“I don’t want to leave you alone with a murderer either.”
“She’s got no reason to harm me. She’s not just killing people for fun, is she? If you guys are right, she’s all about damage control. Protecting her reputation. I’m not a threat to her. Besides, won’t it make her more suspicious if I leave? I don’t want to put everyone else at risk.”
I opened my mouth to protest but stopped. He wasn’t going to change his mind. “You’re a good guy, Nick.” I glanced at my watch. It had been four minutes. “I have to go,” I told him. “Good luck.”
He gave me a quick hug. “Look upset,” he said. “In case Claire’s watching out the window.”
I put my head on his shoulder for a few seconds, faking tears. It wasn’t hard—I was on the verge of collapsing into sobs for real. “Be careful, Nick,” I said.
“Bye, Alice.”
When I looked over my shoulder, he was still standing there, watching me walk away. He raised one hand in a wave, then turned, went back into the staff cabin and closed the door behind him.
FRIDAY
TWENTY-FIVE
Caleb
One more day.
One more night.
That’s all we had to get through. Sounded simple. Until you factored in the whole bat-shit-crazy-killer scenario. Until you thought about Rahim, who wasn’t going to last that long.
Everyone had survived the night, at least. Or I assumed we had. I still hadn’t seen Nick. I had to believe that Claire hadn’t offed him and Rahim in the night. Right now, as far as we knew, she had no idea we suspected her. Unless she’d gone looking for the safe or Nick had talked in his sleep or something. I wouldn’t stop worrying until I’d seen both Nick and Rahim alive and well (or in Rahim’s case, probably barely alive) with my own eyes. And it was only six in the morning. A bit early to do a bed check in the staff cabin.
I looked around at my fellow campers. Jason and I shouldn’t have bothered hauling mattresses from the guys’ cabin to the girls’ cabin the night before. Imogen and Alice were cuddled up on Alice’s bed under the INTRO blanket, their faces inches apart, sound asleep. Chad had convinced Mandy that she’d be safer if they shared her bunk. For once I was grateful that he was such an opportunistic douche. Mandy had had a very real panic attack when it got dark; even Imogen hadn’t been able to help. It was only when Chad got up and took Mandy in his arms that she stopped shaking and crying. Male attention was the next best thing to Xanax, I guess. Spooning seemed like a logical next step. Score one for the Chadster.
Jason and I had taken turns on guard duty—two hours on, two hours off—even though we’d barricaded the door and shut all the windows. It was a long night. If Chad and Mandy had had sex, they’d been super stealthy. I wouldn’t put it past them though. I just hoped they’d used a condom. Fake-pregnant Mandy was enough of a mess.
Now it was morning, and I was hungry.
I woke Jason up and together we moved the dresser away from the door. I snuck out of the cabin and ran to the mess hall, where I raided the kitchen for anything edible and portable. Bread, peanut butter, jam, bananas, apples, energy bars, juice and a few knives all went into an empty cardboard box. By the time I got back to the cabin, Jason had woken everybody up. It was time to make a war plan.
“I say we Rambo this shit up,” Chad said, his mouth full of PB&J. “Take her down.”
Alice and Imogen were sitting up under the blanket, sharing an energy bar. “Up, down. Which is it?” Alice said acidly. “And how exactly would we do that?”
“Bust into the cabin,” Chad offered. “Take Claire by surprise. Tie her up. I dunno. You got something better?”
“Not really,” Alice said. “But Nick’s still in there. And Rahim, who can’t exactly defend himself. We can’t risk having them get hurt.”
Chad grunted. “Yeah, Nick’s not exactly built for battle. And Rahim’s no use to anyone right now. Claire could probably take them both out, no problem.”
“You’re disgusting,” Imogen said. “Nick’s braver than any of us—the only one who’s actually put himself in danger. In case you hadn’t noticed, he spent the night by choice in the same cabin as a murderer. Didn’t see you volunteering for that, did we, Rambo?”
“Someone had to stay here and look after the ladies,” Chad said. “Right, Mandy?”
