You Will Pay

by Lisa Jackson

  “No, of course not,” she’d told him in irritation as she sat in the passenger seat of his battered Cherokee. Rain had been pouring from a leaden sky, fat drips drizzling down the windshield. He’d parked in front of her house after what had been a miserable, and mostly silent, dinner. At dinner Elle had been as far away from him as she’d ever been, even though she was seated across from him in a faux-leather booth, paying no attention to her two slices of pizza.

  In the Cherokee, she’d asked him querulously, “Why would you think I’m bored with you? I love you, Lucas.”

  He hadn’t returned the vow, too immersed in conflicting emotions, and the atmosphere inside the Jeep grew tense. In fact, he’d never told her he loved her. He just couldn’t find the words, which was probably why he’d felt more than a little whisper of guilt whenever he thought of breaking up with her.

  That instance had been weeks before he’d met Bernadette, and once he started seeing her, he’d known he’d have to admit to Elle that it was over. For good.

  That was the hard part. They’d had sex. At first, all the time. She’d been nearly as horny as he was in the beginning, eager, almost insatiable, but then, a few weeks earlier, something had changed. She’d lost interest and kind of retreated into herself. More than once he’d caught her walking on the beach alone, staring out at the ocean, watching the swells and waves, or the seagulls crying and wheeling overhead, sometimes talking to herself, other times crying, but never once smiling. Gone was the gaiety he’d witnessed in high school, the lighthearted but smart girl with a bashful streak who had caught his eye. It was almost as if the moment she’d set foot on the sandy grounds of Camp Horseshoe, she’d lost her happiness.

  No, that wasn’t quite right. It had been building in the weeks before the camp had officially opened for the summer.

  He’d concluded that things weren’t right for her at home and, deep down, he suspected that her change in mood had intensified due to the fact that she’d been working closely with Ryan, her exboyfriend, again. Or maybe the responsibility of being a counselor had become too weighty for her.

  Whatever the reason, she damned well should lighten up. He’d tried to talk to her and met with a brick wall.

  “I’m okay,” she’d told him over and over. Then, that night on the foggy beach, she’d said it again and started to walk away. He’d caught her wrist and said, “Elle, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing! Nothing’s wrong,” she’d insisted, exploding, her fury palpable. “How many times do I have to say it?”

  He released her wrist then. “Until I believe it.”

  “Why do you keep hounding me?”

  “Because you seem sad.”

  “I’m not ‘sad,’ ” she’d insisted with a flare of temper. “I’ve . . . I’ve just got a lot on my mind, okay?”

  “Maybe I could help.”

  The look she’d sent him then was a mixture of disbelief, disgust, and a bit of despair. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  She’d hesitated and for a second he’d thought he’d broken through whatever wall it was that she’d been building, brick by brick, to make herself inaccessible to him or maybe to the world. “No,” she’d finally said, a little more quietly. “I-I’ll figure it out. It’s my problem, and so I’ll come up with a solution.” She’d attempted a smile, but it had wobbled and her eyes had started to fill with tears. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “But I do.”

  “Do you?” she’d asked as the first tear ran down her cheek, one she’d hastily brushed away.

  “Of course.”

  “But you don’t love me,” she’d accused, the wind blowing off the sea, fog in tendrils, snaking up the shore. “You’ve never said so.”

  “It’s just not my style.”

  “Oh, I see, you love me, but you’re too ‘cool’ to admit it.” Her words were bitter as she tossed her hair over her shoulder, the strands fluttering in a pale wave. When he didn’t respond, she’d said, “Or, maybe there’s no love at all. I guess I should’ve known. Good-bye, Lucas.” Her blue eyes were ice. “I’m going to miss you and believe it or not, you’re going to miss me, too.” And she’d turned away then, headed down the beach, her arms wrapped around her middle.

  He’d taken two steps after her, then held up and watched her disappear into the thickening fog. What more was there to say? He did care about Elle, but whatever spark had ignited between them had died weeks before Bernadette had shown up at the camp. That was the real truth.

