“Behind the wall? Like, hidden?” For just a moment, she hoped her mother might have hidden some sort of fortune in the house that would now save Lexi from her predicament.
But he shook his head. “Some of these old places are built funny that way. If something on the shelf gets pushed back, it can fall behind the back wall. I think that’s what happened. It looks like a shoe box of stuff fell and the stuff came out. The house is tight, which is good, so no mice or humidity got to it. When I saw the name, I thought that might be you.”
“Anna was my mother,” Lexi heard herself say. She didn’t owe him an explanation, of course, but suddenly she felt very alone.
“Lexi!” One of the deli guys held up a bag for her.
Lexi’s face warmed, and she stepped over to get it, saying, “I’m Lexi. As you might have guessed.”
“Nice to meet you.” Greg gave a quick pirate smile. “I know you can’t say the same.”
She shrugged. “Well.” Well, what? There was nothing to add.
“So if we put the stuff on the bed in the pink room—?”
“That’s fine.” She nodded and tried to swallow over the lump in her throat. “Thanks. And, by the way, about the other day . . . you were really nice. Thanks.”
He met her eye. “No idea what you’re talking about.”
She gave a laugh. “Right. Good.”
They called his name, and he reached for the bag with his lunch in it. “So are you eating here?” he asked, gesturing toward the tables in the back corner.
She thought about it for a moment, and when she saw him pull a bottle of water out of the bag that she had been sure contained a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20, she was tempted to say yes.
But she shook her head. “I’ve got to find a new place to live,” she said. “Since my current place will be . . . unavailable.”
He nodded in a way that made her wonder, just for a second, if Michelle had told him anything more than what she wanted done. “She said to start on your room at the end of the month. I figured you were going somewhere.”
“Yup. I’m going somewhere.” Where? Where? “Thanks for telling me about the papers. I’ll look for them later.”
“You got it.” He raised his bottle to her.
She left, feeling more displaced than ever.
12
Camp Catoctin, Pennsylvania
Twenty Years Ago
Lexi didn’t want to wake up when the stupid horn started blowing reveille at seven o’clock in the morning. Every day it was the same thing: Wake up practically at dawn; spend the whole day doing stupid, pointless things; then finally be allowed to go back to the cabin to sleep, only to have to listen to those two goons, Nicola and Holly, whisper about her from their bunk until finally all the squinching of her eyes and plugging of her ears worked and she fell asleep.
Then, before one dream was finished, it seemed like it was time to get up and do it all over again.
“Oh my God,” Tami complained. “It’s, like, so loud. I hate the tuba.”
“It’s a trumpet,” someone said. One of the know-it-alls. Probably Holly.
“Whatever it is, it’s horrible.” That was Sylvia. Lexi felt her sit up on the top bunk and reach for the ladder.
Just like every morning.
“Come on!” Brittany barked, and opened the shutters. Light slammed into the room like a missile.
Everyone groaned in protest.
Lexi rubbed her eyes and slowly tried to adjust to the light. The air smelled like fish, which meant it must have rained last night. The lake always seemed to overflow and send a bunch of dead fish onto the shore when there was a lot of rain. Honestly, Lexi couldn’t understand it. You’d think fish would love a whole bunch of new water, rather than just going belly-up.
When her vision finally cleared, Lexi looked for the chain hanging on her bedpost. It was part of her routine, making eye contact with that diamond first thing in the morning. In a strange way—something she’d never admit to anyone—she felt like she was waking up and seeing her mother.
It wasn’t the best connection she could imagine, but it was the only one she had.
And who was to say that something as magical looking as a diamond didn’t actually have some sort of magical properties like that? Maybe some portion of her mom’s soul resided there, just for her.
The thought made her smile and she reached out for the chain.
It wasn’t there.
She looked. And looked again.
It wasn’t there.
Without any other thought but to get it back into her hand, she scrambled off the bed and to the floor, looking for broken pieces of the ring or the chain or something that would explain this.
“What are you doing?” Sylvia asked.