Mandy nodded and took a bite of an apple. “I guess.” Of all of us, she looked the worst: blotchy skin, stringy hair (I could see where her extensions were coming loose), shadows under her eyes, cracked lips. Alice and Imogen, on the other hand, looked like Snow-White and Rose-Red in one of the books of fairy tales my mother had kept from her childhood. One blond, one dark; one slender, one curvy; both with rosy cheeks and red lips. I remembered something about a bear they looked after who turned out to be a prince. My mom loved fairy tales, even though her princes always turned out to be bears.
“I agree with Alice,” I said. “Using force doesn’t make sense. If we’re right about everything, Claire’s crazy, and she could be volatile. So we need to be smart. Get her away from the staff cabin without letting on that we know about Tara.”
“How do you propose we do that?” Alice asked. “And what do we do with her once we get her alone?”
“We need to figure out her weakness,” Jason said. “Then we exploit it. Once we get her out of the staff cabin, we lock her up in the guys’ cabin until the boat comes. Piece of cake.”
“That could work,” I said. “But what’s Claire’s weakness?” I looked around at the others.
Alice laughed, but she didn’t sound very happy. “Are you kidding me? It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?” She looked from me to Jason to Chad. “She likes teenage boys. Troubled teenage boys. So which one of you is gonna volunteer?”
“She doesn’t like me,” Chad protested. “I tried already. Not damaged enough, I guess. So which one of you studs will it be?” He leered at Jason and me and grabbed his crotch. Mandy shuddered and moved away from him. I guessed even she had some standards.
“We don’t really know that,” I objected. “I mean, she had an affair with this guy Noah. Who may or may not have been Tara’s Noah. But even if he was, that doesn’t mean this is like a pattern for her.” But even as I spoke, I remembered the way Claire had held my hand when she’d asked me to bury Warren.
“Uh…” Jason started to say something, then stopped.
Alice pounced on him. “What? Say it. Did she make a move on you?”
His face was a shade pinker than usual. “Maybe. Kind of flirted, like? I thought I was imagining it, but maybe I wasn’t.”
“You weren’t,” Imogen said. “So are you volunteering? Or do you want your turn, Caleb?”
Jason made a face and looked at me. “Flip you for it?” he asked. When I nodded, he dug in his pocket, pulled out a quarter and tossed it to Alice. “Call it,” he said to me as we watched the coin turn in the air.
“Heads,” I called.
“Tails,” Alice said when the coin landed in her palm. She showed it to Imogen and then to us.
“Tails it is,” I said. “But you’re going to have to help me figure out what to do.”
* * *
Half an hour later I was walking up the steps to the staff cabin, wearing one of Chad’s Slayer T-shirts, which was at least two sizes too small for me. You need more bicep action, Mandy had said.
And try to look, you know, broody, Alice had added. Angsty, not angry.
I raised my hand to knock on the door. The mandatory biceps rippled under the tight shirt. I searched my soul for some angst. It wasn’t hard to find. Just wearing a Slayer T-shirt made me question the meaning of life.
Nick answered the door, and I motioned to him to come outside.
“Is Claire still asleep?” I whispered as we stood on the steps.
Nick nodded. “She was up pretty late last night. Talking about Warren and all the stuff they had planned. Saying all the right things about Rahim, but there’s something off there. Honestl
y, I don’t think she gives a shit about him.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Bad.” He hesitated. “Look, I was thinking: could we fix that kayak? Maybe I could paddle out and look for boats like Warren was supposed to do? I hardly know Rahim, but there’s no way I’m letting the guy die.”
“He’s not gonna die,” I said, more adamantly than I felt. What did I know about diabetic comas? “Can you hang in there with him for now?”
Nick nodded. “But I have to sleep. I’ve been awake all night. Can someone else come and be with him for a while? He needs to be woken up every couple of hours to drink, even if it’s only a sip or two. I think keeping him hydrated is pretty much the only thing we can do.”
“Okay, go to the girls’ cabin and tell Imogen and Mandy to come stay with Rahim while you nap,” I said. “But you’re going to have to sleep in there. We need the guys’ cabin for something else.”
As quickly as I could, I brought Nick up to speed on our plan.
