by Lisa Jackson
The broom and mop were hanging on large nails near the back door, the mop positioned over a bucket, cleaning supplies tucked into a nearby cupboard. Reva stepped farther onto the porch, retrieved the knife, and quickly swiped the handle, in case her fingerprints were on it. Then she ditched the knife in the small space between a refrigerator and chest-type freezer that were used to store extra food. In the dim light of a single lightbulb, screwed into a keyless socket, no one would ever see the knife wedged between the two oversized appliances.
Good.
Grabbing the broom from its hook and snagging the dustpan that was propped near the door, she went inside again. “What took you so long?” Cookie asked, but didn’t so much as glance over her shoulder as she started the dishwasher.
“Just getting some air.”
“Humph.” Shaking her head, she eyed Reva, then wiped her hands on a kitchen towel. “At your age, you need ‘air’? More likely you were talking to a boy. That Dustin. I’ve seen you.”
Geez, I was only outside two minutes. What could a person do in two minutes?
“No boy,” she said, and was irritated that Cookie, who without her thick glasses was blind as a bat, had noticed a spark between her and the boy who handled the horses.
“Believe or not, I was young once.” She tossed her towel into the bin with the other dirty laundry. “You clean up this floor good tonight,” she said. “I don’t want to hear Miss Naomi say that there was crumbs or dirt on the floor in the morning.”
Fighting a sharp retort, Reva started sweeping with gusto and was grateful when the cook peeled off her apron and, tossing it into the laundry bin, headed back outside for yet another smoke before she drove away for the night. Magda Sokolov was one of the few people at Camp Horseshoe who stayed off campus in the evenings.
As she swept, Reva heard the sound of Magda’s old Oldsmobile sparking to life and rumbling away, then, from just outside the front of the cafeteria, the sound of young voices, rising in song. The campers, boys and girls, were gathering for a final prayer after the meal, then they would be allowed to go to their cabins for an hour before they would return to the rec center for games and private discussions and a sermon. Finally, they would be led two by two to the flagpole to sing some more songs, lower the flag, listen to Reverend Dalton give a short sermon, and watch the sun lowering into the ocean. The sun didn’t actually set until nine-thirty or ten this time of year, so the campers didn’t see it actually sink below the horizon, but they could see the blaze of colors in the sky, magenta, gold, and orange reflecting on the water and any clouds hovering above. “God’s easel,” the reverend reminded them every night.
So she was alone. Left with a broom and a mop. And a butcher knife.
She worked hard and fast, first sweeping up dust and debris, then filling the bucket with hot water and swabbing the floor. She worked from the entrance to the cafeteria and backward through the kitchen, around the butcher block and counters to the back door, where she dumped the water away from the back door and into the side parking area before hauling the bucket and mop back to the porch. She’d just closed the back door when she heard a footstep on gravel.
Whipping around, she spied Dusty standing in the shadows beneath the pine tree where the crow, an hour earlier, had flown.
“Thought I might catch you here,” he drawled, stepping out of the shadow of the tree to mount the steps and reach for her.
She batted his hands away and glanced quickly around. “Not here. Not now. Cookie’s already suspicious.”
“She’s always suspicious, and she’s gone for tonight.” He placed his hands on her waist and this time she didn’t push him away, felt the heat of his fingertips through her T-shirt.
“Yeah, well, she mentioned your name to me. She knows.”
“Big deal.”
“We don’t want to be caught. You’ll be fired and I’ll be sent packing.” She gave a little shiver at the thought of returning to her family. She was the oldest of eight kids and though she loved her brothers and sisters with all her heart, she didn’t relish going back home to become a second mother to them. Here she did chores, but she had some freedom, and she loved her evenings smoking weed and making out with Dusty. She loved the ocean, the adventure, the primitive feel of the place. Well, she liked everything but the campers and the rules.
“We won’t get caught,” he said, and one side of his mouth lifted into that crooked, irreverent grin that she found irresistible.
“I don’t know.”