“It’s gone!”
“What is?” Sylvia followed her gaze to the bedpost. “The ring?”
“Your ring is right on your hand.” Tami pointed to the stupid silver maple leaf ring Lexi had gotten at the mall with her friend Jillian right before leaving for camp.
“Not that ring!” Lexi snapped. “The diamond one. On the chain!”
“It’s hanging on the bed.” Sylvia yawned. “Like every night. For whatever stupid reason you do that.”
“It’s not there!”
“Then you moved it,” Sylvia said matter-of-factly. As if Lexi had simply forgotten she’d moved it.
“I did not!”
“Jeez, calm down.” Sylvia rolled her eyes.
“It’s got to be here somewhere,” Tami said, looking at the bedpost first, as if Lexi had missed it. “Hm. It’s gone.”
“No shit. That’s what I’ve been saying.”
Tami gasped at Lexi’s language.
Sylvia laughed.
The other two, Tweedledee and Tweedledum on their bunk across the room, didn’t move.
Lexi thought that was suspicious.
“What do you two know about this?” she demanded, stomping over to the bunk. She reached up and threw the covers back off Nicola. “Huh?”
“What?” Nicola asked, blinking.
“My ring.” Lexi pointed to her bed. “It was next to me last night when I went to sleep, and now it’s gone.”
“I don’t know what happened to it,” Nicola said.
“What about you?” Lexi rattled the bottom bunk, and Holly sat up.
“Stop it!”
“Where’s my ring?” Lexi could tell, just from looking at Holly, that she had something to do with this. “I know you took it.”
Holly’s face went red. “I didn’t take your stupid ring! Why would I want a big fake diamond anyway?”
“Found it!” Tami shouted, and Lexi’s heart leapt.
She started back to Tami, who was pulling a ball of dust out from under the bunk.
“I guess it’s not it after all,” she said, shrugging.
Lexi felt close to tears. “Someone took it, and no one has been in here all night except for the people in this room right now. And no one is leaving here until they admit it and give it back.”
“We’re not the only ones in here at night,” Nicola pointed out calmly. “There’s Brittany.”
Brittany! Lexi was almost sure that Holly had something to do with the ring, but the little part of her that had doubt could easily imagine Brittany taking it. Brittany would do anything to be prettier, and since it didn’t look like it was going to happen for her face, maybe she’d decided wearing fancy things would do the trick.
“The senior counselors sometimes come in at night, too,” Holly added, standing up, having gotten fully dressed under her sheets. Freak. “To make sure everyone’s where they’re supposed to be.”
“I bet it was Brittany,” Sylvia said, pulling on a tank top. “She’s probably hoping that will make Danny Parish screw her.”
Tami gasped.
“You’re not supposed to say things like that!” Holly barked, but Nicola shot her a look.
“One of you is in so much trouble,” Lexi threatened, but she kn
ew the threat was empty. Her anger was being eclipsed by complete anguish, and she could feel the power leaving her like air from a balloon. She couldn’t keep anyone here. She couldn’t make anyone confess.
She was beginning to feel like all she could do was cry.
But she was not going to give any of them the satisfaction of that.
“I’m going to tell Mr. Frank that one of you is a thief!”
“Um, excuse me?” Sylvia asked archly.
“Not you.”
“What’s going on in here?” Brittany pushed open the door with a splintering crack and came in looking, as usual, pissed off.
“Someone stole Lexi’s ring,” Tami said.
“That gaudy thing you hang on your bed?”
Lexi wanted to throw something at her. “My mother’s ring.”
“I thought you said it was your stepmother’s,” Holly interjected.
Lexi turned on her. “You sure paid a lot of attention for someone who has no interest.”
Once again, Holly’s face turned red. “I just heard you say it—that’s all.”
“It doesn’t matter whose ring it was,” Lexi blustered, but did it? Was she out of luck in getting help from Mr. Frank since she’d stolen it herself from her stepmother? But the chain was hers. Was that okay? If not, should she just not say anything at all?