“Well, beat as I am, I’m not sure I can sleep while that’s going on. But at least it explains the shirt,” he said when I was finished. “I was starting to worry about you. Didn’t take you for a Slayer guy.”
“I’m not. According to Mandy, it’s all about the biceps,” I said. “That and acting open and vulnerable. Which is a lot harder than it sounds.”
He smiled wanly. “Any other day I’d appreciate the biceps. And the vulnerability. Right now I just want a nap.”
“Soon, buddy, soon.” I flexed my biceps and rippled my pecs. “Time to pull out the big guns.”
“Good luck with that,” he said. “I’ll go wake her up and tell her you need her help.” He hesitated, then met my eyes for a brief moment. “And watch your back, Caleb. Because if you guys are right about this? She’s dangerous.”
I waited on the steps, sitting with my head in my hands, the picture of despair. After about ten minutes the door opened, and Claire came out and sat down beside me. I didn’t look up. She placed a hand on my arm. More accurately, on my bicep. I flexed gently. The hand stayed where it was.
“Caleb, what’s wrong? Nick says he’s worried about you.”
She really didn’t look dangerous. Not like a killer. Were we the crazy ones?
“I’m not sure I can talk about it,” I said, doing my best to sound upset. It wasn’t hard—my hands were cold and sweaty, and my stomach was in knots.
“Talk about what?”
I lifted my head and looked at her. Soulfully. “I’m so ashamed…”
“Of what, Caleb? You can tell me. This is a safe place.”
I looked past her to the door of the cabin. “It’s not,” I said. “Nick is in there. We can’t talk here.”
“Where is the rest of the group?” she asked. “Still asleep?”
I shook my head. “They’re at the mess hall. Eating breakfast. I feel too sick to eat.”
“Anxiety will do that, Caleb,” she said. “The last few days have been rough on everybody.”
No kidding, I wanted to say. Tara and Warren and Rahim would totally agree with that.
“Feeling anxious is completely normal,” she continued. “But most guys aren’t brave enough to admit that they’re not okay. I think I misjudged you, Caleb.” Her hand stroked my arm. I tried not to flinch.
“There’s no one in the guys’ cabin,” I said.
“Just let me grab my hoodie from my room.” She disappeared into the staff cabin. A minute later she returned, pink hoodie over her arm, and held her hand out to me. I let her pull me to my feet and lead me down the path to the guys’ cabin. It took all my willpower to keep my hand in hers. I wasn’t kidding about feeling sick. When the door closed behind us, I could see her taking in the mess—clothes everywhere, mattresses on the floor, a pile of energy bars on Chad’s bed and a stack of juice boxes on the floor, the half-closed blinds hanging over the open window.
“Boys,” she said as she looked around. “So predictable.”
She lowered herself to the edge of Jason’s bunk and patted the mattress next to her. “Sit, Caleb. We can’t talk with you looming over me.”
I sat obediently, and she smiled at me. I suddenly understood what the expression “my flesh crawled” means. As unlikely as it seemed, I was almost certain this was a woman who had killed a girl to protect her job and her marriage…and then killed her husband too.
TWENTY-SIX
Caleb
“I’m glad you came to find me,” she was saying. “Men are socialized to bottle up their emotions, but after everything that has happened, it’s normal to feel overwhelmed. And it’s healthy to share how you feel, Caleb—to want to connect with another person. Connection is a basic human need.”
A phrase floated into my mind: Incapable of feeling shame, guilt or remorse. Where had that come from? And then I remembered. Before Barry, my mom had dated a total jerk named Norman. After they broke up, she was reading some magazine and came across an article about how to spot a sociopath. Norman was a textbook case. Smart, charming as hell, narcissistic and, yup, incapable of feeling shame, guilt or remorse.
Just like the woman next to me on the bed.
I moved away from her and stood up. “Is that what you told Noah?” I said as I moved toward the door. I spoke loudly so I wouldn’t lose my nerve—and so that Jason, Chad and Alice, who should be waiting outside, could hear. “That all he needed was some connection? Did you tell him it was therapeutic?”
