The Camp (12 page)

She nearly fell on her face when the door opened. Amy had her around the waist in an aggressive hug before she knew what happened.
 

Claire pried her hands away and tried for some light banter. “Rye’s the only one that greets me like that.”

Amy peeked out into the late afternoon then closed the door and twisted the button in the knob.

Shocked at her actions, Claire sat on the bed and patted the mattress beside her. “Talk to me.”

Amy seemed nervous and rocked back and forth. “I don’t know, can I?”

Claire bristled. “I’m your friend, your sensei, and your adopted aunt. Tell me what’s going on.”

She worried that she had come across too strong. Paul had mentioned on more then one occasion that Amy rebelled whenever he put on a strong parental attitude.

“Remember Ed?” It was a rhetorical question, one Claire was grateful for. She just nodded.

“Yeah, well, he had this roommate who was a real pervert, always used to hit on me.” She instantly regretted mentioning that last part. “Well, Ron and I were walking to the little store in Agness and suddenly, there was Ed’s roommate unloading a truck. Ron said some new guy named Ed was brought in from the Rogue Valley to run the rafting end of the business.”

“Who’s Ron?”

Amy softened her posture and dropped the edge from her voice. “He works here at the lodge. He’s a relative of the original owner, four times removed or something like that. Anyway, I don’t want the pervert to see me, ‘cause he’ll tell Ed, and then Ed’ll come around.”

When Claire didn’t comment and seemed to be looking down at her feet, Amy peered around to see her expression.

Claire looked back at her. “Sorry. It’s just that I have to make a decision right now that involves you and your father. Under normal circumstances, I’d never bring up a sensitive issue with you without your father being present.” Claire paused. “But honestly, he sent me over to find out why you didn’t want to leave your cabin.”

Amy was shaken. She’d never seen her aunt so serious.

“I need to talk to you as one adult to another and I’ll tell you now that I’m hoping for a response, not a reaction. Do you understand?”

Amy just nodded.
 

“Not good enough. I need a verbal response.”

Amy climbed off the bed and turned to face her Aunt with her hands on her hips. “You ask me to act like an adult, then you tell me how to respond. Am I a child or an adult?”

Claire ran her hands over her face. “I’m sorry.” She paused and shook her head. “I just gave your father that same lecture.” She could think of no easy way to soften the news. “Ed is dead.”

Amy blinked several times, turned, and sat back down on the bed. In the next moment, she surprised Claire. “How did he die?”

“I thought you two were a thing? You know, dating or whatever?”

“Remember when you asked me if I’d had sex?” Another rhetorical question and again Claire just nodded. “Well, we didn’t, unless you want to call a handjob sex.” Amy hoped that her aunt had been serious about talking one adult to another because there was no way she was going to explain ‘giving a handjob’ to her.

“You’re telling me that you weren’t in love or anything like that?”

 
“There was kind of an attraction at first, but the more I got to know him, the less I liked him. I broke it off right after my brown belt test.”

Claire suddenly bristled. “If you want, I’ll go over to the store and settle Frank’s hash.”

“Please, no. Let’s just go over to your room.”

They walked across the lawn toward the lodge without a word until Amy touched her aunt’s shoulder, and they stopped. Claire turned to face her with a questioning look. “Um, Aunt Claire? You ah, you won’t tell daddy about…you know.”
 

Claire frowned. “Not tell your father about what?”
 

Amy rolled her eyes. “God.” She stroked the air with an open fist. “You know.”
 

Claire laughed. “I don’t want to know any details, and you don’t have to worry. Your father will never hear about it from me.” She stroked the air and laughed again. “Welcome to womanhood.”

Arm in arm, they crossed the lawn the rest of the way to the lodge.

When they reached the lobby, Amy looked around and asked mindlessly, “How’s Uncle Rye doing?”

“Are you really that worried that Frank will be here?”

Amy started for the stairs. “I was looking for Ron. On our walk today I invited him to join us for dinner. But that was before I learned about your accident.”

Claire laughed. “If your Uncle is anywhere near back to normal, his appetite will be, too.”

