by Riley Sager
Theo stays completely still, not reacting as I continue to press my lips to his. But soon he’s kissing me back, upping the intensity.
I press against him, my palms on his chest. Not hitting this time. Caressing. Theo’s arms snake around me, holding me tight, pulling me even closer. I know the deal. I’m as much a distraction for him as he is for me. I don’t care. Not when his lips are on my neck and his hand is sliding under my shirt.
More thudding sounds erupt from outside the window. Another helicopter approaching. Or maybe it’s the same one, making another pass. It swoops directly over Dogwood, so loud I can’t hear anything but the thrum of its rotors. The window rattles.
Caught in that noise, Theo lifts me, carries me to my bunk, lowering me into it. He takes off his shirt, revealing more scars. A dozen at least. They crisscross his skin from shoulder to navel, looking like claw marks. I think of his accident—twisted metal, shattered glass, shards breaking skin and glancing off bone.
I caused those scars.
Every single one.
Now Theo’s on top of me, heavy and safe and warm. But I can’t let this go any further, distraction be damned.
“Theo, stop.”
He pulls away from me, confusion skidding through his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t do this.” I slide out from under him and move to the other side of the cabin, where I’m less likely to reach out and touch his scars, my fingers tracing the length of each one. “Not until I tell you something.”
Although the helicopter has moved on, I can still hear it thudding over the lake. I wait until the sound subsides before saying, “I know, Theo. About you and Vivian.”
“There was no me and Vivian.”
“You don’t need to lie about it. Not anymore.”
“I’m not lying. What are you talking about?”
“I saw you, Theo. You and Vivian. In the shower. I saw, and it broke my heart.”
“When was this?” Theo says.
“The night they vanished.”
I don’t need to say anything else. Theo understands the rest. Why I accused him. How that accusation has followed him since. He sits up and rubs his jaw, his fingers cutting through the salt-and-pepper stubble.
I had always thought having the truth exposed would make me feel better. That relief would flood my body from my head to the tips of my toes. Instead, I only feel guilty. And petty. And unbearably sad.
“I’m so, so sorry,” I say. “I was young and stupid and worried about the girls and heartbroken because of you. So when that state trooper asked me if any of them had a boyfriend no one knew about, I told her that you were secretly seeing Vivian.”
“But I wasn’t,” he replies.
“Theo, I saw you.”
“You saw someone. Just not me. Yes, Vivian flirted and made it clear she’d be up for it. But I was never interested.”
I replay that moment in my mind. Hearing the moans muffled by the rush of the shower. Peering through the space between the planks. Seeing Vivian shoved against the wall, her hair running down her neck in wet tendrils, twisting like snakes. Theo behind her. Pushing into her. Face buried against her neck.
His face.
I never actually saw it.
I had just assumed it was Theo because I had seen him in the shower before.
“It had to be you,” I say. “There’s no one else it could be. You were the only man in the entire camp.”
Even as the words emerge, I know I’m wrong. There was someone else here close to Theo’s age. Someone who went unnoticed, simply doing his job, hiding in plain sight.
“The groundskeeper,” I say.
“Ben,” Theo says with a huff of disgust. “And if he did something like that back then, who knows what he’s been up to now.”
30
“Tell me about the girls,” Detective Flynn says. “The ones who are missing. Did you have any interactions with them?”
“I might have seen them. Don’t remember if I did or not, but probably.”
“Did you have any interactions with any of the girls in camp?”
“Not on purpose. Maybe if I needed to get somewhere and they were in my way, I’d say excuse me. Other than that, I keep to myself.”
He looks up at us from a chair built for someone half his age, his gaze resting a moment on each of our faces. First me. Then Theo. And finally Detective Flynn.
We’re all in the arts and crafts building, the mess hall having been taken over by the remaining campers and instructors for dinner. I spotted them glumly filing inside as Theo and I headed next door. A few of the girls still wept. Most wore stunned, blank expressions that were occasionally punctuated by disbelief. I saw it in their eyes when they lifted their faces to the sky as the search helicopter made another deafening pass over camp.
So we ended up here, in a former horse stable painted to resemble a storybook forest, lit by fluorescent bulbs that buzz overhead. I stand next to Theo, keeping several feet of space between us. I still don’t entirely trust him. I’m sure he feels the same way about me. But for now, we’re uncomfortable allies, united in our suspicion of a man whose full name I’ve only recently learned.
Ben Schumacher.
The groundskeeper. The man who had sex with Vivian. The same man who might know where Miranda, Krystal, and Sasha are. I let Flynn do the talking, choosing to stay silent even though all I want is to pummel Ben Schumacher until he tells me where they are and what he’s done to them.
He certainly appears capable of doing harm. He’s got a hard look about him. He’s spent much of his life working outdoors, and it shows in the calluses on his hands and the sunburned streak on the bridge of his nose. He’s big, too. There’s a noticeable bulk hidden beneath his flannel shirt and white tee.
“Where were you at five this morning?” Detective Flynn asks him.
“Probably in the kitchen. About to get ready for work.”
