Chapter Twenty-Five
Then
Fifteen Days Before the Fire
In the days after I learned the truth about Steph, things at Dread’s Cove started to really go off the rails.
One hot afternoon, two ten-year-old campers had been in the middle of the lake when their canoe started sinking. They screamed loud enough to wake the dead, and Trevor was there within minutes in his dinghy to rescue them before they capsized.
Once the girls were wrapped in towels and taken to their cabin, he and Rig went back out to recover the canoe. What they found was chilling—someone had meticulously drilled dozens of tiny holes in the bottom that were almost invisible, if you weren’t looking.
Someone had wanted that canoe to sink.
My mother called me on my walkie-talkie to help them investigate, and what we found was even scarier. My whole body started to tremble.
All twelve canoes in the boathouse had been altered in a similar way.
It was intentional, calculated, and cruel.
With the intent to cause real, actual harm.
I told myself that surely it couldn’t have been Steph—but if not her, then who?
After all, she’d admitted, in a roundabout way, that she was the one who’d been sneaking around at night and breaking into cabins.
The one the boys had followed into the woods, who’d scared Kendall that first night. Who’d knocked Val to the ground.
And she was the only Phantom I’d caught red-handed.
But she wasn’t cruel. She liked being a counselor. Margo was indifferent, bordering on hostile to the girls in her cabin. Then again, Margo had become indifferent to everyone over the past few weeks.
Steph was kind. Not just to me, but to everyone.
Yesterday, I’d watched her console Chandler Harwell, one of the quieter girls in Smallmouth.
Her mother had written her a letter, saying her grandma had broken her hip and was in the hospital, and poor Chandler had fallen apart completely.
It was Steph who’d let her skip breakfast, taken her on a walk through the woods.
Let her pick which Taylor Swift album they’d listen to for the dance party that night.
And by dinner, there was color back in Chandler’s cheeks, and Steph had snuck her an extra helping of strawberry shortcake.
That was the real Steph I knew. She cared about people.
Her heart was wide open, offering free tickets, inviting everyone in.
The morning of the canoe incident, my mom called an emergency staff meeting on the back deck of the mess hall.
I was a thousand miles away, stuck in my own mind.
I kept playing back that night: the way Steph had acted when I’d found her.
Telling me that she hadn’t done anything wrong, that it was just a misunderstanding.
That she hadn’t meant to hurt anyone.
This Phantom Steph was a version of her that I hadn’t known existed.
She was sneaky. Evasive. Aloof, in the way she’d spoken about Val, and about getting caught.
It was jarring, wondering what other parts of herself she’d kept hidden from me.
I didn’t understand how there could be multiple Stephs, all living inside of her.
My mom and the rest of the staff were all silently staring at me when I finally snapped back to reality. “What?”
She gave me a thin smile, though I could see the concern and exhaustion etched into her forehead.
I’d been so lost in my own head that I hadn’t noticed how awful my mom looked.
We’d spent less time with each other this summer than we ever had before; I’d been busy, with Steph and Trevor, and she’d been putting out fires left and right.
She’d never been glamorous, exactly, but she was consistent.
I could count on one hand how many times over the years I’d seen my mother without her hair done, pulled back in her signature twist. I didn’t think I’d ever seen her without her favorite shade of berry-pink lipstick.
Or at least one necklace hanging around her neck.
Right now, she was missing all three.
“Since we’ll be closing all waterfront activities until further notice, I was asking if you were all right with doubling Brook Trout’s daily time in the rec center. Does that work?”
I gave her a quick nod, avoiding the heat of Chelsea’s gaze from the front row. My mom’s eyes lingered on me for another moment, before, thankfully, she moved on to the next item on her agenda.
After she excused all of us, I forced myself to talk to her. I hated how nervous I was, speaking to my own mother. But there was something so unsettling about seeing her like this—like she was falling apart at the seams.
“Mom,” I said, and she turned around. Up close, I was even more taken aback by how haunted she looked. Her eyes were sunken, her hair frizzing from the late-morning heat.
“Hey, honey,” she said, patting my cheek with the back of her hand before reaching down to pack up her bag.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “You look sick.”
