The Lake

by Natasha Preston

  “Esme…”

  “Please?”

  “There’s nothing to tell,” he says, scowling.

  My jaw drops as he turns and walks out of the cupboard. He shuts the door a little harder than necessary.

  And I know one thing for sure. Olly’s keeping secrets too.

  37

  What is he hiding? Olly is lying to me, and I’m still half-lying to him.

  When confessing my horrible secret, I left out the most important part of that night, and right now, I’m glad I did. Why would I tell him every gory detail when he’s not telling me anything?

  I open the cupboard door, flick off the light, and make my way outside.

  Everyone is still in the same place as before. Olly is nowhere to be seen, so he must already be in his cabin.

  I don’t know what’s happening with us now. I went in wary of him, then we were kissing, now he’s mad at me. There’s less back-and-forth in a game of Ping-Pong.

  “Esme, you okay?” Kayla says as I walk into our little room, ready for bed.

  The girls are still whispering to each other. Lights-out isn’t for another thirty minutes.

  “Ugh, not really.” I drop onto Kayla’s bed and put my head in my hands.

  “What’s going on?”

  Tilting my head to the side, I peek up at her through my fingers. “I told Olly.”

  Her light blue eyes bulge. “You did what?”

  I drop my hands. “Not about Lillian and I didn’t mention you. I told him that I was in the forest and accidentally set it on fire.”

  “What the hell! Why?”

  “I don’t know. He could see that something was up, and he’d just kissed me.”

  “Wait, what? He kissed you? How was it?”

  Really? I shake my head and ignore the question. “Anyway, he was understanding about the fire. He knew it wasn’t intentional.”

  “Then what? You definitely didn’t mention Lillian? We were supposed to take that to our grave.”

  “I’m sorry. It all got a bit much. I swear I only told him that I did it, no mention of you.”

  “Why do you look so down if Olly doesn’t blame you for the fire and he kissed you?”

  “Um…so I told him the truth about why I was snooping in his room, that I was suspicious. That annoyed him, but he got over it. After the kiss, when I dropped the bomb and said maybe what’s happening now is due to that, he said something odd.”

  “Well?”

  “He said that I’m probably not the only one to get into trouble at camp.”

  Sitting taller, Kayla tilts her head closer to me. “Like something else has gone down?”

  “Thank you! That’s exactly what I thought, too, but he got all shady and left in a huff, slamming the door.”

  “He’s overreacting, right? That means the dude’s hiding something.”

  “Do you think he was a camper here?”

  “We’d remember those eyes.”

  “Yeah, I would, but maybe he was here after we were?”

  “Isn’t that a little too much of a coincidence? Bad stuff happened to three campers who all find themselves shiny-new CITs at the same time in the same place?”

  “I guess.”

  “Ugh, I hate that I’m being sucked back into this…but what’s the theory here, Esme? Olly’s involved like Lillian, or he’s like us?”

  I’m not going to apologize for “sucking her back into this.” She never should have left.

  “I have no clue.” I throw my hands up. “It’s so frustrating because I know he’s keeping a secret even after I told him mine. It wasn’t easy to spill. Now he has a confession…maybe. Does it even matter?”

  Kayla seems to consider this. “You have to talk to him. We need to know what he’s hiding.”

  “How, though?”

  “I vote for the direct route. Rip the Band-Aid off, Esme. Walk up to him and demand answers.”

  “Thank you,” I say sarcastically. “That was superhelpful.”

  “Well, I don’t think he’s going to have it all written down for you to snoop again and steal!”

  “That reminds me, I should try to get another look at Rebekah’s diary.”

  “I love that almost getting caught isn’t a deterrent for you.”

  “Getting caught just makes me sneakier. Besides, next time you’re going to do a better job of keeping her busy.”

  “What do you want me to do, lie on the ground and hold her ankles?”

  “No, start crying and she’ll comfort you.”

  Kayla opens, then closes her mouth. Then she says, “That’s actually a good idea.”

  “I know!”

  I strip my clothes off and get into my pajamas.

  “Fine, I’ll do that,” she says. “What do you want to do first tomorrow, interrogate Olly or ransack Rebekah’s room?”

  She makes us sound so delightful. At least she’s with me again. I’m not sure how long it will last, though. She’ll probably spook again with Lillian’s next move.

  “I’ll start with Olly,” I reply. “There’s a hike tomorrow afternoon, and I’m going to have a very bad headache.”

  “I don’t know if I should be proud of you or fear you.”

  I smile. “Think you can talk to Jake and find out if Olly has mentioned anything to him?”

  “Sure.”

  “Just don’t be obvious about it. Oh, and if you tell Jake about the fire, that’s okay.”

  “Do you think Olly will tell him?”

  “I hope not.”

  “I hope Jake doesn’t know anything,” Kayla says, sighing dreamily.

  “That’s going well, then?”

  Her expression turns mushy. “I picked a good one that day. He’s sweet and also has that alpha male thing working for him.”