Flynn nods toward the gold wedding band on Ben’s left hand. “Can your wife confirm that?”
“I hope so, seeing how she was in the kitchen with me. Although she’s awfully groggy before that first cup of coffee.”
Ben chuckles. The rest of us don’t. He leans back in his chair and says, “Why are you asking me this stuff?”
“What’s your job here?” Flynn says, ignoring the question.
“Groundskeeper. I told you that already.”
“I know, but what specifically do you do?”
“Whatever needs doing. Mowing the lawn. Working on the buildings.”
“So, general maintenance?”
“Yeah.” Ben gives a half smirk at the vaguely genteel job description. “General maintenance.”
“And how long have you worked for Camp Nightingale?”
“I don’t. I work for the family. Sometimes that means doing some things for the camp. Sometimes it doesn’t.”
“Then how long have you worked for the Harris-Whites?”
“About fifteen years.”
“Which means the summer Camp Nightingale closed was your first summer here?”
“It was,” Ben says.
Flynn makes a note of it in the same notebook he jotted down all my useless information. “How did you get the job?”
“I was a year out of high school, picking up the odd job here and there around town. Barely scraping by. So when I got wind that Mrs. Harris-White was looking for a groundskeeper, I jumped at the chance. Been here ever since.”
For confirmation, Flynn turns to Theo, who says, “It’s true.”
“Fifteen years is a long time to be working the same job,” Flynn tells Ben. “Do you like working for the Harris-Whites?”
“It’s decent work. Pays well. Puts a roof over my family’s head and food in their stomachs. I got no complaints.”
“
What about the family? Do you like them?”
Ben looks to Theo, his expression unreadable. “Like I said, no complaints.”
“Back to your interactions with the girls in camp,” Flynn says. “Are you certain there wasn’t any contact with them? Maybe you had to do some work in their cabin.”
“He installed the camera outside Dogwood,” Theo says.
Flynn writes that down in his notebook. “As you know, Mr. Schumacher, that’s the cabin where the missing girls were staying. Did you happen to see them when you were putting up the camera?”
“No.”
“What about the oldest one? Miranda. I’ve been told other camp workers noticed her.”
“Not me,” Ben says. “I keep my head down. None of this camp stuff is my business.”
“What about fifteen years ago? Were you the same way back then?”
“Yes.”
Flynn makes a move to write down the answer in his notebook. But he pauses, his pen tip a millimeter from the page. “I’m giving you another shot at the answer. Just so I don’t have to waste time writing down something that might be a lie.”
“Why do you think I’m lying?”
“One of the girls who disappeared back then was named Vivian Hawthorne. You probably remember her.”
“I remember that she was never found.”
“I was told you might have had a relationship with Miss Hawthorne. Which would be the complete opposite of minding your own business. So is it true? Was there a relationship between the two of you?”
I expect a denial. Ben gives us all a defiant look as that half smirk lifts the corner of his lips. But then he says, “Yeah. Although it wasn’t much of what you’d call a relationship.”
“It was strictly sexual in nature?” Flynn says.
“That’s right. A one-and-done kind of deal.”
Ben’s smirk grows, on the verge of a leer. Again, I resist the urge to punch him. But I can’t stop myself from saying, “She was only sixteen. You know that, right?”
“And I was only nineteen,” Ben says. “That age difference didn’t seem like such a big deal. Besides, it wasn’t illegal. I got three daughters of my own now. So I know damn well what the statutory rape laws are.”
“But you knew it was a bad idea,” Flynn tells him. “Otherwise you would have told someone about it after Miss Hawthorne and two other girls from her cabin went missing.”
“Because I knew the cops would think I had something to do with it. That’s what this is about, right? You’re all standing there thinking I had something to do with what happened to those poor girls.”
“Did you?”
Ben stands suddenly, sending the chair skidding across the floor behind him. Veins bulge at his temples, and his hands curl into fists, as though he’s about to take a swing at Flynn. He definitely looks like he wants to.
“I’m a father now. I’d be going crazy if my girls were missing. Makes me sick to my stomach just thinking about it. You should be out there looking for them instead of asking me about some dumb shit I did fifteen years ago.”
He stops, out of breath. His chest heaves, and his fists unclench. Resigned exhaustion settles over him as he retrieves his too-small chair and sits back down.
“Keep on asking your goddamn questions,” he says. “I’ll answer them. I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“Then let’s go back to Vivian Hawthorne,” Flynn says. “How did it start?”
“I don’t know. It just kind of happened.”
“Did you instigate it?”
“Hell no,” Ben says. “Like I said, I wasn’t looking for trouble. I mean, I saw her around camp. It was hard not to notice her.”
“Did you find her attractive?” Flynn asks.
“Sure. She was hot, and she knew it. But there was something else about her. A confidence. It made her stand out from the other girls. She was different.”
“Different how?”
“Most of those girls were stuck-up. Snooty. They’d look right past me like I wasn’t even there. Like I didn’t exist. Vivian wasn’t like that. The very first day of camp she came up to me and introduced herself. I don’t remember you from last year. That’s what she said. She asked me about my job, how long I’d been here. Just friendly. It felt nice having someone like her pay attention to me.”