He kissed her neck and she felt that little thrill that ran straight down her nerves to the very core of her, a tremor that caused something deep inside to pulse with want. Maybe because it was forbidden, maybe because this was just a summer romance, maybe because she liked being a little naughty. Whatever the reason, Dustin Peters pushed all the right buttons. She didn’t love him, she knew that, but so what? For now, he was a damned good time.
“Later,” she said hastily, looking around to make sure they weren’t seen.
“Ah, babe,” he complained.
She peeled his hands away. “I’m serious. I’ll meet you later. But I have something I want you to do for me right now.”
“What?”
Quickly, she ducked deeper into the shadowy porch and, using the corner of her apron, picked up the knife. She hauled it back and handed it to him.
“What’s this?” He rolled the knife over in his fingers.
“What does it look like? Just hold it for me, okay. Take it now and . . . and I’ll get it tonight.”
“For what?” He was suspicious.
“A prank. To help Jo-Beth. Just do it and don’t argue. Now go,” she said, sweating suddenly, half expecting that little creep Kinley Marsh or Bonnie to pop up from behind the dumpster, or even that weird Annette Alsace to be looking around the corner, spying on them.
“Okay, okay.” He was already stepping off the porch.
“But you’ll meet me later, right?” he said, and held out the knife, pointing the blade at her so that anyone nearby could see him. Sometimes Dusty was such a stupid ass.
“Yes!” she promised, and slipped back into the kitchen, where she stood near the door. She couldn’t walk across the wet floor yet, but she wanted Dusty to understand that she was serious and just leave.
She thought about the night ahead and the prank Jo-Beth had devised, one to teach that skank Monica O’Neal a lesson. God, the girl was such a pain. Reva would like nothing more than for that sleazy bitch to piss her pants and, she thought with a smile, it was finally going to happen.
All Reva had to deal with was stealing the knife.
Mission accomplished.
CHAPTER 11
Portland, Oregon
Now
Jo-Beth
“What a fuckin’ nightmare!” Jo-Beth said under her breath as she threw things into her suitcase. “Son of a—” She caught sight of herself in the full-length mirror of her bedroom wall and froze. She looked like a madwoman, her short hair uncombed, her makeup fading, her clothes unpressed. Straightening, she told herself to calm down. She had to be in control and look the part.
“Take it down a notch,” she told the tall woman in the reflection. “Or maybe like ten notches.”
She walked to the windowed wall of her penthouse, placed both hands on the glass, and stared out at her view of the Hawthorne Bridge, one of seven or eight, she couldn’t remember, that crossed the Willamette River. Traffic was slow, a trail of brake lights visible on the span. Always, she thought, as Portland traffic had become a perpetual snarl. “Stumptown” had become “Bike Town” and was now cool, somewhere hip people migrated to, and the city was being revitalized. In the process, traffic was now a bitch.
Slowly letting out her breath, willing her frustration to evaporate, she peered over the rooftops of the shorter buildings in her view and swung her gaze to the far side of the river, to the panorama of the city stretching eastward to the Cascades. The mountains weren’t visible today,
no breathtaking vista of Mount Hood, a peak she’d climbed three times in the past ten years. It calmed her to see the rocky, snow-covered slopes rising above the timberline, but today, with the thick cloud cover, not a single ridge could be discerned.
Decidedly calmer, she pushed off the windows and, walking to the master bath, stripped out of her workout clothes, tossing them into the hamper before turning on the taps of the massive shower. When the spray from the three separate shower heads was the perfect temperature, she stepped inside and lathered up. She hadn’t begun to sag anywhere, thank God. Her breasts were still as firm as ever, her abdomen tight, and her ass remarkable, as she’d heard whispered behind her back when she strode into the boardroom of the law firm just last week. She kept her hair short, so that she could run or exercise anytime—at a moment’s notice—then shower and pull herself together in less than half an hour. She’d tattooed eyeliner on her lids and used a product that grew her lashes, then touched up those pesky lines on her face with Botox. In the past five years she’d finished six triathlons and two half marathons . . . that was enough. Marathon runners were too weird for her taste, like, absorbed with running, and she needed to be a bit more balanced. Her life was much too complicated and interesting to be overrun with one obsession.
Especially when she had dozens of obsessions and compulsions in her wheelhouse.
