to figure out what she was wearing.”

  * * *

  I’m used to being a disappointment. It’s one of the words most commonly used to describe me, especially by extended family like aunts, uncles, cousins, and my grandparents – before they died. Idly, I wondered if death had changed their mind. I’d have to remember to ask Elena sometime.

  Vera didn’t use the word, but I could see disappointment written all over her face as we walked out of the mess hall and down the road past the lake in the direction of the cabins. The spark of hope that had flickered to life in her eyes when she’d seen me was gone, replaced by a spark of anger. Perhaps anger was an easier emotion for her to feel than fear, because it gave her a sense of power. I’d felt that way before. I felt it then, in response to her anger and disappointment.

  The girls were probably dead, but it was better not to think about that. Better to think about the fact that I was there to help and that Vera had judged me inadequate before she even gave me a chance, just because I had no magical ability.

  “Why did your father send you?” Vera asked after a few minutes of tense silence.

  I didn’t correct the idea that my father had sent me. The truth was a bit too complicated. Besides, my father had indirectly asked me to take this case, so he clearly had some faith in me.

  “I’m a detective,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “Do you have a gift for finding things?” Vera asked. “Or any gift at all?”

  My hands tightened into fists at my side. Here we go. “No.”

  “Then how are you any better than the local sheriff?”

  I could think of about a dozen reasons why I was better than the local sheriff just off the top of my head. “Do you think he’s doing a good job?”

  “Seems disorganized,” Vera said, “but if you’re just here to ask questions I already know the answers to–”

  “My father is a fire starter,” I cut in. “What do you want him to do, burn down the forest and see if he can smoke them out?”

  Vera blanched. “That’s not all he can do,”

  “No, it’s not.” I didn’t elaborate, though.

  “I can’t believe this,” Vera said, angrily kicking a stone out of her path. “I asked him for help. If he couldn’t send any, he should have just said so.”

  I stopped, suddenly, in the middle of the dirty road and let out a sound almost like a growl. “Look, if you don’t want my help, you can damn well keep it to yourself. Lucky for your daughter, I’m here for her and her friend, not for you. I don’t know if you noticed, but before I got here, no one had even bothered to try to find out what the girls were wearing or talked to their bunkmates. Maybe that’s not as impressive to you as crystal gazing, but at the moment crystal gazing isn’t working. So a slow, careful stu
dy of the facts is all we have.”

  Vera stared at me, her mouth slightly open. “Why isn’t crystal gazing working?”

  Damn, I’d said too much. I couldn’t very well tell her that her daughter was probably not alive. Luckily, I’m a good liar. “I don’t know, but it’s on my list of things to find out.”

  Without bothering to wait for Vera, I began walking. A minute later she caught up with me, panting slightly. “Why don’t you have any magic?”

  I shrugged. She was the last person I wanted to talk to about my magical ineptitudes.

  “Do you think there’s some magical reason my daughter is missing?” Vera pressed.

  “I haven’t ruled it out, but it doesn’t seem likely.”

  “If there is, won’t you be in danger?”

  Yes, but that wasn’t any different from my normal state. Besides, I had a charm bracelet to protect me from evil spirits and a cross to protect me from vampires. It did seem wise to go hunting for protective plants or herbs, in case I ran into a magical practitioner. Not that those kinds of things worked against strong magic, but they helped. “I can take care of myself. I do have six brothers and sisters.”

  Neither of us had anything else to say to one another after that. Vera’s anger had not dissipated (neither had mine), but we did reach a sort of unspoken understanding. She didn’t trust me, didn’t believe in me, and would not budge an inch until I somehow proved myself. This was a familiar story, so I filed it away under another one of those things that I wouldn’t let bother me. Protests would do no good. Trying to win her respect with tales of slain vampires would also do no good.

  Ten cabins ringed a bathhouse, each one a simple wooden structure with no air conditioning. It was a hot day, and even though I had gone out in shorts and hiking shoes, by the time I reached cabin number five, I was overheated and sore.

  Normally at around four in the afternoon, a camp would be buzzing with activities – campers on the lake, in the woods, riding horses, or at least strolling and talking. Yet even here at the cabins, the mood was noticeably subdued. A girl slipped quietly out of the bathhouse and retreated in the direction of a cabin across the greens, but she was the only one I saw until I stepped inside cabin number five.

  There were three girls, all around fifteen or sixteen years of age, all with various shades of blonde hair. One might have been natural.

  “Who are you?” asked the girl whose hair might really have been blonde.

  “I’m Cassie Scot, a private investigator. This is Vera Goldstein, Regina’s mom.”

  Silence filled the air like a dense fog.

  “I’m trying to get a picture of what led up to the disappearance,” I continued. “Were any of you friends with the girls?”

  They looked warily at Vera before the natural blonde, who seemed to be the de facto leader, spoke up again. “Not really, no.”

  Noticing the direction of their look I turned and whispered to Vera. “Can you wait outside for a few minutes? They might be more comfortable talking without you here.”

  Vera nodded solemnly, and stepped outside.

  The tension in the room did not really ease, but it did soften. “I’m Sarah,” said the natural blonde. “This is Cheryl and Becky.”

  “Nice to meet you.” I took a seat on the one vacant lower bunk, trying to make myself look at home. “Look, I don’t care if you were friends or if you hated one another. I’m not here to judge, just to figure out what happened.”

  Cheryl spoke up then, a little shyly. “They were kind of snobby. Thought they knew everything.”

  “Oh? About what?”

