Chapter Four
Rob met his brothers in the house for a late lunch.
The meal was thrown together sandwiches and some chips of questionable freshness, but they’d take the quick break when they could.
They had several more campers arriving over the course of the afternoon, and they wanted to get everybody in place and settled before dark.
Plus Joey and Danny would be heading home in the morning, so Brian and Rob wanted to get as much work out of them as possible before they left.
“Why would a woman pull a camper all the way across the country alone?” Rob mused aloud because the question had been on his mind since he left Hannah’s site. “And then spend three months at a campground, also alone?”
“Maybe she’s on the run from the law,” Joey said, and Rob snorted.
Danny chuckled, but then he paused for a moment before frowning. “Wait. Should we be doing background checks on people? Are we even allowed to do that?”
“It’s a campground. I’m pretty sure asking for people’s fingerprints before they can pitch a tent will be bad for business,” Rob said. “Also, it’s really unlikely she’s running from the law.”
“Why?” Joey held up his hands. “How do you know? Have you ever scrolled through the true crime category on the streaming apps? Based on how many documentaries there are, if this campground was full, probably like five of the campers would have committed murder.”
“Okay, maybe not fingerprinting people who are just here for the weekend,” Danny said, obviously still stuck on background checks. “But for the seasonals? I mean, serial killers can buy campers. They do stuff like fishing and hiking and riding four-wheelers, right?”
“Sure. Four-wheelers would be a great way to scope out places to bury bodies.”
Danny nodded. “I’m going to do some research.”
“On burying bodies? If you could not do that on the shared computer in the office, that would be great.”
“No, dumbass. On doing background checks. Maybe we ask the local police.”
“There are no local police.” The town really was that small.
“The state police, then.”
“We’re not running background checks on campers,” Brian said. “And we’re off topic. We were talking about twenty-nine.”
“Her name is Hannah,” Rob snapped.
When all three of his brothers stopped what they were doing and turned to look at him, he realized he probably should have kept his mouth shut.
He knew from spending so much time at this campground growing up, and from visiting others, that it wasn’t unusual for the owners to refer to site numbers rather than trying to remember names when those names usually changed every weekend.
But Hannah Shelby was a seasonal camper. She’d be here for half the summer, and when it came to long-term guests, he didn’t think using their names was unreasonable.
“Do we need to actually write the rule about fraternization with the campers in Sharpie on the wall?” Danny asked, giving Rob that big-brother look he’d gotten so many times it didn’t even faze him anymore.
Joey snorted. “I thought it would be Brian who broke it first.”
Brian shook his head. “Then you haven’t been paying attention. I’m not a big fan of relationships.”
“The divorce was a couple of years ago,” Joey pointed out. “What are you waiting for?”
Rob kicked his brother’s leg under the table, hoping he’d take the hint and back off of Brian.
Maybe the divorce had been final for a couple of years, but their brother wasn’t over Kelly, or the way she’d told him there was somebody else and divorced him out of the blue.
The fact some paperwork had severed their marriage didn’t help heal the anger and lack of trust that had been Brian’s vibe since then.
Joey kicked him back and Rob almost choked on his coffee. That was going to leave a mark.
“You need to get over her,” Joey insisted. “You can’t be alone because Kelly—”
“Enough,” Brian said in a low voice that made Stella get up and put her head on his knee to make sure he was okay. He put down his mug to rub her head. “Stay out of my business.”
“Back to the running-from-the-law thing, I’d like to go on the record now,” Rob said to distract them, and it worked. They all looked at him. “Danny, if you do decide to write a book about a serial killer hiding out in a campground, you better use a pseudonym.”
“I should ask my accountant if I could write off my investment in this place as research.” Danny pulled out his phone, presumably to make a note. “You know, if I did write a book like that.”
“I mean it about using a pen name,” Rob insisted. “I don’t think one of the owners of a campground writing about murders in said campground is good for business.”
“Or maybe it’s great cross-promo,” Brian said. “You know, as long as the part about it being a work of fiction and not based on real people is written in a really big, bold font.”