For a second she thought of Tyler Quade, the boy she’d given her heart to in her youth. Her pang of nostalgia was underscored by a simmering rage, one she’d hidden away in a locked corner of her mind, but that emotion was just behind that latched door, always pressing to get out. How could Tyler have cheated on her? And with that waste of space Monica O’Neal. She shuddered now, under the hot water, just at the thought of it. She was just so . . . well, so trashy and low-class, so plebian. There was no other way to consider it, or to remember her. For the love of God, what had he seen in that bitch? For a second, she remembered Monica as she had been at nineteen, with curling black hair that fell around her face in a way that looked, well, slutty. Her lips had been full and twisted in a come-hither smile, her eyes a cool blue that always had stared a little too hard. So, okay, she did have one of those voluptuous figures. Big boobs, small waist, and a tight ass, but hell, it was nowhere near “remarkable,” not like hers.
And still the bastard had strayed, fucking Monica, and impregnating the bitch.
Her fingernails dug into her scalp as she washed her hair and rinsed away the anger. Letting the lather run over her body, she refused to dwell on Tyler’s infidelity and couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to him. She’d been so incensed at the time that, when she’d heard about the pregnancy, she’d never spoken to him again, despite the fact that they had their own, very private little secret.
You should have married him when you had the chance. He’d asked, hadn’t he? And wouldn’t he have been better than the loser you ended up with, Eric, the latent hippy? At least Tyler had the same sense of daring, of mischief, as you, would go as far as necessary to get what he wanted.
“We were too damned young,” she said aloud, jumping at the sound of her voice over the hiss of the spray. And Tyler hadn’t moved in the right circles, couldn’t give her what she, even then, realized she needed in life. But he was the one who had been able to make her juices run hot. Not just sexually, but mentally as well, how he liked to experiment, to push the envelope, to prick at another’s psyche just to see how much they could take.
Even now, after all these years, she felt a little thrill at what they’d done together, and there was more than a hint of regret that she hadn’t explored all that was to discover with him.
Forget it. It’s O-V-E-R. Just deal with the issues at hand and those girls, now women. You have to control them. You can afford no loose cannons. No loose lips.
She groaned aloud. God, did she really have to deal with them again? Talk about stress! As if she didn’t have enough!
Jo-Beth believed in moving forward with life and didn’t like dealing with the hangnails or warts of her past.
Not at all.
“Well, get ready. You’re in for it now,” she muttered through clenched teeth. She turned the water on a smidge warmer, adjusted the spray, and stood under the piercing needles, letting the hot water beat against her muscles. You can do this, she thought silently, going to her daily mantra. In a law firm dominated by men . . . no, make that old men, she’d learned to fight and claw her way to junior partner by believing in herself and taking charge. Now, with her sights set on a full partnership in the firm of Keating, Black, Tobias, and Aaronsen, she couldn’t let anything get in her way, especially not something as insignificant and trivial as a damned church camp and a couple of missing counselors. Jesus, those girls were basket cases anyway. Who knew what had happened to them? As for that horse wrangler, or whatever he was—Dusty? Dustin? He’d probably just walked off the job. Working for that nutcase of a preacher couldn’t have been a bed of roses. Who would blame him for grabbing his paycheck and riding into the goddamned sunset?
Jo-Beth had had to take things into her own hands when she’d learned of the discovered body parts. Reva and Sosi were on board, though Sosi had turned ultrareligious and Reva had her own issues. She’d talked to nerdy Annette, too, who had promised to get in touch with her sister. Jayla, of course, was a problem. She wasn’t answering her cell phone or responding to texts, and the last e-mail Jo-Beth had for her had bounced back. She planned to check Facebook or Tumblr or Twitter or whatever social media platform Jayla used. She couldn’t be too hard to find. Hell, the private eye who worked for the law firm could find deadbeat dads and spouses who were ducking their alimony payments, and runaway teens, as well as sniff out arsonists and the losers involved in insurance fraud without much trouble, and he was no genius.
Jo-Beth would find her.
