Again, no one said anything. They all looked suspicious—even my troop. Were they covering up something? If so, then I didn't like it.
Lauren raised her hand. "How much blood can a herd of vampire ticks drink?"
Oh. Right. That.
"Vampire ticks?" Hilly jumped up, looked frantically around her, and then lifted the log she was sitting on to see underneath.
"How did you know about them?" Laura asked. "They're only native to these woods. Most people don't know they're here."
"Okay." I held my hands out. "Guys, I have a confession to make. There's no such thing as vampire ticks. I made them up."
Hilly began scratching both arms. She looked terrified. "How big are they? Can they be seen with the naked eye?"
"I just said—" I started.
Lauren interrupted. "All sizes. Some are nearly invisible, and some are the size of a quarter."
"No." I tried to regain control of the argument. "They aren't. I just made them up. Seriously."
Ava rolled her eyes. "Then how do you explain that?" She pointed to a bug on the ground.
Hilly jumped onto the log and, with those cat-like reflexes she didn't display in the canoe, balanced perfectly.
I looked closer. "It's just a regular tick."
Lauren said, "Like you'd know. I'm the junior zookeeper here." The girl went over and bent down to examine the bug. "Yup. Vampire tick."
As they gathered round to listen to Lauren explain the fascinating backstory on this imaginary bug, I wondered how this got away from me so quickly. How did something I made up become real?
By the time Lauren told the others that vampire ticks were originally from Transylvania and moved to Hollywood to be in movies, I decided it was time for another think. Before anyone noticed, I slipped onto the trail and found myself hiking through Badger's End, Possum Pass, Deer End, and making my way toward the tent where I'd found Maria.
She wasn't there. In fact, all of her things were still gone. I guess I wasn't all that surprised. Was it possible that she made off with Chad's body? She was fit and fairly strong, but I didn't think she could've hauled him away without leaving behind significant drag marks.
After searching all of the other tents, I headed back to the pool area, where I entered the building. The whole thing consisted of a sort of locker room, with cubbies lining the walls and a couple of benches in the middle. There were showers that didn't run water, a couple of toilets, and even a desk that sagged against the wall.
Without thinking, I started opening the drawers. There were crumbling pool schedules with camp staff listed with camp names like Smee, Pepper, and Go-Go, all who had various shifts. It was an interesting bit of nostalgia, and it reminded me of why we were really here. To map out the camp and report on it.
It was my fault that Maria was here. I shouldn't have involved her. As for Chad, that was probably Hilly's fault…as was Hilly. If none of these things had happened, we'd be on our way back to civilization with the only problem being the fate of six little old ladies who'd hidden out here.
But no, we had to have intrigue, possible murder, disappearing bodies, and lots of confusing suspicion. It was interesting that none of this seemed to faze the girls. For a moment I was kind of proud of that, as if I was preparing them for real life. Well, as long as real life had CIA assassins, hermits, and bodies.
I continued going through the drawers and thought I should probably save all this stuff to take back to the Council. There was a real history of this place. I found a bunch of memos about various meal schedules, when the nurses' station would be open, and a list of staff. Taking a couple of faded folders with me, I sat down on one of the benches and started going through other aspects of camp life.
There were knot-tying instructions, notes about safety procedures, and a list of camp songs and skits to perform at campfires. It made me smile to realize I knew some of these camp songs. My troop had learned them. And they'd held up all this time. This was history. It was sad, really, seeing that a place where maybe thousands of little girls passed the summer, having fun and working on badges, wasn't here anymore.
Would it be possible to use the camp again? I doubted the Abbott Trust would allow that. It would disturb the very point of this place being a preserve. But still, the camp was in great shape. The women kept it up nicely. It was small, with only three camp sites, but it had a pool and a lodge and a wonderful lake that shouldn't go to waste. That would be my recommendation to the Council. To find a way to use this that wouldn't upset the trust.
Feeling like I'd solved one problem made me feel a little better, and I opened up the last folder, which seemed to be a photo record of the place. There was an envelope with photos from each decade, from the 1920s to the 60s! What a treasure trove! There were girls with bobbed hair pitching tents, girls growing vegetable gardens in the forties, and the beginnings of color photos in the 1960s.
There must be photos of Troop 0014 in here! Did the ladies not know they were here? I started flipping through until I found photos labelled 1965 and '66—the last years of the camp. It was the second to last photo (because of course it was) where I found them. They were teenagers but instantly recognizable. I recalled the photo in the lodge, where the girls were more my troop's age, but for some reason, seeing them just before they left the world to live here was kind of haunting.
In one photo the six girls were laughing as they played red rover. The Sharons and Laura were close and had their backs to the camera, but I recognized them. Betty, Ada, and Esme were laughing across from them, holding hands, most likely daring one of them to come over and break through. They looked like normal teenagers, with their hair in ponytails, T-shirts, and shorts and sneakers.
I should take this back to the group, I thought. That's when I looked up. How long had I been here? I didn't have a watch on. When I took the girls to our local camp, nobody wore watches in an attempt to get the girls to lose themselves in the moment. My cell phone was dead. I'd forgotten to charge it.