That wasn’t an option. She’d do anything to get it back.
“I’m going to tell Mr. Frank,” she said firmly. “Unless someone wants to fess up right now.”
“You’re not going anywhere except to breakfast,” Brittany said, putting her birdlike arms on her bony hips. “Now get ready.”
“I’m going to see Mr. Frank, and you can’t stop me.” Lexi straightened her back. “Why would you even try to stop me if you didn’t have anything to do with stealing my jewelry?”
“I didn’t take your stupid Cracker Jack ring.” Brittany rolled her eyes. Again. For her, it was punctuation. “So fine, go talk to Mr. Frank. But you better tell him that I said you had to go to breakfast, because I don’t want to get in trouble for you breaking the rules.”
Mr. Frank was just about the only really nice thing about Camp Catoctin, Lexi thought.
He was tall and lanky, with sad eyes and a humble smile. If he grew a beard and wore a sheet and sandals, he’d look just like Jesus. She could picture him holding a little white lamb, like the Jesus on the cover of the Bible she’d gotten from Sunday school at her church five years ago.
“I understand you have something urgent to discuss,” he said, gesturing at the bent-wood chair in front of his desk. “Please sit down and tell me what’s on your mind. You’re not feeling ill, are you?” Concern etched lines in his brow.
“No.” She shook her head and suddenly found that she had no voice. It had been a long time since she felt like anyone was listening to her, or really cared, so Mr. Frank’s kind manner choked her up.
“What is it, then, Alexis? How can I help?”
A sob escaped her lips. “Someone . . . stole something from me.”
Mr. Frank frowned. “Here? At camp?”
She nodded. “In my cabin. Last night.”
“What was it?”
This was the tricky part. She had to communicate it was of real importance without admitting that she’d gotten it under less-than-honest circumstances. “It was a necklace with a ring on it. It . . . belonged to my mother.” There. That was true. The rest came spilling out of her in choked sobs. “It’s . . . the . . . only thing . . . I . . . have . . . of . . . hers.” She took a deep, ragged breath. “I . . . know . . . maybe I shouldn’t . . . have brought it. . . .” She sniffled. “But it gets so . . . so lonely.” She covered her face with her hands and cried into them.
“There now,” Mr. Frank said gently. “There.”
She didn’t know how long she cried, but he waited patiently, watching her with care yet letting her get it all out.
She needed that.
Finally she was able to collect herself enough to speak again, though it sounded funny because her nose was as clogged as if she had a clothespin on it. “I know,” she started, but it sounded like I doe, “I should have given it to you for safekeeping, but I wanted it with me. I thought it was safe because I kept it in my pocket all day and hung it on my bedpost every night.”
“Is there any way it might have fallen or gotten tangled in the bedsheets?”
She was grateful he wasn’t dismissing this as something that didn’t matter. Maybe he didn’t know just how valuable it really was—even Lexi didn’t know the ring’s worth, although she’d heard her father talking about insuring it for tens of thousands of dollars—but he had respect for the fact that it mattered to her.
“No,” she answered him. “I looked everywhere. Everywhere. I even checked outside the door and under the porch, in case it had somehow fallen and gotten kicked outside. It’s nowhere. Someone took it.”
“You’re sure of that?”
She nodded. “The only way it could have fallen would have been if it had broken, and if that had happened, the pieces would be around somewhere. They’re not.”
Mr. Frank frowned. “Who is your counselor?”
“Brittany.”
Something crossed Mr. Frank’s expression. Did he not trust Brittany? Did that look mean he thought she had something to do with this?
“What did Brittany do when you told her the ring was missing?”
“She said she didn’t take it.”
He nodded. “Beyond that. Did she organize any sort of search with the other girls in the cabin?”
“No, she told me I was freaking out over a worthless piece of crap and that I should just shut up and go to breakfast.” There, she’d done what Brittany wanted—she told Mr. Frank that Brittany told her to go to breakfast.