For a second she seemed frozen in place. Then she relaxed, smiling at me. “Caleb. Noah? Is this Tara’s boyfriend you’re talking about?” She shook her head. “Look, I don’t know what Tara told you, but she wasn’t…well, she was disturbed. She had trouble keeping track of what was real and what wasn’t. I never met Noah. I didn’t even meet Tara before this week.”
I felt a flicker of uncertainty. If she was lying, she was disconcertingly good at it.
“We found the letter he wrote you,” I said, then took a deep breath. “We know, Claire. You killed Tara to stop her from looking at Noah’s emails. To make sure no one found out about your affair.” There. It was out. I hoped to hell we were right.
Something changed in her face, like a shutter had lifted and I was suddenly seeing past the mask. Like she realized there was no point in continuing with the innocent act. Her eyes were cold, calculating—she was making a decision, I thought. Then the look was gone, so quickly I wondered if I had imagined it, and her eyes filled with tears. “Caleb…oh my god. You can’t really think…you can’t really believe…”
“I didn’t want to,” I said. “But the letter we found was pretty damning. And we found the empty insulin bottles and the radio part…Warren’s dead and Rahim’s dying, and none of us had access to the safe. So…well, it looks bad, Claire.”
She pressed her fingers to her lips and shook her head, tears spilling out of her eyes.
“Why would you hide that stuff if you had done nothing wrong?” I asked.
She got to her feet and stepped closer. “Caleb. Listen to me.”
Her voice was pleading and soft, her hand on my arm. I held my breath and forced myself to stay still. If she was about to confess, I didn’t want to scare her off.
“Let me explain,” she said. “I want you to understand, okay?”
I nodded. “I’m listening.” I wished I had a recording device of some kind. It was too bad Jason hadn’t known how to hack those phones.
“Noah was a client in my counseling practice. In Vancouver. This was a couple of years ago now. And he and I, well…we fell in love. Deeply in love.” She looked up at me through long wet lashes. “Have you ever been in love, Caleb?”
I ignored her question. “How old was he?” I asked. “Fifteen? Sixteen?”
“That’s not the point, Caleb.” Her voice rose a little. “The point is, we were in love. He was young, and he was my client, and I was married. But we couldn’t let those things come between us, not when we felt the way we did about each other. We had n
o choice but to keep our relationship a secret.”
“And then…what, he killed himself?”
Claire flinched, closing her eyes for a second. “It was awful, Caleb. You can’t imagine how I felt when I heard the news. I’d tried so hard to help him.” She slid her hand down my arm and squeezed my wrist. “And, of course, I had to carry on as if nothing was wrong. I had to grieve in silence.”
I pulled my hand away. “So when Tara started talking about her boyfriend killing himself—is that when you realized?”
She nodded. “I’d had no idea who she was. But when she said her boyfriend was called Noah, and she talked about how he’d died, I knew it must be her.”
“And we were all telling her to check his email, find out who he’d been involved with…” I trailed off. If we hadn’t done that, would Tara still be here?
“I didn’t have a choice,” Claire said. “You can see that, can’t you? I couldn’t let Tara go home and start snooping around. I would’ve lost everything. My marriage, my counseling practice, INTRO. All of it.”
“So you killed her?” I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear her say it.
“I had no choice,” she repeated. “Caleb, you have to understand. Noah was damaged. I loved him, but he was never going to be okay. And Tara was the same. Weak. Pathetic, really. She’d probably have ended up killing herself anyway. But I…well, I have my whole future ahead of me. I have so much good I can do.” Her eyes met mine. “I can help people, Caleb. I’ve trained for years to be able to help people, and I am excellent at my job. Should that all go to waste because of one little mistake? It didn’t make sense.”
“You signed my name,” I said. “You left her a note, and you signed my name. And you met her on the beach and… then what?”
“She didn’t see it coming,” Claire said. Her face was close to mine, her gaze intense. “She didn’t suffer at all. I want you to know that, Caleb, because I can see you’re a deeply compassionate person. I am too. I didn’t want to do this, you know? It’s just the way things turned out.”
Blood on the Beach Page 15