And she would convince Jayla to join the rest of them in Averille, Oregon, even if it was the center of no-fucking-where. Together, their story tight as ever, they’d meet with the damned sheriff and whoever else and put this case to bed. For-damned-ever!
She sighed, annoyed. It would have to be a short trip. She couldn’t afford to take too much time away from the office. And then there was Eric, who was still her legal husband even if he hadn’t lived here in nearly two months.
Why the hell had he decided to have his midlife crisis now, when her own life was teetering precariously? Between lobbying for a partnership in the firm and this mess down at the coast, the last thing she needed, the very last, was a husband who had decided to quit his lucrative job as an investment banker and try to find himself. Why Eric had decided to buy an ancient Volkswagen bus, outfitted as a camper, and go cruising off the grid, she didn’t know, but his sudden affinity for weed and an interest in Burning Man, that weirdo festival in the Nevada desert, didn’t bode well for their marriage.
She ground her teeth at the thought. Well, if he thought he was going to divorce her and get some kind of alimony just because she was about to get a huge pay increase with the partnership, he could think again.
“Prick,” she muttered. Where was the buttoned-up Wall Street type she’d thought she’d married? The man who had worked hard for years to go to graduate school, the man who used to adore her and give her diamonds worth a small fortune, the same glittering gems he now eschewed. Rocks! That’s what he’d called her three-carat engagement ring and the earrings he’d given her on their first anniversary.
What the fuck had happened?
So he’d turned forty-five, so what?
Jesus, could nothing go right?
Turning off the spray, she again took a long look in the half-steamy mirror in the tiled bath, liked what she saw, and took the time to locate her phone and take a sexy selfie, full-length, her body still slick from the water, her hair, after she gave it a ruffle with her fingers, looking wet and tousled, her look a naughty come-on. Dear Lord, she should have been a damned model. Could have with those long legs. But she’d known that
was a short, hard career, and she’d decided instead to capitalize on her brains rather than her beauty. Much more staying power. Much less competition. Pretty girls were a dime a dozen, or maybe less, but a striking woman with a terrific memory and an acute ability to analyze and solve a problem—the sky was the limit. “Legendary,” she said to herself as she always did. This was her daily, if not hourly, affirmation: “That’s what you are. Unique and legendary.” And, of course, she’d used that beauty to advance herself as well. Whatever it took.
As the fan cleared the moisture that had collected on the mirrors, she applied her makeup in the buff, found a fresh pair of black leggings and a long, cowl-necked shirt that just covered her buttocks, then finished with heeled boots that gave her another three inches.
Then she packed. Neatly. Carefully. Planning the coming days as she folded her clothes and toiletries into her bag. She just had to make certain that everyone, every last one who had been a counselor at Camp Horseshoe, was on the same page to the last paragraph.
“You can do it,” she said aloud as she double-checked her suitcase.
Satisfied that she’d left no necessity behind, she zipped up the case, pulled on a sleek, belted jacket, and headed out of the penthouse to drive to bumblefuck Oregon, for damage control.
She took the express elevator to the parking garage, unlocked her sporty white Mercedes wirelessly, and noticed her vanity plate: LGLGDSS, which not too many people could figure out, but that was okay. Smiling, she slid into the cool interior. Who needed the common man to figure out she was a legal goddess?
As long as she knew it, and the senior partners at Keating, Black, Tobias, and Aaronsen knew it as well, then nothing else mattered.
Nothing at all.
She pulled out of the parking garage, easing through the ever-increasing traffic, flipped on the wipers due to the rain, then set her jaw as she merged onto Highway 26. Through the Vista Ridge tunnel that cut beneath the West Hills of Portland she headed west. Above the tunnel, the forested slopes hid elegant homes of some of Portland’s wealthiest residents, mansions tucked between the firs, maples, and spruce trees. Mullioned windows peeked through evergreen branches to peer over the heart of downtown and across the Willamette River to the city spreading eastward toward the rugged Cascade Mountains. The homes on the hillside ranged from contemporary, to mid-century modern, to classic Portland. All were expensive and grand, but didn’t afford the luxury of being right downtown, where one could feel the pulse of the city, the kind of amenity Jo-Beth craved.