by Lisa Jackson
Just like Tyler Quade. There was just no telling what he might tell the cops and Jo-Beth needed him, along with the others, to stick with the story.
What the hell was wrong with everyone? Couldn’t they just keep their mouths shut, repeat the same story they’d sworn to years before, be cool, and go home? Then, maybe, this nightmare would be behind them for good. As she took stock of the women in the suite, all losers in her opinion, she tried to keep her blood pressure under control. God, she hated working with morons!
Sosi, pious, wearing a gold cross dangling from a chain around her neck and her religion on her sleeve, was seated in a side chair with Annette perched on the ottoman in front of her. Sosi was still pixyish, aside from the bump in her belly—yet another baby on the way. So much for her dreams of being an Olympic gymnast. Now she was just the winner of the overpopulation of the earth award as she tried to avoid Nell’s eyes, all the while fingering the little cross.
Of course Reva was already nursing something pathetic from the tiny refrigerator—a wine spritzer—God, did they still bottle those things? Disgusting.
Nell, slim and athletic, prettier than Jo-Beth remembered, was on one end of the rust-colored hide-a-bed, casting furtive glances at Sosi, who was steadfastly ignoring her.
Jayla just looked scared. She had gained about ten pounds since the last time Jo-Beth had seen her and was decked out in an expensive gray pantsuit, orange scarf, and a little too much jewelry. But at least she took care of herself, and her mocha-colored skin had a warm glow to it. Irritating as hell. Wedged into the other end of the sofa/hide-a-bed, Jayla kept looking at the door while folding and refolding her hands. Nervous. Well, she should be. They all should be.
Of course Bernadette was MIA and—oh shit, why couldn’t they all just do what they were told?
It was up to Jo-Beth to herd them, including the missing Bernadette, in the right direction, but it would take all of her people skills, which weren’t all that great to begin with. She would have to be patient despite her anxiety that everything she’d worked so hard for could very well be destroyed. Her marriage was already a shambles, but her career was on track. Or had been. The partners at Keating, Black, Tobias, and Aaronsen wouldn’t be thrilled if this scandal broke and her name was plastered all over it.
“Okay,” she said, getting everyone in the group’s attention just as the heater rumbled on again. God, the room was stuffy. “Let’s assume Bernadette will be here soon and get started.”
Nell glanced at her fitness tracker/watch strapped to her wrist. “About time.”
So she, too, was going to be a pain. Ignoring the comment, Jo-Beth said, “I just thought we should go over the details, you know, refresh our memories.”
“You mean lie,” Sosi corrected, having more backbone than Jo-Beth had anticipated.
Jo-Beth inwardly sighed but pasted on her sincerest smile. “It’s just that I’ve had a lot of experience with this kind of thing, you know. Being a lawyer. I’ve taken depositions, and dealt with pre-trial testimony, as well as spent time in courtrooms. I’ve negotiated with the opposing counsel, talked to witnesses, and been in the judicial process from the first day of selecting a jury until the verdict’s read. And further. On appeal. So I know the ropes and, believe me, from my experience, I know it’s important that we’re all on the same page.” She saw the skepticism in Sosi’s eyes and knew she’d have to appeal to the woman on a different level. “What we need to do is pare what we say down to the simple truth, which is to tell the police exactly what we know. Not what we think we know, not . . . conjecture or hearsay or supposition or anything like that.” She took the time to look at each woman in turn, just as she would a jury when making a critical point during a trial.
“This is serious business now that we know, or suspect, the body discovered on the beach is someone we know, someone who went missing while we were at the camp, so we want to help the police as much as we can, and the easiest way to do that is to be concise and true. We all need to reiterate what happened the night that we all gathered at the cavern.”
Clouds were gathering in Sosi’s wide eyes and she looked about to argue but stopped when they all heard a sharp rap on the door.
Reva answered the knock and Bernadette Alsace strode into the sitting room. Her eyes were bright, her face flushed, and she brought with her the scent of rain and the sea. Ridiculously, Jo-Beth felt a small sliver of jealousy burrow into her heart.