  Still, he felt like an ass letting her walk away into the darkness. Alone. He should go after her, he told himself. Say what she wanted to hear. But it would be a lie, because he was already thinking of Bernadette. Fun-loving, quick-witted, and ready for a dare, Bernadette with her full breasts and long legs and flashing eyes. Her sense of humor was wicked, her skin soft and . . .

  He glanced to the beach again, but Elle was gone, swallowed by the night. Squinting into the darkness, he saw no sign of her, so he stuffed his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, turned inland, and told himself to forget her. It was over.

  She’d find someone else.

  Someone better.

  He made his way to the path that switchbacked up the hillside and as he did, his blood ran hotter. He would meet Bernadette soon and, with guilt right on his heels, he could already imagine what they’d do when they met.

  He couldn’t wait.

  At least that’s how he’d felt two days earlier . . . before Elle had vanished for good the following night.

  Now, as he walked up the two steps to the office of the camp, he looked through the windows near the door and spied his stepmother beyond the glass. As if she’d sensed him on the long porch, she glanced up and held his gaze for a heartbeat too long.

  The back of his throat went dry.

  Quickly, she turned her attention to the mail she’d been sorting. By the time he opened the door, she was retreating, her red-blond hair catching in the light streaming through the windows of the hallway, her heels clicking down the worn plank floor. Without so much as a glance over her shoulder, she started up the stairs leading upward to the second floor, where his father, Leah, and she lived during the summer months when the camp was open.

  Lucas’s chest tightened a bit. Not now, his more prescient mind whispered. Maybe not ever again.

  “Lucas!” Jeremiah Dalton’s voice boomed from the far side of the office, and Lucas whirled to face him. Under the archway between the desk area and a small sitting room stood his father. Tall and ramrod straight, his angular face a mask of severity, his eyes burning like the very coals of hell, he hitched his chin at the shorter, rounder, less intimidating man at his side. “This is Deputy Hallgarth from the sheriff’s department.”

  Hallgarth was blond and ruddy complected, and a tic near his right eye gave him the appearance of winking at you. Which he wasn’t. Grim-faced, he nodded stiffly.

  Before he could state his business, Jeremiah said, “He’s here to ask us all some questions about Eleanor Brady. You’re up.”

  “That’s right,” Hallgarth said, shooting Lucas’s father a look to remind the older man that he was in charge. “Just step into this room over here.” He pointed to the sitting area. “I’d like to get a statement from you. As I understand it, you are her friend and more specifically her boyfriend.”

  “I was,” Lucas said as he followed the older man into the anteroom. “We’d broken up.”

  From the corner of his eye, Lucas noticed his old man tense his fists for a nanosecond.

  “I’d like to hear about that,” Hallgarth said, and pointed to a stiff-backed chair positioned near a window overlooking the parking area. “Go ahead, son, have a seat. And tell me everything you know about Eleanor.” He hitched up the pants of his uniform and took a spot on a sofa situated across a coffee table from Lucas. “Let’s start with the last time you saw her.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Interstate 5, Oregon

&
nbsp; Now

  Reva

  Flipping on the wipers, Reva Mercado tromped on the accelerator of her Toyota Camry. She was driving north on the freeway, twenty miles south of Portland, she guessed, and she pushed the speed limit while passing cars, vans, SUVs, and semis, their trailers laden with everything from gas, to milk, to dog food.

  She was anxious and had to keep moving.

  Glancing down at her speedometer, she saw that the needle was climbing, hovering near eighty, and she eased up a bit.

  Don’t get pulled over. Don’t get a ticket. You do NOT want to talk to the police! Remember the last time? You don’t want that all brought up again. Not now. Not ever.

  That part was difficult—the avoiding the cops—because even if she evaded the state police patrol, cops hiding in their cars, radar guns at the ready, she couldn’t stay away from some persnickety driver who could phone in that she was speeding or driving recklessly or whatever. So she tried to keep her speed under control instead of hurtling down the interstate at Mach 1.