I returned the files to the desk, except for the photo I was taking back, and had just closed the last drawer when I heard it—the muffled sound of voices arguing. They weren't far from the door to the building.
Shoving the photo into my shorts pocket, I skipped quietly to the doorway and flattened myself against the wall, straining to hear what was being said.
The voices sounded angry but were quiet and had moved away. I couldn't even tell if they were male or female. Most likely they were women. Riley and Chad were the only men here, and one of them was most likely dead.
But what if he wasn't? I strained to hear more, but didn't want to expose myself. Something told me to stay put. And I always trusted my gut in situations like this because you never knew if you'd walk into a setup.
Then, all of a sudden, the muttering stopped. There were no footsteps or sounds of someone walking away. It just all stopped. I waited for what I thought was about five minutes more but still didn't hear any movement. Were they outside waiting for me? I grabbed a broken pole hanging on the wall and stepped outside.
Gone. Whoever had been here was gone. Combinations of the people who might've been talking went through my mind. It could be two of the women. It could be Maria or Hilly with someone else. It might have even been Chad talking to someone. I couldn't be sure.
I closed the pool house door and quickly made my way down the trail, wondering if I'd been seen and then chastising myself for being so paranoid. I was just about past our campsite when it occurred to me.
"Hilly?" I called out as I opened the door.
But she wasn't there. No one was. This might be the only chance I had to find the bandana and hood. However, with Hilly's knack for showing up unexpectedly, I'd have to be quick, and I'd have to have an excuse. After deciding that I'd say I'd run out of dental floss (which was true, because I hadn't brought any) and thought I could borrow some, I got to work.
Her sleeping bag had no secrets. Neither did her backpack. And while I was
excited to discover she really didn't have C-4, I was concerned that the sniper rifle wasn't there. Where had she stashed it? Were the hood and bandana with it too?
No, she most likely left the rifle back at the hilltop. Something told me that Hilly didn't have the bandana and hood. My spydey senses were tingling. I felt like I was a bit off balance. It was probably the hypnosis.
I carefully repacked Hilly's backpack and put everything back the way I'd found it. It was time to join the others, so I set out on the trail. As I rounded the last bend and came into the main campfire area at the lodge, I realized that something was off. Should we stay another night? Voices came from inside the lodge. Everyone must be inside.
"That's it, we're staying." I snapped my fingers.
"Rutabaga!" I shouted involuntarily.
Damn it. I really needed to get that fixed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
"Someone found rutabagas?" Laura's head popped out of the lodge hopefully. When she saw it was me, her face fell.
"Sorry about that," I muttered. "I still have that reaction from the hypnosis."
Laura sighed. "It would've been nice to have something different, even if it was just turnips."
I had to admit that she was right. And I don't even like ruta…those things.
I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that the girls didn't mind staying another night and subjecting themselves to one more round of boiled potatoes for dinner. Our s'mores supply was completely exhausted. We had nothing left but trail mix, and Riley used our lack of food to argue that we not stay.
But by that time, it was late afternoon. No one asked where I'd gone, which was a relief and a slight blow to my ego all at the same time. What if I'd been attacked by a cougar or swarmed by vampire ticks? I stewed on that as I accepted another plate of potatoes.
"Why do you look so worried?" I asked Riley as he eyed his dinner suspiciously.
"Carbs," he whined. "All I've had to eat this whole time is carbs. My abs will never be the same."
"We have a body missing, and that's what you're concerned about?" I asked in a hushed voice.
"Yes." He looked down his neckline into his shirt and scowled. "Do you know how much work it's going to take me to get back in shape after we get back?"
"Well…" I twirled a potato on the end of my fork. "You could just lose the weight by not eating anything."
"Thanks," Riley said. "But I'll need the energy to hike out of here. Do you think if we leave at the crack of dawn, we could hike straight back to the car?"
I considered this. "It's possible. It would be brutal, but we could pull it off."
Riley looked relieved. "Good, because there's a diner we passed on the way here. They've got to have salads."
Leave it to Riley to waste a perfectly good diner on a salad, when everyone knows that that's where you can get a nice juicy burger and fries. Great. Now I was fantasizing about food. That was all I needed. We finished our food and left the table as the girls decided to clean up.
Hilly said she'd forgotten her water bottle and headed up the trail to our campground. I plucked at Riley's sleeve and pulled him away from the table onto the trail as we followed a safe distance behind.
"Where were you earlier?" he asked as he scratched a multitude of mosquito bites.
I still found it amazing that I didn't have one single bite since trying Hilly's stuff that first night.
"At the pool building," I answered before filling him in on what happened there.
Riley scowled. "I don't like the idea that there might be two dangerous men out there. Are you sure you don't know that it was one of the women?"
"Did anyone leave the lodge while I was gone?"
"No," Riley admitted. "We kind of got caught up working on a puzzle that had been here since the 1950s. Very exciting stuff."
I'd really hoped he'd say someone left, preferably two people. "Then we have to imagine it was Maria and someone else, Chad and Maria, Chad and someone else, or two entirely different people."
Riley squinted into the darkness as we came out in front of our campsite. "I don't like the idea that it's two strangers. But I don't believe that Chad's alive, either. It had to have been Maria and someone else."