That sounds like the Vivian I knew. A master at seduction. It didn’t matter if you were the camp groundskeeper or a thirteen-year-old girl. She knew exactly what kind of attention you needed before you even knew it yourself.
“We hung out a few times those first days of camp. During lunch, she’d come find me working and talk for a few minutes. By then, I knew what she wanted. She wasn’t shy about it.”
Flynn, who’s been steadily writing all this down in his notebook, pauses long enough to say, “How many times did the two of you engage in intercourse?”
“Once.”
“Do you remember the date?”
“Only because it was the Fourth of July,” Ben says. “I was working late that day, trying to milk the overtime money Mrs. Harris-White was offering. All the girls were at the campfire, and I was getting ready to go home when Vivian showed up. She didn’t say anything. She just came right up to me and kissed me. Then she walked away, looking over her shoulder to make sure I followed.”
He gives no further details. Not that I need them. I already know the rest.
What I don’t know is why.
“That Fourth of July was the night Miss Hawthorne and the others disappeared,” Flynn says.
Ben nods. “I know. I don’t need a reminder.”
“What did you do after it was over?”
“Vivian left before me. I remember she was in a hurry to get out of there. She said people would start to realize she was gone. So she got dressed and left.”
“And was that the last time you saw her?”
“Yes, sir, it was.” Ben pauses to scratch the back of his neck, giving the question more thought. “Sort of.”
“So you did see her again after that?”
“Not her,” Ben clarified. “Something she left behind.”
“I don’t follow,” Flynn says, speaking for all of us.
“I left the latrine not long after Vivian did. On the drive home, I realized my keys were missing. The ones I use for camp.”
“What do they access?”
“Camp buildings,” Ben says. “The Lodge. Mess hall. The toolshed and latrine.”
“The cabins?” Flynn asks.
Ben offers us another partial smirk. “I bet you wish it was that easy, but no. Not the cabins.”
Flynn again looks to Theo for confirmation. He gives a slight nod and says, “He’s telling the truth.”
“I thought they might have fallen out of my pocket in the latrine,” Ben continues. “Or maybe somewhere else. When I got to work the next morning, Vivian and the two others had already disappeared. At the time, no one seemed too worried. They’d only been gone a couple of hours, and everyone assumed they’d come back eventually. So I went looking for the keys. I ended up finding them at the toolshed behind the Lodge. The door was open. The keys were still in the lock.”
“And you think Miss Hawthorne left them there?”
“I do. I think she took them out of my pocket when we were in the latrine.”
“What was kept in the toolshed?” Flynn says.
“Equipment, mostly. The lawn mower. Chains for tires in winter. That kind of thing.”
“Why would she need to go to the toolshed?”
The question elicits a shrug from Ben. “Damned if I know.”
But I do. Vivian went there to retrieve a shovel. The same one she used to dig a hole that would eventually conceal her diary.
“You should have told us,” Theo says. “About all of it. But you
didn’t, and now my family can never trust you again.”
Ben gives him a hard stare. In his eyes burns what can only be described as barely concealed disgust.
“Don’t you dare judge me, Theodore,” he says, spitting out the name like something that’s left a bad taste in his mouth. “You think you’re better than me? Just because some rich woman plucked you out of an orphanage? That just means you’re lucky.”
The color drains from Theo’s face. I can’t tell if it’s because of shock or anger. He opens his mouth to reply but is cut off by a noise rising suddenly from outside. Someone shouting. The voice echoes off the water.
“I see something!”
Theo turns to me, panicked. “That’s Chet.”
We rush out of the arts and crafts building, Detective Flynn in the lead, surprisingly quick on his feet. At the mess hall, a bunch of girls are pushing out of the door, clutching one another. Several of them cry out in distress, even though no one knows what’s going on. No one but Chet, who stands at the lake’s edge, pointing to something in the water.
A canoe.
Unmoored. Adrift.
It bobs a hundred yards from shore at a sideways angle, making it clear no one is guiding it.
I race into the lake, marching high-kneed until the water reaches my thighs. I then fall forward, swimming now, taking quick, forceful strokes toward the errant canoe. Behind me, others do the same thing. Theo and Chet. Glimpses of them flash over my shoulder whenever I pause to take a breath.
I’m first to the canoe, followed soon after by Chet, then Theo. We each grip the edge of the boat with one hand and start the swim ashore with the other. It’s an awkward, labored trip. My wet fingers keep slipping from the canoe’s edge and our strokes are out of sync, making the boat jerk from side to side as we swim.
Once in shallow water, the three of us stand and drag the canoe to shore. A crowd has gathered by then. Detective Flynn and Ben Schumacher. Most of the campers, kept at bay by counselors. At the Lodge, Franny, Lottie, and Mindy watch from the back deck. I risk a glance inside the canoe, and my legs grow weak.
The boat is empty.
No oars. No life vests. Certainly no people.