Chapter 4
Four
Emma slipped out of the cabin on tiptoes, careful not to let the screen door snap shut behind her.
After her chaotic night, she’d slept hard, falling asleep the moment she hit the pillow and not waking once.
She was grateful. Dreamless sleep was precious.
She hadn’t had the foresight to unpack her bag when she’d arrived.
Her vintage portable CD player was somewhere deep in her luggage.
For once, she hadn’t needed the assistance to rest.
But when her eyelids fluttered open at five, she couldn’t stay in bed.
Every nerve ending was alert and eager for action.
Daniel had told them to stick together. She’d rather not stew on what had happened last night as the others slept in now.
Instead of rustling on the top bunk, she found a sweatshirt and her sneakers and headed out in search of coffee.
They’d been assigned their original cabin, bunk one the closest to the mess hall.
In the cool early morning, predawn air, everything was still.
The day was fresh, washed clean by the rain that had started again overnight.
Folding her arms over her chest, she snuggled deep into the old college fleece and headed up the dirt path to the mess hall.
She should have changed out of her pjs. The ground hovered between mud and soft soil.
Her sneakers would be caked and probably the hem on her worn flannel pants.
As the scent of fresh brewed coffee filtered down the path, she forgot her wardrobe worries in favor of dogged determination.
A little caffeine was exactly what she needed.
Light poured out from the mess hall, illuminating the last few yards.
She jogged around the screened back wall to the door and let herself into an empty room.
She frowned and stilled, straining to notice anything, a noise, a sound, a feeling. She hadn’t been observant yesterday and only by His grace hadn’t been seriously injured.
Something clattered.
Emma stiffened and ducked, covering her head with her hands in a feeble attempt at shielding herself. Her defensive posture was as effective as hiding under a desk in elementary school during a tornado.
“Oh shoot,” Lucille Thomas exclaimed.
Emma gave herself a mental shake.
A pot must have fallen off the stove. Her nerves remained ragged and raw, immediately jumping into worst case scenarios.
She headed to the kitchen, no longer quieting herself or her steps.
She didn’t want to surprise the older woman.
Emma never wanted to be caught unawares ever again and owed everyone the same courtesy.
In the doorway to the kitchen, Emma knocked on the frame. “Good morning?”
Lucille straightened near the stove, setting a lid on top of a pot. “Oh, hi, dear. Couldn’t sleep?” She pressed a hand to her heart. “What am I saying? Of course you’d be up early after last night. Coffee?”
“Yes, please.” Emma entered the room, grabbing a mug off the hook over the sink and filling it at the dented, nineteen seventies enormous chrome carafe.
She hadn’t seen one like it since she’d helped her parents clean out their garage.
With so many adults roaming the grounds, the Thomases would definitely go through the volume demanded by the machine.
Emma took her first sip, letting the hot liquid warm her as it slid down her throat. “How are you? Can we sit? Can I get you a coffee?”
“You are too sweet.” Lucille patted Emma’s shoulder. “I’m the one always moving about and handling everything. I suppose I should take you up on your offer. Do you mind getting the milk out of the fridge and meeting me at a table? I’m pretty sure we’ll have the place to ourselves.”
Emma nodded and grabbed the milk out of the industrial refrigerator, following Lucille to the dining room and a table close to the screens. Emma didn’t see any sign of the sheriff. Her heart sunk a bit. She liked Mrs. Thomas but was anxious for the safety she found in Daniel’s company.
In replaying yesterday’s events, she kept returning to the note Margaux found.
It didn’t quite make sense. Why would someone target Margaux at the camp?
And how? With limited cell coverage, calls stuck to the tried-and-true old, corded phone line in the front office or mess hall.
Emails weren’t automatically updated so letters were the answer.
In many ways, the camp had always been a throwback to a bygone age.
Emma wasn’t so sure how Margaux could be certain she was the intended recipient.
Jennifer and Christine had seemed unimpressed by Margaux’s comments.
They always were blasé about her. Emma had often thought it was unkindness, but maybe it spoke more to their annoyance at Margaux constantly being the center of something dramatic.
Her lack of self-confidence marked her as a perpetual victim.
“Thank you, dear. This is nice.” Lucille sank onto the bench and accepted the milk from Emma, pouring it into her half-filled mug until the coffee was a light tan. “I should let others take the lead more often.”