“Maybe it’ll be about a guy who buys the campground with his brothers and then murders them one by one because they’re annoying,” Rob said, resisting the urge to reach down and rub the sore spot where Joey had kicked him. “And then he gets to own the campground all by himself.”
Brian nodded. “Make it about Bobby here and it can be a comedy. The guy tries to off his brothers but keeps falling in the pool and tripping over firewood and screws it all up.”
“But he still wins in the end because their mom rushes in to help him,” Danny added.
Rob snorted. “Or maybe it’s based on Danny and he plots out how to kill off his brothers, but never gets around to actually killing them.”
“Ouch,” Joey said, and they all laughed. Danny’s was a little forced, but at least the tension was broken. For now.
Before anybody could speak again, the sound of a truck slowing as it went past the house caught their attention. Sure enough, it turned into the campground. Another seasonal had arrived.
“Rob’s turn,” Danny said.
Of course he got a turn in the office now because they were eating and didn’t want to get up. He downed the last of his coffee and pushed back his chair.
“Tell them you want to search the camper for axes and dead bodies,” Joey said.
“Half of them probably have axes,” Brian said. “For firewood, dumbass.”
They were still arguing about the difference between axes and hatchets when Rob walked out.
As afternoon started tipping toward late afternoon, Hannah thought about the lack of food in the camper—other than the granola bars, of course—and the fact she still hadn’t scoped out grocery store options.
Option one was to walk down to the store and ask whoever was in there for recommendations. But as she’d been in and out of her camper, putting the finishing touches on her home for the summer, she’d seen several campers pull in and everybody seemed busy.
Option two was a second restaurant meal in one day.
It wasn’t so much the money—she had a comfortable savings if she kept to burgers and not fillets—as it was the camping experience.
Her dad always thought restaurant meals were cheating, but her mother loved a night out.
Somewhere along the way, Jenn had taken her mother’s side and Hannah was a daddy’s girl, and even in adulthood, doing it Dad’s way had stuck.
If she went to the restaurant, though, she could sit in the parking lot and have a quick video chat with her parents before having supper.
And after, she could run to the overpriced gas station convenience store that wasn’t too far past the restaurant to get milk for her coffee in the morning.
And ice cream, too, if they had it. A good book and some chocolate ice cream would be a good way to end her first day at Birch Brook Campground.
But when she walked around her truck to put her cooler in the space where the passenger-side back seat was folded up, she found two boys on the ground next to it. They were twins from the look of it, and the one in a red T-shirt was stretched out on his stomach in the dirt.
“Hi,” she said.
“Our ball went under your truck,” the one in the blue T-shirt said. “Sorry.”
“Boys!” A woman appeared at the end of the site slightly up the hill, and Hannah realized they were her neighbors. “Are they bothering you? I’m so sorry.”
“Not at all. My truck ate their ball, I guess.”
The woman sighed and crossed the distance between them. “I’m Melissa Scott.”
“Hannah Shelby,” she said, shaking the hand the woman offered.
“That’s my husband, Scottie, over there,” she said, and a man waved from the site.
“His name’s actually Jim, but everybody calls him Scottie because.
..well, Scott, obviously. And these guys are Jackson, in the red, and Jayden, in the blue.
They’re ten and they can be rambunctious, but if you snap your fingers at them, they’ll take it down a notch. ”
“You can call us Red and Blue, if you want,” Jackson said. “Everybody does. Our nicknames match our shirts.”
Melissa gave her a chagrined look. “It’s a long story that involves us bringing them home from the hospital, cutting their ID bracelets off, and then within three days, me having a total emotional breakdown because I’d lost track of which was which.”
“I can imagine,” Hannah said. “They’re very identical.”
“I have a freckle on my—”
“Jayden!” Melissa shook her head. “My mom remembered Jayden has a tiny birthmark freckle, so we got them sorted, but we knew they’d reach an age where having to drop their drawers to know which kid was which would get awkward, so Jackson always wore red and Jayden got blue. It stuck and they like it, so...”
“And you have a purple shirt,” Hannah pointed out. “Red and blue.”
“Mom always wears purple,” Red told her.