  “Because he wants to go into the forest and pummel the person doing this?”

  “He wants to protect us.”

  “Stop swooning long enough to keep a straight head, yeah?”

  “What does that mean?” Kayla demands.

  “Olly’s not being honest about a lot. I think he might know Jake better than he says he does. They’re very…in tune. They’re a little too close for having only met a couple of weeks ago, don’t you think?”

  “Jake wouldn’t lie.”

  “You’ve known him for, like, three minutes, Kayla.”

  “He wouldn’t lie.”

  “You can’t be certain of that.”

  “You need to stop pissing off all your friends, Esme.”

  Oh, come on!

  Is she really arguing with me over a boy she barely knows? This is the last thing we need with all that’s going on.

  “Not trying to. I want to get to the bottom of this, same as you do,” I tell her.

  “Then can we agree to not accuse my boyfriend of being a liar?”

  Boyfriend? Since when? Something tells me not to focus on that part or she might get cranky with me again.

  “Yep,” I say, smiling with gritted teeth. “We can agree to that.”

  I climb up onto my bed and scoot under the blanket.

  “So, our suspect list is currently sitting at two? Rebekah and Olly?” Kayla asks.

  “Yes,” I reply, silently adding a third as I curl up.

  Jake.

  38

  I jump awake, clutching the thin blanket to my chest.

  What was that?

  There was a crash. I’m sure I wasn’t dreaming.

  I throw the blanket off and climb down the ladder. Kayla is still asleep—she wouldn’t wake if there were an atomic bomb. Surely I can’t be the only one who heard the crash.

  The girls are also asleep. But the noise was too real to just be my imagination.

&n
bsp; Frowning, I pad toward the cabin door and slide the dead bolt open. The metal scrapes and I clench my teeth. Shh.

  When I get the lock off, I pull the door open.

  Be brave.

  Stepping onto the porch, I glance around. It’s early; the sun is still a while off from rising.

  I look to my left. Olly is outside his cabin. Are we the only light sleepers?

  “You heard that too?” he asks.

  “Yeah, it woke me up. What was it?”

  “I don’t know. I think it came from your direction.”

  I glance the other way. Nothing looks off.

  “Do you think something fell?” I ask.

  Olly walks toward me. “Maybe. The thud sounded like something against wood, right?”

  “Look,” I say, as my eyes land on the food hall. Its door is wide open. “The door wasn’t open when we went to bed.”

  Olly’s eyes narrow. “Great.”

  What has Lillian done this time?

  Olly stops when he reaches the steps of my cabin. “Okay. You wait here, and I’ll go check it out.”

  “Wait, what?” I jog down the steps and grab his wrist. “You can’t go in there alone. We don’t know what’s happening!”

  “Esme, you can’t go in there at all. Just wait until I’ve seen if it’s safe.”

  My back stiffens. “Yes, I can go in there.”

  “I love that you have this super-chick thing going on and you don’t need saving, but right now can you please stay here?”

  I cross my arms. He’s right about one thing. I don’t need saving.

  I watch him walk toward the food hall. Then I follow because there’s no way I’m going to stay put. This is my mess.

  Creeping closer, I try to look around the door as Olly opens it.

  He looks over his shoulder and lifts his eyebrows like he knew I wouldn’t do as I was told. “I mean it, Esme, wait until I’ve gone in.”

  “What if that’s what they want to happen, huh?” I whisper, wrapping my arms around my stomach as I look back toward the lake.

  “Don’t be an ass,” he hisses.

  A smile touches my lips as I follow closely behind him.

  Groaning my name this time, like he’s beyond frustrated, he tilts his head back. “Can you not just do as you’re told?”

  “No. It’s a curse.”

  He turns around and I follow close behind him.

  Lifting his hand, he flicks on the light and we both gasp.

  39

  Is that what I think it is?

  I blink hard, but when I open my eyes the image is the same.

  This is very, very real.

  The carcass of a deer lies in the middle of the floor between two tables. Blood pools in a circle around it like a grim rug.

  I grab Olly’s hand as my pulse thumps in my ears.

  “What the hell is that?” he says.

  I stare unblinking until my eyes sting. “It’s a deer.”

  Doing a double take, he stares at me like I’m insane. “I know it’s a deer, but why is it in the middle of the cabin, dead?”

  Because Lillian is sick.

  I should’ve known she would do something like this. The night of the fire, she terrified me and Kayla by showing us a poor animal that she’d killed and mutilated. It was the reason Kayla lashed out at her in the first place.

  I should call an Uber right now.

  “We eat in here. Children eat in here,” I mutter. “I can’t believe anyone would do this.”

  Olly covers his mouth. “I think I’m going to hurl.”

  Okay, get it together. You’re not supposed to know who is behind this.

  “L-let’s look around. There might be a note like the one we got on the door.”

  He exhales. “Our resident psycho is getting bolder.”

  I walk around the tables, making sure to put as much distance between me and freaking Bambi as possible.

