“I saw some boys while I was there,” she finally said.
“Saw? Like looked at them? Or . . . dated them?” asked Harley.
“I never saw that Ryan again. He drowned and they were like Romeo and Juliet. You know who they are?” Emma’s head swiveled Harley’s way.
“Not personally,” said Harley lightly.
“They were star-crossed lovers. That means they were unlucky.”
“Really unlucky,” agreed Harley. “But the guy, Ryan? I thought he killed that girl. The one found on the ledge. That’s a little more than unlucky. That’s premeditated murder.” Harley hadn’t come across anyone named Ryan in her research, although a boy named Christopher had drowned the year Emma was at Camp Love Shack, and a girl named Fern was the one who’d been found on the ledge, though the cause of death was listed as unknown. Privately, Harley thought the powers that be had swept that one under the rug.
“I never saw him again. They wouldn’t let us go down to the lake. You can see the ledge from the camp, but you need binoculars.”
Now it was Harley’s turn to take her eyes off the road for a moment and gaze at her aunt, who was staring blankly through the windshield. Sometimes Emma said things that meant a lot more than the words. You had to read between the lines.
“Did you see the ledge through the binoculars?” she asked casually, turning her attention back to the road. She didn’t want to scare Emma into clamming up again, but she was really interested in learning all she could.
“I didn’t have the binoculars that night. He did.”
“That night? What night? Are you talking about Ryan? You mean, the night he died?”
Emma frowned. “He was going to see me tomorrow, but he died that night.”
“The night he drowned he was looking through the binoculars toward the ledge?” Harley reiterated.
Emma cocked her head in her way that meant she was thinking hard. “He looked through the binoculars.”
Harley pulled into a visitor spot in front of Ridge Pointe Independent and Assisted Living. Normally she dropped her aunt off beneath the portico at the main doors, but she wanted to keep the conversation going for as long as Emma allowed. Harley intended to go to the camp armed with as much background on the place as she could get.
“Why did you park?” asked Emma.
“I just wanted to keep talking a minute. You said this guy Ryan was looking through the binoculars at the ledge the same night he drowned?”
“I didn’t see him again,” she said.
“Could he have been looking at the ledge where the girl, Fern, died?”
“I don’t think so. Do you want to stay for dinner?”
Harley had to pull herself back. Sometimes it seemed she was on some kind of breakthrough with what happened at the camp, that Emma was on the verge of telling her something new and vital. But it never quite worked out that way. “Why don’t you come to dinner at the house? I gotta pick up something at the store for Mom for dinner, but you could join us.” Harley knew her mother, Emma’s sister, wouldn’t care if there was one more at the table, especially as it was Emma. It was Emma who sometimes resisted.
Emma said, “Twink came into the dining room even though she’s not supposed to. She rubbed against Jewell’s legs and Jewell ‘howled like a banshee.’ That’s what Donna Dentworth said. Jewell thought she was going to die, but nobody’s died in the month of June or May, so we’re lucky. Not star-crossed.”
Twink, short for Twinkletoes—a name Emma abhorred, which is why she’d shortened it—was the black-and-white cat that prognosticated death around Ridge Pointe. If the cat curled up into your bed with you it was a bad omen. Many times the people she crawled in with were found dead the next day or several days later. Although this information about the cat was definitely newsworthy, Harley wanted to get back to the camp. “Why don’t we—”
“Jewell’s sure she’s going to die. Mr. Atkinson wants to get rid of the cat. I know you don’t like Twink, but I do. She can’t go anywhere near the dining room anymore. She needs a new home.”
“Hey, I’d take Twink. She’s totally creepy and cool. But back to the night you saw Ryan with the binoculars. I—”
“I think I could catch Twink and bring her to Jamie’s.”
“What about Duchess?” Harley asked, reminding Emma of her dog, who was at constant war with the cat.
“Duchess lives at Ridge Pointe,” explained Emma, giving Harley a look that said, You know that.
“So, you want us to take Twink while you and Duchess stay at Ridge Pointe?”
“You just said you would.”
“Okay, but this requires further discussion, Emma. Come have dinner with us. I’m leaving for Camp Fog Lake in less than a week and I can’t take the cat. We should talk about it with Mom and Cooper.”
“Don’t go to Camp Love Shack. It isn’t safe,” Emma said again.
“Camp Fog Lake. I’ve got to go, Emma. I told you. I have a job there. And I want to go.”
“But you might not come back.”
“I’ll come back. But Emma, I want you to think hard about the night you saw Ryan with the binoculars. The guy who drowned.”
“Okay . . .” she said uncertainly.
“I don’t want to confuse you, but I think his name is Christopher. That’s the name of the guy who drowned while you were there.”
“That’s Ryan.”
Harley stopped pressing for a moment as Emma had dug her heels in. “Okay. Maybe I’m wrong.” She knew she wasn’t, though.
Emma said slowly, “If you jump in the lake from the ledge, you die. It’s too high and the water is concrete.”
“Concrete?”
“That’s what Joy said.”
“Who’s Joy?” asked Harley.
“The camp director. She said the water is concrete, but she’s a liar. It’s just water.”
“She’s not the camp director anymore, Emma. It’s someone named Hope. And I think she meant that if you hit the water from that high up, sometimes it’s like hitting concrete. You have to break the water tension, which sounds easy, but if you have enough velocity, it can be like running into a brick wall.”
“Are you really smart, Harley?”
“Why, yes, I am, as a matter of fact.” Harley grinned. “I’m a high school graduate, Emma.”
“So am I. But I’m not smart.”
“Oh, yes, you are!” Harley was adamant about that.
“I have a handicap.”
“You know yourself, Emma,” Harley said. “And that’s worth a lot.”
Emma’s only response as she reached for the door handle was, “I need to walk Duchess before dinner.”
“Okay, I’ll come with you. But Emma, you are smart. I learn things from you all the time.”
They both climbed out of the SUV and started toward the portico and the sliding glass front doors that opened into the facility’s reception area. She couldn’t handle it when Emma denigrated herself, even if she was just relating what she felt was the truth.
Emma was silent for a time, then said, “Maybe he saw those people on the ledge.”