  It really didn’t matter if she was the first to land in bumblefuck Averille, Oregon, or the last; she just wanted to make certain everyone’s story concurred with hers. She couldn’t afford another run-in with the cops. Not after what she’d been through.

  The traffic that had been racing along was slowing as she neared Portland, more and more vehicles clogging the lanes, her speed, by necessity, cut by half. Good. She needed to calm down. Think things through. Jo-Beth wanted to meet her first, privately, to get their solidarity strong, their stories rock solid. All good. Reva was in. She couldn’t take a chance that any of this would bring back the other nightmare of her life.

  “Don’t even go there. Do not.” She glanced in the rearview, noticed that her brown eyes were worried, rather than feisty. Wasn’t that what Theo had always said about her? Now, she looked scared and for good reason.

  Theo.

  “Love of my life,” she murmured, and let out her breath slowly.

  Out of habit, she lifted her right hand from the steering while and sketched a quick sign of the cross over her heart, a practice she hadn’t given up though her days of catechism and mass were long over and had been since the time of the accident. How could she ever go to a priest and confess her sins when they were so dark? No, better to give up on the trappings of her religion, if not her faith itself.

  She saw the exit for 217, cut across two lanes, then slowed as traffic became sluggish at the interchange. The creeping, mind-numbing pace didn’t improve much for the few miles it ran between the interstate and Beaverton. Jockeying around other vehicles, she thought ahead to the nightmare that was about to unfold. Jo-Beth had mentioned a reporter, Kinley Marsh—supposedly a camper at the time, but Reva barely remembered her—that she was an investigative reporter or something and that Lucas Dalton, the reverend’s sexy son, was now a cop. But what was worse was that he had a partner, according to Jo-Beth, a woman by the name of Margaret Dobbs. The name caused a chill to skitter down Reva’s spine. Was it possible? Could she be the same damned detective who’d been a part of the team investigating the accident that had taken Theo’s life? Oh, sweet Jesus. That would be a disaster. A total disaster, not to mention what had happened at the camp.

  She’d hoped that her church camp experience of twenty years ago had died a quick and certain death. And it seemed it had for twenty years, but now, damn it, it was as if the whole nightmare had been resurrected.

  A body had been recovered. It didn’t mean that the body was of one of the people who’d gone missing way back in that horrible time warp, right? But if not, why had she and the rest of the damned counselors who had known the missing teens been called to give a statement?

  It was hard to breathe, even more difficult to stay calm. She felt as if there were steel bands constricting her chest and as she sat in traffic—the slow inching northward had slipped into a full-blown stop—her fingers tapped nervously on the Camry’s steering wheel. She fiddled with the radio dial, started listening to Adele crooning away about love gone sour. She switched the music off and craned her neck to try to see a spot where, within the three clogged lanes, there was any movement.

  No such luck. “Great,” she said as she stared through the glass to the gray October sky, dark clouds threatening. The rain started slowly, first one heavy drop, then another as her lane began to slowly plod forward; the shower began in earnest, more and more drops pouring from the sky.

  “Come on, come on,” she said, frustrated. She needed to talk to the damned police and get this over with. She chewed on a fingernail, caught herself, and stopped. She cast a glance in her rearview mirror. Dark eyes glared back at her and she noticed the corners of her mouth were tight. Yeah, she was worried. Who wouldn’t be? If the police pulled up her record and did a little investigating. Holy crap.

  She hit the horn just because she could and was rewarded with a rude hand gesture as the traffic began to move again, crawling past Washington Square, then slowing again at Canyon Road.

  Reva thought she’d go out of her mind.

  Only when she was turning south onto Highway 26 was she able to really start moving again, and she hit the gas, cutting in and out of traffic, trying to eat up the miles. She hoped she could get to Jo-Beth before anyone else arrived. She needed that private conversation to refresh her memory and make certain their story was the same.

