Chapter Twenty-two
For a long frozen moment we stand there, Trevor halfway out the back door of the tent, the rest of us clustered at the front. Behind me, Lyle’s harsh breathing makes a jagged, uneven backbeat with Petra’s frightened sobs.
I want to believe Trevor’s not holding Lyle’s field journal and a phone full of stolen images, but every time I look, reality stays the same.
The spell breaks, everything going from zero to free fall in the space of a skipped heartbeat.
Lyle steps forward; Trevor stumbles back, tripping over the fabric threshold and landing hard on his ass.
He struggles to his feet, eyes darting toward where the Mystery Machine sits waiting, keys in their well-known hiding spot under the sun visor.
Nothing’s a secret at this camp anymore, it seems.
“I can explain! Please let me explain,” Petra cries over and over.
Lyle doesn’t miss Trevor’s tell. He puts his body between Trevor and the parking area with two long steps.
His shoulders are tight, elbows cocked, hands open; he moves with an easy grace that reminds me of the way he paddles his canoe, except tonight his economy of motion is less beauty, more beast.
“I believe you have something of mine.” Lyle’s expression—calm spread over fury in a too-thin layer—might have been what his high school bully saw before he turned to run, the way Trevor’s running with Lyle’s journal now.
I should be angry, but I can’t summon a single spark.
I should at least be afraid—not of Lyle; he might’ve developed a bark, but he’ll never bite.
Regardless, the situation is escalating so fast, a tipping point can’t be far off.
I should be worried about that. I should be furious that Trevor and Petra—if those are their real names, considering how often Petra blanked on hers—came here to steal from us and succeeded.
I should be terrified to lose the work I managed to fall in love with despite my best intentions not to.
Instead, I feel a strange relief. Everyone will finally see what I saw. It wasn’t paranoia after all.
I follow Trevor’s clumsy retreat and Lyle’s relentless advance. I can think of exactly one way to work this problem, and if that doesn’t solve things, then I don’t know what to do.
“Let it go, Lyle. Don’t chase him.”
Trevor and Petra already got what they came for, and we can’t get it back.
Everything we worked on this session, everything Lyle researched and reflected on and painstakingly handwrote—it’s digitalized now, soaring into the ether.
Already on Fisher’s phone, probably. Lyle’s field notes are lost in every way that matters.
Trevor turns toward the firepit, his pace picking up. “Don’t touch me, you fucking maniac,” he shouts. An uneasy murmur rises as the guests come to their feet, Babe rousing herself from her adoring slump against Sloane’s leg.
“Those are my notes.” Lyle’s voice is so, so quiet. It’s his body that shouts—the tight, controlled cadence of his steps, the bunching readiness in his thighs, the fisted hands and clenched shoulders.
All Lyle’s doing is keeping pace with Trevor’s retreat. But someone who wasn’t at the tent might see Lyle driving Trevor toward the lake, setting him back on his heels.
“Trevor. Put the book down and step away.” I hope I sound like I’m trying to help him, not trying to defuse an unstable Lyle.
“Hey, hey.” Lori steps forward. “There’s no need—”
“Don’t get between them, love,” Mitch says, low-voiced, her hand coming to Lori’s elbow.
“Stellar?” Sloane asks, layers of uncertainty coloring her tone. Babe growls, tail between her legs.
My brain chugs and clunks, unable to work the problem. My heart is iced over and useless.
Anger was my best defense. It kept me nimble, fed me ideas, pushed me to keep trying. It kept me safe in moments like this, and now I don’t have it.
“Come on, Petra,” Trevor says, backing toward the beach. “We have to go. We’re not safe here.”
Petra sobs, looking around the circle of shocked faces.
“My book first, please.” The more Lyle focuses on his notebook, the more our guests drift backward, eyes huge and faces slack. His ring is a dark blur on his left hand—his dominant hand. Its metal would carve a groove in Trevor’s cheek if they should meet.
“The notes are gone, Lyle. They’ve already sent everything to Fisher. There’s nothing more we can lose. Hey,” I say, snapping my fingers to get his attention. “ McHuge . Stay with me. I need you to have my back here.”
Maybe getting him in touch with his anger was a huge fucking mistake. Maybe he should have stayed kind, and I should’ve stayed angry. Maybe our misguided attempts to help each other led to our downfall.
“Give it to him, Trevor.” Petra grabs Trevor’s arm to stop him from tripping into a canoe. Behind them, the lake glimmers under a cool, pale moon.