  “Everything,” Cheryl said. “Horses, especially. They both said they were raised on farms.”

  “Did anyone like them?” I asked.

  The girls shook their heads. “Not really,” Sarah said. “Well, maybe Mackenzie – the guy who runs the stables. Even our counselor, Renee, didn’t like them.”

  Nora had mentioned Mackenzie as well, though she had neglected to say that the girls had been universally disliked. “Did they spend a lot of time with Mackenzie?”

  “They practically lived there,” Sarah said. “They didn’t really do any other activities. Well, they did the first aid one because it was required, but that was it.”

  “And Mackenzie didn’t mind?” I asked. It seemed like a normal adult would have tried to encourage them to do some other activities once in a while.

  The girls exchanged dark looks.

  “What is it?” I asked. “I have to know.”

  Sarah took a deep breath. “There were rumors... and I don’t know if they were true... but there were rumors that he was sleeping with them. That they did threesomes.”

  Rumors were dangerous things. Sometimes they were wild and out of control, but sometimes there was a kernel of truth. “Where did you hear these rumors?”

  Cheryl and Becky’s eyes drifted immediately to Sarah, and I knew that she had spread the rumors. Sarah, for her part, shrugged. “I heard some of the boys talking about it. Besides, it’s not hard to believe. The girls practically worshiped Mackenzie.”

  “Which boys?” I took a notebook and pen out of my purse.

  “Um.” Sarah darted a look at her friends, but they did not jump in to protect her. “Jimmy Treadway and Ben Lions.”

  I wrote the names down. I didn’t put a lot of stock in that rumor, based on what I knew so far, but I would follow it up. “When was the last time you saw the girls?”

  “Lights out,” Sarah said. The others followed her lead, echoing her words a second or so behind.

  “None of you heard them get up in the middle of the night?”

  They shook their heads.

  “Were they prone to sneaking out?” I asked.

  The girls looked at each other. Something passed between them, something that I wanted to know about, but once again, they shook their heads.

  “Why did you hesitate?” I asked. “Were they making plans to sneak out? Anything you can think of would be useful.”

  Again, they shook their heads. There was something missing from their account, but not, I thought, something I was likely to get from them while they were all sitting there together. Perhaps I needed to get the phone numbers of the two girls who had already gone home and ask them.

  “All right, thanks.” I took three business cards out of my purse and handed them out. “If you can think of anything else, let me know.”

  7

  WITH SO MANY PEOPLE COMING AND going, it was hard to pin down the ones I most needed to interview – such as Renee, the missing girls’ counselor. After I left cabin number five I wandered around the rest of the girls’ cabins, just trying to form a picture in my mind of who Laura and Regina were and what their week-and-a-half-long stay had been like. There seemed to be a general consensus that they had formed an instant friendship, kept to themselves, and acted like they were better than everyone else.

  After an hour or so, I wandered over to the boys’ side of the camp. Their cabins formed a similar circle around a bath house, but on the other side of the road and through a cluster of trees. Most of the boys were outside, playing volleyball or kicking around a soccer ball.

  Finding a break in the volleyball game, I asked after Jimmy and Ben. Two handsome boys on the other side of the net identified themselves and followed me a few yards away from the game, which had stopped while curious onlookers tried to figure out what was going on.

  I handed each boy one of my cards. “I’m trying to find out what happened to Regina and Laura, and I was hoping you could help.”

  Jimmy, slightly taller and leaner than his friend, scratched his head. “I don’t really know anything about it, except that they went missing yesterday.”

  “I didn’t think you would, but I’m trying to track down the source of a rumor about the girls and Mackenzie.”

  The boys glanced at each other and Jimmy scratched his head again. “Well, they’re always spending time together.”

  “Did
you start the rumors?” I asked.

  Ben and Jimmy raced to top one another’s vehement negations.

  “So where did you hear about it?”

  “Her bunkmates,” Ben said. “They hated those girls, especially Sarah.”

  I groaned. Obviously, this line of questioning wasn’t going to work. “All right, thanks for your time. If you can think of anything that might help, let me know.”

  * * *

  It was dinnertime when I returned to the mess hall, making the place, if possible, even more chaotic. Now campers were mixed in with the deputies, counselors, friends, and relatives. A noxious odor hit me the moment I entered the room, killing my appetite.

  Vera sat at a table with Nora and Tracy Webster, as well as deputies Jeff and Hank. She motioned for me to join them so I did, marveling that any of them could stomach the greasy gray mush giving off such a foul odor. One lump could have been mashed potatoes with gravy, but I had never seen gravy quite that color before.

  “You can have some dinner if you like,” Nora said, sounding very put out by the offer.

  “That’s all right,” I said. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Well, here, at least have something to drink.” Jeff reached behind him to a long table full of cans of soda and bottles of water. He handed me a water.

  “Thanks.” I took the bottle, but didn’t drink right away. I was busily scanning the table to see how the people there were holding up. Vera seemed to be attacking her food, as if violence would beat the greasy stuff into submission. Or perhaps she took her grief out on food. Since I’ve been known to do that, I could relate, although I did usually try for more edible fare.

  Nora looked even more tired than before. She ate sparingly, but she kept looking at the door, perhaps in anticipation of the search party that would come with actual news. I couldn’t forget that in the morning, with no news or probably with bad news, the camp would shut down.

  Tracy Webster had a plate full of food in front of her, but she ignored it, instead staring out at a distant spot through the large windows. Every once in a while, Vera would send her counterpart a dirty look.