When they came to the room, Claire knocked before entering, hoping that Rye wasn’t parading around in his underwear. When they entered, she was relieved to see that he had changed from sweats to jeans and a jacket. The two men looked like they were ready to go out.

Paul turned. “Glad you ladies could make it.”

Amy walked over and gave her father a hug. “I know about Ed.”

He looked over at Claire, then down at his daughter. “You okay?”

“It’s not like we were lovers or anything.”

He tried not to show his relief.
 

“Your Uncle Rye and I have been talking. He can’t seem to let go of what Ed said about the girls from the accident being part of a human trafficking ring.”

Rye got up and tried to avoid Claire’s withering stare. “I’m fine. I just need to take it slow and stay bundled up. I thought we could have dinner in the restaurant instead of an outside barbecue.”

She grudgingly agreed.
 

They dined on grilled trout with salad on the side. In the middle of the meal, Amy suddenly jumped up and ran out of the room. Her father was on his feet until Rye put a hand on his shoulder. “The young man she introduced me to last night.” Claire followed his stare. “That would be Ron.” Moments later, Amy was leading a clean-cut young man up to their table.

“Ron, this is my Aunt Claire and you met my Uncle Rye. And this is my father.”

Ron bobbed his head. “Pleased to meet you all.”

Claire stood up and dragged a chair over from an unoccupied table. “Please join us.”

Rye and Paul exchanged looks.
 

Ron shared smiles all around the table. “Amy said that you were here taking a river rescue course. How’s it going?”

Rye smiled. “Funny you should ask. During the last scenario, we discovered a body in the river. The sheriff said the victim was hired by the owner of the little country store to operate the rafting business. The owner said he told his friend he was going to walk the river for a ways and check it out. I was just wondering, since you’ve lived here for a while, if there have been other accidental drownings.”

Ron took on a look of confusion that Paul picked up on.

“What is it, son?”

“That’s not true.”

Rye looked across the table at Paul, but he couldn’t get his attention because he was in full investigative mode.

“What’s not true?”

“I saw the new guy get into the raft with Billy and Josh.”
 

“Who’s Billy and Josh and where exactly did you see the raft go in?”

“Daddy,” Amy protested.

 
Ron was frantically looking from Rye to Paul. “This is really weird, man. I ran into the sheriff and told him I’d seen the new guy climb in a raft and he told me he already had it covered and not to worry about it.”

 
Paul frowned. “He didn’t contact you later, take a statement or anything?”

“No, sir.”

Rye stood. “I’m feeling a bit of a chill and am wondering if we might continue this conversation up in our room.”

Ron stepped back from the table. “Actually, I’m scheduled to help in the kitchen tonight. That’s where I was going when Amy snagged me. I’m probably already in trouble.”

Paul stepped up and shook the young man’s hand. “Thanks for playing tour guide for my daughter. I’m a Private Investigator…”
 

Ron smiled and interrupted. “I know. Amy said you just finished a big case.”
 

Paul looked over at his daughter then back. “Is that so?” He cleared his throat. “I’d like to talk to you more about the drowning. Do you have a cell number?”

“No, but I live in one of the cabins and have a landline.”

Paul produced a business card. Ron scribbled his number on a scrap of paper placemat and traded him.

They said their goodbyes and went up to their room.

Claire watched Rye sit on the edge of the bed. “I thought you were cold.”

He waved away the question. “I noticed a woman watching from the kitchen. She seemed focused on Ron.”
 

“Under the covers or put on a jacket.”
 

He glared at his wife then broke into a smile, leaned over, and gave her a kiss. “I’ll take the jacket.”

Paul was beginning to pace. “We know the victim was Ed.” He turned to his daughter. “And you’re sure you saw Frank working at the store?”

“He was unloading a truck. But I’m sure it was him.”

Claire snuck up behind her husband and tossed the jacket over his head. “Who was your servant last year?” Then she turned to Amy. “He didn’t see you?”

“No. I stopped before we got close to the store. As soon as I saw him, I turned around.”

Rye popped his hands out the sleeves and zipped the jacket up to his chin. “It just seems too much of coincidence. Ed mentions the trafficking thing, then he comes up here and has an accident. On top of that, we have two different stories about what happened to him and the sheriff seems to already be choosing one over the other.”