“I didn’t have time to take pics of everything. We need the book. Back off, dude,” Trevor snaps, his shaky voice undermining his attempt to sound authoritative. “You can’t touch me. That’s assault.”
“Trevor.” Brent makes a pacifying gesture. “I’d give him the book. When he was seventeen, he—”
“Shut up , Brent,” Willow says, and for once, he does.
“I just want the notes.” McHuge puts out a hand, palm up, keeping it at waist level.
Trevor’s entire body lurches in terror. He swings the journal wildly, clipping Lyle’s face with one hard-edged corner.
Lyle jerks back, a hand coming to cover his left eye.
An emotion finally comes: terror, cold and immobilizing. My limbs stay weak and stuck, my brain blank. I need to work the problem, and I can’t.
“He swung first! You saw it, you all saw it, he made the first move.” Trevor takes the opportunity to scoop up all the paddles from where they’re photogenically propped against the trees.
He scrambles around the canoes, shoving the nearest one—Lyle’s—halfway into the water, dumping all the paddles inside.
“This whole place is a scam! Those two”—he waves at me and Lyle—“are no more engaged than Petra and I are.”
There’s a moment for a collective inhale.
Willow’s voice cuts through the silence. “Stellar? Is this true?” She sounds so shocked. So disappointed.
My mouth opens, but I can’t speak.
Sensing the advantage, Trevor stands up straighter.
“There’s more. Much more. McHuge—he stole the idea for the Love Boat.
Stellar’s supposed to be the camp doctor, but she hasn’t practiced medicine for over a year, and her dad is a convicted felon.
And we can’t prove Sloane and Stellar are related—yet.
But we will. I’m not the bad guy here, whatever you may think. ”
I almost laugh into the silence. To think I was worried about Mitch and Sloane spilling the beans, and the whole time Trevor had all of our secrets and his own to boot.
Every con comes to an end, as my dad used to say.
Lyle takes his hand away from his face. With a tentative finger, he touches his crooked eyebrow, expression darkening as he finds new blood over the old scar. He’s trembling, clearly furious.
And everyone’s terrified of him.
“Come on , Petra.” Trevor’s poised at the stern, ready to launch.
Petra dodges through the boats, snagging a random life jacket as she goes. She’s hardly gotten both feet in the boat when Trevor pushes off, leaving us literally up the creek without a paddle.
With a high, sharp bark, Babe gallops through the shallows, desperate not to miss her ride. She jumps over Trevor to take her rightful place in the bow, her claws scratching the hell out of his legs as she wrestles past.
“Ouch, fuck!” He pushes her forward, managing to get in a couple of steering strokes to match Petra’s power in the bow. They’re ten feet off shore, now twenty, now forty, as far out of our reach as if they were cruising at thirty thousand feet.
“Babe!” Lyle yells, splashing into the water. At his call, the dog starts jumping from gunwale to gunwale. She howls in confusion and terror—painful, grinding wails. On shore, seven stunned people watch the disaster unfold.
Petra twists in her seat. “Trevor, the dog!”
“Too late,” Trevor says, his voice carrying over the water. “We’re not going back.”
Lyle seems to curl in on himself for a moment, then leans back and lets out a roar so huge and fearsome I couldn’t even have imagined it coming from a human, let alone from him.
The pain in it hurts my ears, hurts my soul, as loud as the night my father laid a double stripe of rubber down the middle of King Street so every time I came home I’d see my mom leaving all over again.
When it stops, I’ve got my hands over my ears and my eyes squeezed shut.
“Stellar,” my sister says, stroking my arms. “It’s okay, honey. Let go now.”
“Stellar.” Lyle’s voice is shredded. He takes a step toward me, then, seeing something in my face, he steps back.
“I didn’t touch him. He took my notes. He took my dog .
I didn’t touch him.” He reaches out, but I need my hands on my ears.
I’m numb and the dog is barking and Lori is crying and I just lost everything.
Again.
The sound he makes this time is quiet, hardly more than a croak from his ruined throat. He walks out of the water, past me, past everyone, breaking into a run when he reaches the firepit.
My trance breaks. “Stop! Lyle, stop ! Don’t you leave me—”
He’s gone, vanished into the woods, branches swaying where he passed.
He left me here, on my own.
A gigantic splash pulls everyone’s attention back to the water. The Petra-sized silhouette in the bow is shouting at the Trevor-shaped one in the stern. She’s standing up, rocking the boat, throwing paddles into the lake in the direction of a low sleek head and two flailing paws.
Babe, who isn’t wearing her life jacket.