  The deer isn’t huge, but it’s probably heavy. It’s also covered in blood, so getting it here couldn’t have been easy. It had to be a two-person job, surely.

  “Esme, here,” Olly says.

  I turn to see him pick up a piece of paper from a table. He scrunches his nose. “Damn, that’s gross. It’s written in blood.”

  “What does it say?” I ask, jogging over.

  “It says, ‘Someone here wants to talk.’ ” He looks up. “Who wants to talk?”

  Someone. “Maybe it’s about Mary? She’s been very vocal about going to the cops.”

  “She’s been vocal when we’re around the campfire. How close is this person?” Olly asks, holding the note up.

  I wave my hand at the dead deer. “Pretty damn close, Olly!”

  In my room too.

  “We need to get Andy,” he says.

  “I—I’ll go.”

  Olly looks down at the deer with wide eyes.

  Whatever his secret is, I don’t think he was involved in putting the deer in the food hall.

  I turn on my heel and race outside, down the steps and to the staff cabin, where Andy is sleeping peacefully. I almost feel bad for waking him up with this news.

  Almost. I need someone else to deal with this, because I’ll clean up the blood, but I’m not touching that deer.

  I rap lightly on his bedroom window.

  A minute later, the curtain is pulled to the side. Andy’s eyes land on me, and he startles.

  “Esme?” he says, opening the window and rubbing his pale forehead. “What are you doing?”

  “I need you to come to the food hall,” I say breathlessly.

  His face falls. Shutting the window, he drops the curtain and I hear him bumping about, getting his clothes and shoes on.

  I walk around to the front of the cabin and wait.

  “What happened?” he asks, dashing through the door and down the steps.

  “A deer,” I say. “Dead.”

  “A dead deer?”

  “Dead. Murdered. I don’t know. It’s in the food hall!”

  “In it?”

  “Yes, come on.”

  He runs past me and I follow, sprinting up the food hall steps.

  I hear Andy say Olly’s name and then he cusses the air blue.

  “How did you find this?” he asks, sinking to his knees near the animal.

  The blood is close to him. I squirm. Move back a little.

  Olly crouches down. “I heard a crash. It sounded like chairs falling over or being thrown. Esme heard it too. The door was open, so we came in here and found this.”

  “Whoever it was, they couldn’t have gotten far,” I say, pressing one hand against my rolling stomach.

  They both turn to me.

  “God,” Andy breathes. “All right. I’m going to get my phone and take some pictures, then we’re going to clean this up. No panicking, we’re not giving this person what they want.”

  “Okay.” Nothing is okay, and that sounds like an awful plan, but I don’t have a better one.

  “You two stay here,” Andy tells us.

  I walk around the deer when Andy leaves, and Olly rises to his feet.

  “Are you all right?” he asks.

  “Are we all right?” I counter.

  He was mad at me five hours ago.

  Olly grabs my hand and pulls me in for a hug. I sink against him and my muscles relax. “We’re cool, Esme. Does the deer mean anything?”

  “What?” I mutter against his shoulder.

  “You think the person doing all this knows about the fire? Is a deer relevant to anything that happened that night?”

  Wow. What a question to ask. He’s perceptive.

  “What is it, Esme?”

  “There was a dead deer near the fire si
te. But it wasn’t significant.”

  Another lie.

  The deer was significant.

  My head spins. Of course it was significant. I should have known back then how troubled Lillian was. I was scared of her then. I’m petrified of her now.

  “What do you think it means?” Olly presses.

  I shrug. “I don’t know!”

  It’s a warning just like that night: Fear me.

  “Everything okay?” Andy asks, walking back into the cabin.

  Olly looks up and rubs my back. “She’s just a little freaked.”

  “It’ll be fine, Esme. This person is just trying to scare us.”

  I turn around and Olly drops one of his arms from around me. “It’s working,” I say. “I’m scared for the campers. What if they’d found this?”

  Andy shakes his head. “They’re never in here first. Whoever did this knew that it would be staff who found it. This was all for us.”

  That makes sense. We always set up before the campers come in to eat. Lillian’s knowledge of the camp is too great for her to not have been here. Or not to have an accomplice who’s here.

  There was no one else with Lillian that night in the woods. If Lillian isn’t Rebekah, she must have told her everything.

  I take a breath.

  Andy shakes a blanket out. “Are you ready to get this deer into the woods, Olly?”

  Wrinkling his nose, he replies, “Sure.”

  That is such a crap job. “How far will you take it?”

  “Not too far. There’s an area between two trails that’s filled with bush. It’ll be hidden in there.”

  “Great. I’ll go and get buckets and cleaning supplies,” I say. “The quicker we clean the blood up, the less likely it’ll be to stain.”

  There are a lot of stains on the floor anyway. Hopefully the blood will blend in with them.

  Or I could bleach the bloodstain and it would be lighter. That’s preferable to a faded patch of blood.

  I’m almost to the kitchen when I hear the front door creak open.

  40

  I spin around. Andy and Olly are already facing the door.