Paul picked up the narrative. “Both stories make sense. But I think he’d be more likely to fall off an outcropping then out of a raft…”
 

“Unless,” Amy interrupted, “he was pushed.”

Paul pointed at his daughter with one hand and touched his nose with the other. “A chip off the old block. And therein lays the foul play. But we have a disconnect. Can anyone guess?”

Rye had taken off the jacket and crawled under the covers. “I don’t know. He did mention the human trafficking thing.”

“Yes, but who knew about that outside of this circle? Amy, did he ever bring up the topic with you?”

She looked at her father then looked away. He knew that reaction and probed further. “C’mon. Did you ask him about it later?”

“Yeah. We were parked in front of his house.” She suddenly blurted out. “But we didn’t do anything. I mean, he tried to kiss me, but I wouldn’t have any of it.”

Claire stepped over and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Whatever happened is okay. That’s not what this is about.”

“Then yes. I mean, I asked him how he knew that stuff about the date rape pills. He told me it was just something he overheard Frank talking about.”

The room went silent and stayed that way when they realized Rye had fallen asleep. Then the silence was broken by his snores. Claire held up a finger to get everyone’s attention, walked over, and pulled the covers down off his shoulders. Seemingly on cue, he rolled onto his side, pulled the covers up to his chin, and stopped snoring.

She smiled. “He sleeps the sleep of the dead.”

Paul continued in a softer voice but with no less intensity. “So the sheriff chooses to believe that Ed fell off the outcropping, which on the face of it, makes sense. But when confronted by an eyewitness with a different story, he blows him off. Still, we have the disconnect. If nobody outside the four of us heard what Ed had said about human trafficking, then we have a dead end. And a sheriff looking for a simple solution.”

Amy looked around in disbelief and was shushed when she began to raise her voice. “What about the fact that both Frank and Ed ended up here?”

Her father shook his head. “What about it? Perhaps all this is nothing more than a coincidence and Ed’s death is an accident.”

It was late when the conversation dwindled and everyone was a little spooked. That is, except Rye, who was still asleep. Paul and Claire walked Amy to her cabin, where her father kissed her goodnight. “Lock the door. I’ll wait.” After a minute, he grabbed the knob and gave it a shake to make sure it was locked.

Chapter Eighteen

Ellen moved through the motions of cooking, cleaning the kitchen, and generally following the rules of Camp Hiouchi like a ghost. Drifting around the facility and emerging from her self-proclaimed exile just long enough to participate during the counseling sessions or a visit with her companion, Jane Johnson.
 

Every day, right after her 9:00 AM to noon class, Ellen had a free period for just half an hour right before her cooking and kitchen duties began. During this time, she would sit alone on the bank of the river. At first, she’d just watch the gentle flow of the water. Then, as one day blurred into the next, she found herself wondering what it would be like to step into the water and let it pull her away.

It was a bright warm day in May, one of the first where she could sit on the riverbank in short sleeves. From somewhere in the back of her mind, her companion’s warning bubbled up. “We have fifteen girls and fifteen boys here. The boys are across the river but don’t even think of crossing over for a visit.”

All these days, and she hadn’t seen a single boy. Were they so different? Never wondering at the river and its destination? Many of the girls enjoyed spending their free time wading and splashing on the shore, always under the watchful eye of a companion. Maybe these boys were hardcore and couldn’t be bothered with the river.

She’d borrowed a pair of binoculars from one of the staff, explaining that she thought she’d found an eagle’s nest.
 

Where were the boys? She could see some buildings and a couple cabins. Were they in lockdown? She watched day after day until she became obsessed. Where were the boys? One day she saw a van. Another day, she saw two men.

She was just finishing cleanup after the noon meal when a messenger brought her a note. She took the moment to wipe her hands on the apron she always wore and to tie her hair back.

It was from her companion, Jane Johnson. She looked around. She was alone, so she read it out loud. “We need to meet. My office, 1:30.” She folded the note and slipped it into her back pocket. She pondered the time. This meeting with Jane would cut into her group counseling session. She looked at the big clock on the wall. She only had ten minutes.