“People? Are we talking about Ryan now?”
“Ryan had the binoculars. It’s kind of confusing.” Emma had reached the portico and was peering inside. Directly ahead stood a stacked stone fireplace in the middle of the room with a grouping of chairs around it. Behind it lay the wall that separated the small bar and the dining room from reception.
“Did Ryan see Fern and someone else on the ledge through the binoculars?” Harley tried.
“I don’t think so.”
“Emma, this is important. Can you remember what happened with Ryan and the binoculars?”
“He didn’t tell me. He told . . . Joy. She had the binoculars.” Emma’s attention was suddenly caught by something inside the building. “There’s Twink!”
The mostly black cat streaked across reception straight at them and placed her white paws on the glass door, meowing piteously. Her weight wouldn’t open the door. “And there’s Mr. Atkinson!” Emma stomped on the pad that opened the door. Twink was out like a shot, leaping and running past them in a blur of black and white while the facility’s director, red-faced and portly, stalked purposefully toward the door, looking none too happy as Harley and Emma entered through the still open door.
“I wish you hadn’t done that, Emma,” he said tightly. “That cat went into the dining room again.”
“To Jewell?” asked Emma.
“What difference does it make? Ian taught her some bad tricks.”
Ian had worked at Ridge Pointe before Harley but was no longer there. A shame, in Harley’s opinion, as he’d been a good guy with a sense of humor. He’d liked Twink and slipped the cat whipped cream and table scraps whenever he could. Like Harley, Ian had shared a distinct dislike for Mr. Atkinson, who now greeted Harley with a stiff “Hello, Harley,”
“Hello, Mr. Atkinson,” Harley responded politely. She might privately think he was a dick but she still liked working part-time at the facility and didn’t figure he needed to know that.
At her room, Emma collected Duchess, whose shaggy brown coat looked like it could use a trim. The dog was medium-sized and glad to see Harley, who felt the same way. Harley realized she was going to have to table the discussion about Ryan, the girl on Suicide Ledge, and Camp Fog Lake in general or risk having Emma shut down completely.
* * *
Jamie clipped a Mister Lincoln from the rose bush, the bright red rose nodding its heavy head as she joined it with the others she held gingerly in her hand, careful of thorns. The lovely, dense aroma of the flowers filled her senses and she closed her eyes for a moment. Her mother’s garden had been neglected somewhat. No one was as death on weeds as Irene Whelan had been, certainly not Jamie. The last few years had been a huge change for both Jamie and Harley, who’d moved from California back to Oregon upon Irene’s death. Up to then Emma had been living at home then under Irene’s care, and Jamie had needed to take over after her mother’s death. Since then, Emma had exhibited an independence that their mother possibly hadn’t seen and had requested to move to Ridge Pointe. Sometimes she waffled on coming back to live at the house, a decision Jamie was letting her make on her own.
Jamie inhaled and closed her eyes. Their move from California had been good for all of them and since returning Jamie had reconnected with Cooper Haynes, her major crush from high school, and this past April they’d gotten married. Cooper’s stepdaughter, Marissa, now spent more than half her time with them and both Harley and Marissa had just graduated from River Glen High. Cooper had no children of his own and he and Jamie had both wanted to have a child together, but had learned they would need a surrogate as it was very unlikely Jamie would carry a child full-term. It still got Jamie whenever she recalled Emma sincerely declaring that she would be their surrogate, which was lovely but totally improbable. Emma didn’t fully understand the nature of her own disability. She knew she was compromised in her thinking, but sometimes cause and effect were a slippery concept for her, and she really felt she could be the one to help them out. She still did.
Jamie walked back inside the house with the roses, their velvety petals tucked tightly together as if hiding secrets. She pulled down a clear glass vase and arranged the small grouping, setting them on a side table in the living room that sat in front of the window to the street. Looking through the panes, she saw Harley’s Outback pull up across the street. She watched as Emma, Harley, and Duchess spilled out.
She suddenly wanted to burst into tears. If she hadn’t just had her period—unpredictable as they were these days given her quasi-working uterus—she might have thought she was pregnant, but no, this was something else. With Harley’s graduation and the joy of marriage to the man she loved, and now the beginnings of a new life as she’d just learned today that, through surrogacy, she was going to be a mother again, Jamie was a mass of wildly seesawing, unprocessed feelings.
One of the roses bent its heavy head toward her as if nodding in agreement. Somehow it reminded her of how her mother would admonish her when she felt Jamie was being too dramatic. She smiled faintly at the thought.
So, what was this knot in the pit of her stomach? The one that had been there ever since Mary Jo’s phone call saying the in vitro had taken?
Joy? Apprehension? The thought that Cooper’s and her baby was growing inside Mary Jo felt surreal. It was happening! It was really happening. She was thrilled, but . . . but . . . what did she know of Mary Jo Kirshner really anyway? Theo had vouched for her, but Theo hadn’t grown up at Haven Commune, like Mary Jo had. She’d only visited the place. Haven Commune, coincidentally, was located near Camp Fog Lake. Jamie, for probably ridiculous reasons, didn’t feel entirely comfortable about that. People had died at the camp. Harley was all over the history of the murder/suicide of two lovers who’d died the same year Emma had been there.
Jamie shook her head at herself. So what? This was a time for celebration, not fear. She forced herself to push her uneasiness about Mary Jo aside. Maybe it was all the lore surrounding the camp that was affecting her . . . and the fact that Emma had been at that camp scant months before the attack on her person had changed her forever. Though the two events were unrelated, it just felt . . . portentous, and not in a good way. Then today she’d gotten an email inviting parents and alumni to a weekend at the camp around the Fourth of July, followed by a call to their home phone, which was the number the camp had on record for Emma, who’d attended the camp’s last season. The tragedy of deaths that summer had closed the camp for good . . . well, until now. Jamie remembered asking Emma about it at the time, but Emma had been closemouthed, completely disinterested in confiding anything to her younger sister when she’d returned, even though Jamie had been burning with questions at the time. If either of them had known what was to come, maybe they would’ve tried harder to communicate, but it hadn’t happened.
As her family walked inside, Jamie checked on the chicken-and-rice dish and pan of roasted carrots, mushrooms, onions, parsnips, and broccoli currently bubbling in the oven.
Her thoughts seesawed back to Mary Jo. She and Cooper were having a baby. A baby! She should be jumping for joy.
“Hi,” Jamie greeted them all as she closed the oven door. “You staying for dinner?” she asked Emma. Duchess ran right over to Jamie, tail wagging, eager to help and she smiled and patted the dog’s head before turning back to wash her hands.