Bernadette had grown into a striking woman, with a firm chin and high cheekbones. Her hair and rain jacket were spattered, her green eyes bright. Damn the woman, she exuded a healthy exuberance that no amount of abdominal crunches, weight lifting, spa treatments, expensive creams, or hours spent with a personal trainer could replicate, the damned joie de vivre that Jo-Beth, herself, found so elusive. Jo-Beth immediately hated her. Way too confident.
“Sorry I’m late,” Bernadette said, breezing in and peeling off the jacket to toss it over the back of the couch.
“Where were you?” Reva had sidled up to the minibar again.
“At Camp Horseshoe. I met with Lucas Dalton.”
Jo-Beth suddenly wanted to strangle Bernadette. “For the love of God, why?”
“To set the record straight.”
“You made your official statement?” Jo-Beth asked, fighting the urge to scream.
“No.”
With all the effort she could muster, Jo-Beth forced her face to remain impassive, just as she did when she was in front of a jury making a case, just as she had when her sorry excuse of a husband had first told her about needing to “find himself ” on the open highway in a ludicrous Volkswagen bus/camper/whatever. “So what did you tell him?”
Bernadette said, “I just told him the truth, exactly what I remember, which is basically everything I’ve said all along.”
“Hopefully you didn’t embellish it,” Jo-Beth said. God, why was it so hot in here?
“I didn’t. Nor did I hide anything.” Bernadette held Jo-Beth’s gaze and didn’t seem to be intimidated. “I said everything I should and though it wasn’t an official statement—I’m giving mine tomorrow to Detective Dobbs—I just wanted to clear the air between us.”
“Dalton’s a cop,” Jo-Beth reminded.
“I know. I don’t see that as a problem.”
“Then you’re blind. Not only is he a damned detective, but he’s got a personal stake in this,” she said, wondering how Bernadette, who looked like an intelligent woman, could be so damned dumb. “So . . . from now on the story is this,” she said to the group at large.
“We all met at the cavern the night Monica went missing because we wanted to discuss what had happened to Elle. We were all worried that because we’d been sneaking around a bit, at night, away from our cabins, that we might be in trouble. But no one saw anything on either night that would help. We didn’t see Elle. We didn’t see Monica. Simple. End of story. This is what we tell the cops. This is what we tell any reporters. They’ll come nosing around, like that Kinley Marsh. She’s been calling around.”
“She came to my house,” Jayla said.
Jo-Beth’s heart sank. “And?”
“I told it like it was, just like you said, and then I got a phone call and acted like my son needed a ride immediately so she would leave.”
“Good thinking. I don’t trust her.”
“You don’t trust anyone,” Bernadette said.
Jo-Beth agreed. “It doesn’t hurt to be a little cautious.”
“Or suspicious.” Bernadette was really pushing things.
“Fine, call it what you want. But trust me, Kinley Marsh is trouble. She’ll do anything to get a story. And she’s not the only one. I’ve already had reporters from Portland, Vancouver, and even Seattle calling me.” Jo-Beth walked to the thermostat and tried to adjust the heat, pushing various buttons. Nothing happened. The damned heater kept purring, pouring out hot air.
Annette broke in with, “What about if we saw Elle after the night she
went missing?”
Jo-Beth turned from the wall with the thermostat to stare at the younger Alsace sister. “Not this ghost thing again.”
Annette was nodding.
And then Sosi said softly, “I did, too.”
The two exchanged looks and Jo-Beth felt her control over the meeting slipping through her fingers. “You’re both kidding. Right?”
“I told you I thought I’d seen her,” Annette said. “The night Monica vanished she was on the ridge on the south end of the beach, not the cape, but in the property owned by the camp, and she was dressed all in white and looking out to sea. I thought it might be Elle’s ghost.”
“Give me a break,” Reva muttered, and took another drink from her tiny bottle.
Jo-Beth laughed shortly. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
Jo-Beth shook her head. “We can’t complicate our statements with ghosts or spirits or any of that paranormal crap. We have to keep it simple. Keep it to the truth. The facts.”