He did not look pleased. “She spoke to you that way?”
“She always speaks to us that way.” Lexi didn’t care if Brittany got in trouble; it was the truth. In fact, she hoped the counselor did get in trouble. “Anyway, I made everyone pull their sheets off their beds and let me look through their suitcases. It wasn’t there.”
Mr. Frank gave a quick smile. “You certainly do take charge when you need to.”
“Brittany wasn’t going to.”
“Hm. So you are absolutely certain that it wasn’t anywhere in your cabin?”
She nodded. “Absolutely.” That was true. The ring wasn’t in the cabin. So whoever took it must have had a friend in another cabin who was willing to hide it or something.
That ruled out Holly and Nicola. They didn’t seem to have any friends in the world besides each other.
Sylvia, on the other hand, had tons of friends.
And she was just nasty enough to have done this and then lied to Lexi with a completely straight face.
“Maybe more than one person was involved,” Lexi suggested. She had to tread lightly. If she made this sound too complicated, Mr. Frank might blow it off completely, and she needed him on her side.
“Have any other counselors been in your cabin while you’ve been here? Any at all?”
Lexi thought about it a moment, but she’d never seen anyone else anywhere near there. Brittany didn’t seem too popular with the other counselors, though sometimes Lexi suspected she disappeared with a boy for an hour or so at night when she thought they were asleep, but she certainly didn’t have any visitors coming to see her where they could be seen.
“No,” Lexi said. “Except for Mrs. Marsh. She comes through at night sometimes.”
Mr. Frank nodded. “I’ve asked her to do that some lately.”
“Not that she would have taken it,” Lexi hastened to add. “Of course. She doesn’t even wear jewelry.”
“No, no.” Mr. Frank tapped his fingertips against the desk. “Well, Alexis, I’m not sure what to do beyond having a meeting with my staff to make sure everyone keeps an eye out for this ring. I’d like you to write down a description. Would you do that?”
/> Lexi nodded. “Do you think we’ll find out who took it? Do you think I’ll get it back?”
“I hope so.” He stood up and walked around the desk. “But almost as important is the fact that we have to be sure everyone stays where they’re supposed to at night and that our cabins are one hundred percent secure. If someone went into your cabin last night, and I’m not saying they did, but if someone did, we need to be very sure that doesn’t ever happen again.”
That night, after Tami and Sylvia had fallen asleep, and Brittany had slipped out to whatever rendezvous she slipped out to every night, Lexi lay in her bed and listened as Nicola and Holly spoke quietly on their bunk.
“So how big is it?” Nicola asked.
“Not as big as other houses in Potomac,” Holly said. “But I think it’s perfect. Four bedrooms upstairs, and a rec room with a pool table.”
Holly lived in Potomac?
Great.
Now Lexi would probably start running into her everywhere. That kind of thing always happened when you didn’t want it to.
“I love pool! I totally have to go visit you.”
“Oh my God, you do. That would be so much fun! Maybe you can come during fall break. Or between Christmas and New Year’s! How awesome would that be?”
“Awesome.”
“How far is Frederick from Potomac?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I don’t care how far it is—you have to come.”
“Then I can meet your little brother.”
Holly sighed audibly. “He’s such a pain. But yeah, you’ll meet him, all right. Because he’s always hanging around.”
Lexi wished she had a little brother or sister, even if he or she was a pain. Then, at least, she’d have someone to share the misery of Michelle with.
“Oooh, your dog is so cute!” This time it was Holly. “What’s his name?”
“Her name is Zuzu. She’s a golden retriever and Lab mix.”
“Awwww. And I love your yard. I always wanted a tire swing, but my dad said none of our trees are strong enough, so I have a plain old swing set that’s way too small and rusty to use now.”
So Holly had a brother and Nicola had a dog. Holly had a nice little house in Potomac with a swing set and a dad who was involved in her care and safety, and Nicola lived in Frederick, which Lexi knew was only like thirty minutes’ drive from Potomac, though she wasn’t going to tell them that.
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