“Oh.” The woman looked down at her shirt. “That’s funny, but yeah. I wear a lot of purple.”
“Got it,” Blue declared, crawling out from under the truck with an orange Nerf ball. Being ten, he didn’t bother to dust himself off.
“Okay, off we go. I just wanted to introduce us and let you know to boot them back to me if they get out of hand.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Hannah said, and she thought about how it wasn’t really a lie as she put the cooler in the truck. They seemed like a nice family, and she knew from years of camping with her parents that wasn’t always the case. You didn’t get to pick your neighbors in campgrounds.
She waved to Brian on her way out, but she didn’t see Rob anywhere. Not that she was looking for him—okay, maybe she was.
There were only two vehicles in the parking lot of Corinne’s Kitchen, so after a quick video chat with her parents, Hannah took a seat at one of the small tables without feeling guilty.
She was tired and sitting on a stool didn’t appeal to her.
If they started filling up, she could always move to the counter.
When Kenzie brought her a menu, she was surprised because it seemed like an awfully long shift. “You were working this morning.”
“And I’ll be here working tomorrow morning.” Kenzie sighed. “I have a high schooler who works part-time, but it’s a busy time of year for seniors. What can I get you?”
“I’ll have a water, please. And a small garden salad with ranch.” Hannah hesitated, glancing at the menu. “With a side of cheeseburger, medium-well, with mayo and pickles, please.”
Kenzie laughed and wrote out the order before taking the menu. “Good call. My dad makes a pretty good burger.”
When she walked away, Hannah pulled out her book, but she didn’t open it.
There were a bunch of ads for local businesses printed on the paper place mat, and she looked it over.
She didn’t really need excavation work or an alarm system, but there was an ad for a camper repair company she hoped she wouldn’t have to call.
It was nice to know there was somebody local, though.
“Are you just in town for the weekend?” Kenzie asked when she brought her a tall glass of ice water.
“No. I’m staying at the campground for the season. Birch Brook. They opened for seasonal campers today.”
“I’m glad they bought that place and reopened it. It’s not only good for my business, but it was sad to see it closed. And the guys—the Kowalski brothers—they come in here a lot, and they’re good guys.”
There was something about the way she said it that made Hannah wonder if she’d witnessed Rob trying to talk to her that morning. “They do seem nice.”
“Do you have anybody else with you?”
“Nope. Just me.”
“Wow.” Kenzie tilted her head. “You just travel around alone?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s awesome. I wish I could do that. Just pick a place on a map, park a camper and see what’s there to be seen.” Kenzie sighed wistfully, and then shrugged. “Maybe someday.”
“Sometimes you have to just decide it’s someday or it never comes.”
“True. I was going to leave once. I had a plan to start with Boston and then figure it out. But my mom passed away and there’s this place. It’s her legacy, I guess. And without it, my dad would have nothing, really. So here I am...until someday.”
“I’m sorry about your mom.” Hannah couldn’t even imagine not having hers. Even now, while she was clear across the country, she could hear her voice on the other end of the phone whenever she needed to.
“Thanks.” The door opened and an older couple walked in. “Guess I’ll get back to it.”
With other people coming in, Hannah opened her book and read until her burger arrived. It started getting busy around the time Hannah finished eating, so she didn’t get another chance to talk with Kenzie, other than when she paid her bill.
After running to the store to grab the necessities—which always included ice cream—Hannah drove back to the campground.
It was nice to not be hauling the camper behind her, and it definitely made pulling into the campground’s driveway easier.
As she slowly made her way toward her site, she spotted Rob.
All four of the Kowalski brothers were standing with another man, and all five of them had their arms crossed as they looked at a camper that had ended up wedged between a couple of trees and a large rock.
Rob glanced over as she drove by, and she lifted her fingers off the steering wheel in a wave that felt like an acknowledgment without being too awkwardly enthusiastic.
And good lord, she could see that smile from here. He lifted his hand in greeting, and then she saw Joey point to something, which took his attention away from her.
But just before she took the turn that would take her into the tree line, Hannah glanced in her rearview mirror, and Rob was definitely watching her.