“I said I saw her, too.” Sosi was clutching the little cross now. “And you’re right,” she said, looking at Annette. “She was dressed in a white dress, or maybe a nightgown.” She turned on Jo-Beth. “And for the record? It’s not paranormal crap, Jo-Beth. If you had any faith at all, you would understand that there are ghosts and angels and spirits walking among us.”
“You’re saying she’s dead, then?” Jo-Beth demanded, taking a step in Sosi’s direction. She had to cut this crazy talk off now.
To her surprise, the shorter woman climbed to her feet and inched up her chin. “What I’m saying is that I saw her. Dead or alive, I don’t know.”
“How do you know it was Elle? How close did you get?” Jo-Beth asked, aware every eye in the room was on her. “As close as I am to the deck?” She motioned to the French doors.
“No, but—”
“Then, what? Ten yards maybe? Twenty?” Jo-Beth asked.
“I don’t know, a distance, I guess . . .”
“And you?” she demanded of Annette, swinging her gaze to the younger Alsace sister still seated on the ottoman. “You saw an ‘apparition’ on the ridge? You were up there?”
“No.” Annette was shaking her head, her brown hair brushing the tops of her shoulders. “I was on the trail below.”
“So, fifty, maybe sixty yards away from the ghost, right? At night?” She didn’t bother hiding her skepticism. Slowly, she moved her gaze from one of the women in the room to the next. “Impossible,” she said before swiveling to face Annette again. “You couldn’t possibly have seen who was there. It could have been anyone. Don’t you think, doesn’t it make sense that since it was the night after she’d gone missing and that we were all worried about her that it could have been your own imagination? I mean, we’d even floated the idea around to scare others by dressing up as Elle, remember? Just a dumb, adolescent idea that we scrapped, but it could have been planted in your minds and so—”
“You think we didn’t see her?” Sosi demanded, cutting Jo-Beth off.
“I’m saying you don’t know what you saw. Sure, you probably caught sight of something or maybe even someone. But when you consider everything logically, don’t you think it’s possible that your subliminal mind conjured up the idea that whatever you saw—a person, place, or thing—was twisted into the image of a missing girl or a ghost? Like maybe a tree caught swaying in the wind, maybe someone walking . . . became Elle, and over the years you’ve convinced yourself that you saw her ghost?”
“I know what I saw,” Sosi said, but she swallowed hard and Annette was biting her lip nervously. Good. That was better. If only it wasn’t so damned hot in here!
“I believe her,” Jayla cut in, and Jo-Beth wanted to bean the woman. Why was she chiming in now? “There are ghosts. I’ve . . . I’ve heard them. At my house. I never admitted it, but . . . I know there are spirits here on earth. Everywhere.”
“But you didn’t see Elle that night, did you?” Jo-Beth said, and noticed a hint of indecision in Jayla’s dark eyes. Good.
“No,” Jayla said carefully. “But I believe—”
“It doesn’t matter what you believe,” Jo-Beth cut her off. “The important thing to remember is that we’re here to: One, tell the truth.” She held up her pointer finger. “Two, keep things as simple and straightforward as possible for the police.” Another finger shot up. “And three, go back to our own personal lives and lay this all to rest.” A third finger joined the others. “Keep those things in mind.”
“Some things aren’t easily laid to rest,” Jayla said. “That’s why there are ghosts in the first place.”
This wasn’t working. There was no arguing against those whose faith, however weird it might be, was strong. Jo-Beth had to take another tack, be more pragmatic. Forget theory. “Well, yes, Jayla, you’re right, of course,” she said, nodding. “But the trouble is, none of this will help the police find the truth. All the paranormal talk might even be counterproductive in finding out what really happened on those nights.” Jo-Beth managed to keep her voice even, though the concerned-for-everyone face she’d forced into place felt like the mask it was.
“I saw her again,” Sosi admitted. “Today.”
Oh. Jesus.
Jayla gasped, her splayed hand flying to her ample chest.
“Oh, my God,” Annette whispered. “Really? Today?”
“Now wait,” Jo-Beth said. “You didn’t.” This couldn’t be happening.
“It was earlier this afternoon, I went to the park and looked across the beach toward the old camp and there was a woman in white on the ridge again, on the path we all used to climb down to the beach.”