"Why didn't Maria tell us there was someone else here?" I felt a bit betrayed if that was true.
"You got me." Riley stretched his full six foot, three-inch frame in the darkness. I tried not to look at his now carb-loaded abs.
There was a strange roaring sound and Hilly burst out of her platform tent with a big smile on her face. "Okay, how did she get a cougar into our tent?"
I heard a big cat hissing. "There's a cougar in our tent?" I ran over but stayed outside, shining my flashlight in. A mountain lion was standing on my bunk, and it didn't look happy to see me.
"Betty's good," Hilly laughed. "She really got me!"
"You think"—I turned to her, mouth open—"that Betty put a cougar in our tent as a prank on you?"
"Of course! How else did it get there?" Hilly grinned happily.
"What was that noise?" Lauren shouted as the girls came running up the trail, stopping when I held my hands up.
"Betty," I started. "Why…or more specifically, how did you get a cougar into our tent?"
The cat made some angry noises as it paced back and forth across my sleeping bag.
Betty pushed through the girls to the front. "You've got a cougar in there? Cool!"
"Like you didn't know," I narrowed my eyes. "This pranking has to stop. That animal is dangerous!"
Lauren agreed, "Very dangerous. Especially if there are cubs nearby."
A huge squeal of delight went up, and the girls began cooing over the possibility of tiny cubs in the vicinity.
"But it's the wrong time of year for that," Lauren added. "At least, I think it is."
I turned to Betty, who was carving a potato into the shape of a grenade. That's when I noticed she had a string of spud bombs around her waist.
"I'm not admitting to anything," the child said. "My lawyer told me not to."
"Your lawyer?"
Ava stepped forward. "I'm her lawyer. Politicians are usually lawyers."
"Yeah"—I turned to eye the giant cat on my bed—"but they usually go to school for that."
Ava continued, "I've warned my client against saying stuff that might get her in trouble. Although I have to say, I didn't really think she'd find a cougar."
"They like potatoes." Betty stepped up to the door, and before I could stop her she pulled a potato pin out of a potato grenade and lobbed it at the cat. I grabbed her and brought her back to the rest of the group.
The cat was chewing on the potato while using my sleeping bag as a scratching post.
"His name is Larry," Betty said.
"You named him." I put my hands on my hips. "Which means you put him in there."
"I think it's great!" Hilly enthused. "But I'm not sure how I can top that."
I pointed at her. "And I don't want to see you try. This ends now."
"Do you have proof that my client put the cat in there?" Ava asked.
"I don't need proof," I said. "Hilly is a government agent, and she thinks Betty did it. Which means the United States government believes Betty is guilty. Try to beat that rap."
Ava shook her head. "I'm out. You're on your own, Betty."
"Whatever," Betty said as she darted to the door before anyone could stop her and opened it. "Come on, Larry."
I jumped in front of the other girls, hoping I could save most of them from being eaten. But apparently the potato grenade did its trick, and the cougar trotted out like a house cat.
"Sit!" Betty commanded, and the cougar did. "Roll over!" she said, and the animal did that too. She tossed him another grenade, and he caught it in midair.
"When did you have time to train a mountain lion?" I asked as I struggled to keep the girls at bay.
"He's tame," Betty said. "I think he's been around humans before."
"We wanna
see Larry!" the Kaitlyns cried out.
Larry must've heard this because he stood up and walked over to us. Then he rubbed himself against my legs and purred loudly. That was all it took for the five girls to sit on the ground around me. I disengaged my legs and stepped out of the circle. Larry dropped to the ground and closed his eyes as five little girls pet him.
"Kelly won't like hearing about this," Riley said.
"And you're not going to tell her," I insisted. I was fairly certain that this was the absolute wrong thing to do. But with Larry enjoying the girls and not trying to eat them, I knew I had no choice. It was an adorable cat.
For the first time since we got here, I was glad we didn't have cell service.
"Maybe I will," Riley said. "It seems to me that you put these girls in danger by letting them pet a mountain lion."
I looked over to where the girls were smothering the animal with attention.
"Are you kidding? Larry's the one in danger, not them."
It took a while to force the girls to go to bed, and I insisted Larry not be allowed in the tent. At any moment the cat might snap and maul them. More than once over the course of an hour, I had to chase the cat out of one of the tents. After the eighth time finding him on one of the girls' bunks, I took him outside and insisted he run off. Larry did not seem happy with me, but thankfully, he took the hint and trotted off into the woods.
Back in my tent, I examined the ruins of my shredded sleeping bag and finally decided just to sleep on top of it.
"You're so lucky," Hilly said sleepily from her bunk, "to have such cool kids in your troop."
"Thanks," I muttered.
"But you really shouldn't encourage them to play with wild animals like that," Hilly scolded amiably. "It seems like any responsible adult would know that." She turned away and soon was snoring.
Oh sure, an assassin escalates a pranking competition to the level where a kid could be eaten, and I'm the irresponsible one. That seemed fair.
"She's right, you know!" Betty called out from her bunk. "What were you thinking, letting me do something like that?"
Mosquito Bite Murder Page 17