Emma knew the other woman wouldn’t. Mrs. Thomas wasn’t one to sit back and let life happen.
Emma understood and empathized with the desire to stay in control.
Micromanaging was its own self-soothing strategy.
She’d seen it in plenty of the kids she’d helped over the years.
Peering closer, Emma spotted the dark circles under Lucille’s eyes.
“What time did you get back?” Emma asked, tucking her sweatshirt under her as far as it would go. The splinter-filled seats wouldn’t be kind to thin pajama pants, another reason she should have had the foresight to change.
“A little before midnight.” Lucille sipped her coffee. “He awoke but then fell back asleep again.”
“Did he say anything?”
Lucille shook her head. “Too full of tubes to speak. But he looked at me and George. I think he’ll be okay.”
Emma released a heavy breath. “Good news.”
“We came home to sleep in our own bed. The staff told us to come back this morning. But…” Lucille hung her head. “I didn’t get even a twenty-minute power nap last night. This place is not restful.”
“It isn’t?” Emma murmured.
Lucille flashed a sad smile. She sipped from her mug. “You don’t have to be polite, dear. I know you can see the problems.”
Emma didn’t respond. She’d noticed the disrepair but couldn’t recall the exact details of how the camp looked in her final summer here.
The early years were colored by a happy, yellow haze of sunshine and swimming.
The ending remained a mystery shrouded in an icy, cool blue mist. She couldn’t see through the fog no matter how hard she tried.
“Owen wants to keep going, but he has to step up in a major way. George and I can’t run the camp anymore,” Lucille said. “We didn’t think we’d survive the terrible accident.”
Emma cradled her mug in both her hands, letting the heat seep into her bones.
She hated the term accident because it categorized her family’s tragedy as a casual, everyday slip up, negating the devastation in the aftermath.
Liz had been the most careful and fastidious person.
She never took a chance, and she always double checked everything.
The tragedy was as illogical as it was unavoidable.
But some answers wouldn’t come in this life.
“And now with this? I guess we keep going a little longer before Owen can take over,” Lucille said.
Emma drank the last of her coffee. The camp had been a constant in her life, like her magnetic north.
She hadn’t visited in decades but took for granted the Thomases would always be here.
The loss of the camp would be significant.
She’d been blessed to have had her experiences here, a little bit of freedom in the great outdoors with supervision.
How many of the kids that she worked with would thrive in this type of situation?
The screen door snapped shut.
“Sheriff, good morning,” Lucille called. “Can I get you a coffee?”
“Yes, please, Mrs. T,” Daniel replied, his footfall nearing.
With his presence, part of Emma relaxed, her jaw loosening and her shoulders dropping. She turned around and smiled at him. He was different and the same. He was here and so was she. And she could be glad for all those facts while knowing nothing could happen between them.
Lucille headed to the kitchen.
“She insisted I call her Lucille.” Emma’s voice cracked. She sounded silly and eager to please. “She told me I’m too grown up to call her Mrs. Thomas.”
“I can understand. You left and came back another person.”
Emma stiffened.
“It’s not a bad thing. You’re mature. An adult. I’ve never left so I’ll always be a kid to her and Mr. T.” He yawned on the bench opposite, stretching his neck from side to side.
Rough night? She was glad she’d thought the bad joke and not said it. Flirting wasn’t appropriate. He’d set boundaries between them and, given the strained circumstances, a playful and carefree reunion wasn’t in the plan. “Where did you sleep? One of the empty bunk houses?”
He shook his head and pointed to a cot in the corner. “I didn’t want to intrude without asking permission.”
“I understand, but you slept there? Really?” She was touched he’d braved an uncomfortable night out in the open for the sake of the camp. Sure, the gesture had more to do with the Thomases than anyone else, but she couldn’t stop the warmth at the reaction. “Why didn’t I see you when I got here?”
“I went to my vehicle to check in with my deputies. I’m fine.” He tilted his neck, and a loud crack echoed off every beam in the room.
She winced. Her worry over nightmares seemed trivial in comparison to six hours on a broken-down cot.
“Where are your bunkmates?” he asked.
“Still sleeping. I know you said to stick with them. But I couldn’t stay in bed all morning, waiting.”
“Please. For your safety. If you’re not with me, you need to be with a group.”