  Her nerves were killing her. Reva Mercado, the feisty Hispanic woman with her own blog and Saturday night radio show, and soon a segment on a streaming television show about all things Latina, had turned into a wobbling mess.

  She couldn’t blow it.

  Couldn’t have the past rise up and bite her in the ass.

  Her cell phone jangled just before she angled toward the mountains. Traffic had gratefully thinned, and the rain was now just a shrouding mist that the interval wipers were handling.

  She checked the caller ID.

  Sosi!

  She didn’t have Bluetooth, couldn’t risk getting pulled over, so she hit the button to put the phone on speakerphone and balanced her cell on her lap. She’d just have to yell until she could pull over. “Hey,” she called out, so that Sosi could hear her over the road noise.

  “Reva? What’s with all the noise? Are you driving? Wait. Oh. Wait. Are you already on your way to the camp?”

  “Uh-huh. You’re coming, right?”

  “I don’t know . . . I mean, I’m not sure. I don’t know what I’d say to Joshua, and then there’s . . .” Her voice faded and Reva couldn’t hear her.

  “Sosi?”

  Nothing. But she saw the phone was still connected. Crap! She saw the sign for the next exit. “Hey, look, just hold on. There’s a spot where I can pull over.” Cutting a pickup off, she veered into the slower lane and while the idiot behind the Chevy truck’s wheel laid on the horn, she gunned it onto the exit ramp, sliding under an amber light turning red and cranking the steering wheel when she spied a McDonald’s restaurant. “Okay,” she said, pulling into an empty parking space near the line for drive-in customers. After killing the engine, she slid the phone to her ear again. “What were you saying? Some kind of lame excuse for not coming?”

  “It’s not lame. It’s that I can’t leave my family.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Joshua wants me at home and I do have Grace to consider.”

  “Grace?”

  “My sixteen-month-old,” Sosi said a little tartly.

  “Oh, right.”

  “Besides, I’m pregnant.”

  Reva rolled her eyes and, with her free hand, scrabbled inside her open handbag to find her pack of Virginia Slims.

  “It’s another girl,” she said proudly. “I just found out.”

  Bully for you.

  “I’m just over twenty weeks.”

  “Great,” Reva said, and tried to work up some enthusiasm.

  “Joshua wanted another boy, of course. I think he’d love it if we had a football team, but I love the
idea of having another daughter.”

  “A football team?” Reva repeated, horrified. “Isn’t that, like, eight or nine players?” She found her cigarettes and shook one out.

  “Eleven,” Sosi said with the attitude of a genuine sports nut. Wasn’t that the thing now? Sports and God all rolled into one package and complemented with a bucket of popcorn and a supersize Dr. Pepper? “But don’t worry,” Sosi went on as if Reva cared. “We only want four. Well, maybe five. We’ve got three—Isaac, Faith, and Grace—and now, the new baby. We should name her Hope.”

  As if Reva cared. “Haven’t you heard about the world and overpopulation? What are you, a baby-making factory, for crying out loud?”

  Sosi gasped and Reva did think maybe she’d gone a little far—her quick tongue and self-protection system kicking in. “Sorry,” she said, but Sosi was already defending herself.

  “We can afford it and I’ll homeschool and—”

  “Okay, okay, I said I was sorry, didn’t I? Now listen. Sosi, you have to come to Camp Horseshoe. I don’t care how many kids you want to have to add to the world’s problems, right now, we have our own little situation, and we have to deal with it.”

  “But—”

  Reva cut in. “You’ve got a family and what would Jacob think if he found out that—”

  “Joshua. His name is Joshua! You know, in the Old Testament in the Bible? The leader of the Israelites and—”

  “Fine. Fine. Joshua,” Reva snapped, not needing or wanting a lecture on the Bible. Not now. Well, not ever. She’d had enough catechism and all the rest of it while growing up in her own family. “What would Joshua think if he knew what happened at Camp Horseshoe? As I remember, there was an incident with you and one of the campers and—”