She gave a hollow, broken laugh. “I wish I could say I was. I’m just not sure what to do about all this. I feel like it’s all spiraling out of control.”
My mother was the only person actively refusing to use the term Phantom. She said giving them a name was giving them too much power—anytime she mentioned it, it was in the same vague way: I don’t know what to do about all this. We need to figure out who’s been sneaking around in the woods.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “You don’t deserve this.”
“We’ll figure it out. I promise you. I’ll take care of it.” Her voice cracked, and that was when I decided.
I had to tell her what I knew, even if that meant Steph would be sent home. Even if it fractured us irrevocably.
My gut was churning with guilt and shame. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t told her immediately. I was being selfish, unfair, and completely irresponsible. I had to end this, now. It was the right thing to do.
I squared my shoulders, took a deep breath, and forced myself to say the words. “Mom, I have to—”
“Little G?”
I whipped around at the sound of Steph’s voice. She was standing with her arms crossed, her ice-blue eyes piercing into me like she could read my thoughts.
“Just a second,” I said weakly, but my mom was already squeezing my arm in goodbye.
“I’ve gotta get down to the water, baby,” she said, and I felt her slipping away, already focused on the never-ending task list in her head. “I’ll see you later.”
And then Steph and I were alone. I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it, but a strange surge of tension seemed to crackle between us.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?”
I nodded, resisting the urge to look around for an out. We were all alone, everyone else having gone inside. Breakfast was long over, and even Wes and the rest of the kitchen staff were likely on their midmorning break.
“What’s up?” I said, glancing back and forth between her and my mom’s retreating form. I hated how obvious I was being. She could hear the anxiety in my voice, just as well as I could.
“Come sit with me,” she said, and my feet seemed to move of their own accord. I dropped onto the bench next to her, keeping my eyes on the horizon, on the mountains beyond the lake.
“I have a proposition for you.” I turned to face her, intrigued despite myself. Steph was smiling, the freckles on her face popping against her tan. “I think we should be roommates.”
The gasp I let out was embarrassingly loud. “What?”
“Well, you know how Margo’s going on her big Euro trip for the next six months?
The girl who was going to sublet from her bailed last minute.
I was totally freaking out, but then I thought about our plan for you to come visit this fall, and the idea just came to me.
Who better to share an apartment with than my new bestie?
The only thing better than you visiting is you staying. ”
Below us, I could hear the gentle waves crashing against the rocks. I shook my head, still trying to catch up. “You want me to move to Atlanta with you?”
“Exactly.” She said it so easily, like it was the simplest thing in the world. Like it didn’t come with a hundred caveats. Like it didn’t change everything.
I opened my mouth, closed it again. A thousand thoughts raced through my brain as I considered this. I thought of my mom, tired and stressed and desperate for things to get better.
And I thought of two little girls, screaming in fear, afraid they were about to drown.
“Steph,” I started, wringing my hands together. “Just tell me…this wasn’t you, right?”
She cocked a brow. “What are you talking about?”
“The canoes,” I said. “You didn’t…you wouldn’t…”
Her eyes went wide. “Oh my God. You don’t actually think I would do something like that, do you?”
I gnawed on my lip instead of answering. The truth was, I had no idea what I thought anymore. This Steph—nice, bubbly, kind Steph? Of course not. But the Steph I’d met the other night, shifty and harsh? She certainly seemed capable.
She had a darkness in her.
When I said nothing, she reached out and grasped my hand. Hers was warm, sweaty. “I know you don’t actually think that, you’re just scared, so I’m going to forgive you for accusing me of attempted murder, all right? Can we go back to my brilliant idea, please?”
I nodded, still incapable of speaking. My brain felt like it was short-circuiting; I’d received far too much information in the past forty-five minutes. I needed a cold shower and a pot of coffee injected directly into my bloodstream.
“Come on, think about it. It’s a perfect plan. Our lease starts a week after camp ends. It’s a cute little place, two blocks from your boyfriend. So, it’s a yes, right? It has to be.”
Part of me wanted to press her—go back to the Phantom, the canoes, all the other weird and scary things that kept happening—but I couldn’t stop my imagination from taking hold.
It had taken me a minute, but I realized the gravity of what she was offering me. If I said yes, in three weeks, I could leave Dread’s Cove.