“An angel,” Jayla whispered. “I told you,” she said to Jo-Beth. “They’re everywhere.”
Jo-Beth felt a trickle of sweat run down her neck. “Okay. But—”
“Hey!” Reva cut in loudly. Somehow she’d come up with yet another drink, her fingers wrapped around a tiny bottle of vodka. “K-I-S-S, I say.” She poured it into a plastic glass left by the coffeemaker, then added a can of V8 juice from the small refrigerator. “Keep it simple, stupid,” she added as she dropped the empty can and bottle into a waste basket, then lifted her concoction to her lips. Jo-Beth shuddered. Reva, despite her efforts, wasn’t helping convince the women.
Bernadette, the would-be purveyor of truth, was beginning to appear agitated. She said, “What if Annette and Sosi saw Elle, not her ghost, but the real woman?”
“Today?” Jo-Beth nearly laughed. “After all this time?”
“Other people have seen her.” Sosi was insistent.
“And when we all just happened to be here?” Reva asked, rolling her eyes and taking another swallow.
“That’s right.” Sosi was getting bristly. “After I got back to the hotel I Googled it—‘ghosts’ and ‘Camp Horseshoe’ and ‘Eleanor Brady’ on my iPad. Annette and I aren’t the only ones who’ve see her. There have been others who have described a ghostly figure in white around the same area and people assume it’s Elle’s spirit.”
“Someone followed me today, in the car while I was driving, and I know it sounds crazy, but the driver looked like Elle,” Bernadette said.
“Last I heard, ghosts don’t drive,” Reva said.
Bernadette shot back, “I’m not saying it was a ghost, I’m just saying what I saw, okay?”
“I believe you,” Nell said earnestly, looking from Sosi to Bernadette and back again.
Great. Jo-Beth was out of options and she was so damned hot! She walked to the French doors, unlatched them, and cracked one so that cold air could seep into the room. “Fine,” she said. “Tell the police about ‘Elle’s ghost’”—she actually used finger quotes to make the point that Sosi’s story was silly—“if you think it will help.” She was done with these idiots. What were they thinking? But she’d seen it over and over again in her lifetime. No good deed goes unpunished. “I was just trying to make it easier for all of us, so we could do our civic d
uty and go home to our families.”
“Wait a sec,” Bernadette cut in, and Jo-Beth felt the skin on the back of her neck tighten. “I think we should put all our cards on the table.”
What was this?
Bernadette looked around the small room. “Some of you may not have known that Monica was pregnant at the time she went missing. She told me about it, a week or so before she went missing.”
The other women exchanged glances.
“I didn’t mention it to the police at the time because Monica swore me to secrecy, and I really believed that she would show up again. Then we were all hustled out of the camp, Monica was never found, and in the chaos, and because I wanted to push this behind me, I never told the police. I used the excuse to myself that I didn’t want to break that confidence and, truthfully, because I was scared, I didn’t want to bring up something I couldn’t back up.” She looked from one woman to the next. “It was a mistake. The police need to know everything from pregnancies to sightings. Let them sort out the fact from fiction, but we have to give them every bit of information we have so they can solve the case.”
Bernadette, damn her, had everyone’s undivided attention. The room went so silent, you could have heard a pin, or maybe a cotton ball drop.
“At least one woman is dead,” she went on. “And we all know that the body that was discovered on the beach could very well be either Monica or Elle.” She glanced at Jo-Beth. “You’re right. We have to tell the truth. All of it. What we think, what we saw or overheard, it matters.”
Sosi said, “Okay. I saw Tyler alone with Monica—not doing anything really, but walking with her, and I didn’t think a lot about it at the time, but they were . . . you know, into each other. Like people in love are. They don’t notice anyone but the one they love.” Her gaze flicked to Nell for just a second, then quickly away.
Jo-Beth’s throat constricted.
“I saw Tyler and Monica, too,” Jayla said, moving her head in agreement as she remembered. “You know, at the time I thought it was weird. They were really close together, like maybe they’d been hugging or kissing, I wasn’t sure.”