Chapter Thirteen: The Beginning
. . .
Joe was waiting by the truck. "What did she want?"
"To remind me that she had you first," Nancy said, brushing past him. She refused his offer of a hand up and slotted her seatbelt into place with more vehemence than required.
. . . . . . . .
As they drove deeper into the campground, Nancy began to recognize a few things from the camp photos she had unearthed online of Elizabeth Langley and the other missing girls. A building here, an oak tree there, the curving shoreline of the lake. It was easy to imagine girls with feathered hair and high-waisted jean shorts clustering here in happier days, giggling and gossiping. She shivered.
"These were staff housing back then, right?" Joe said, turning the truck past a row of cabins.
"Yes," Nancy said. "There were larger bunkhouses for the campers."
This section of cabins was obviously occupied. Swimsuits and towels hung like bright banners over the tiny porches' railings. Music drifted from an open window. A gaggle of children darted past, pursued by a pair of adults burdened with a cooler, a blanket, and a bag of charcoal.
"These are nice," Nancy remarked.
"These have been renovated," Frank reminded her. He tapped his map. "Ours is a bit farther out. Left at the fork, Joe."
They passed several more clusters of cabins, all trim and freshly-painted and filled with vacationers, before arriving at their assigned lodging.
All three were quiet for a moment. They stood beside the truck, staring at the almost dilapidated-looking little building.
"If the vandal decides to target this place, we won't even be able to tell," Joe joked finally.
Frank was squinting down the path to the neighboring cabin. "We'll have to get in there and assess the scene as soon as the construction crew knocks off for the night," he said.
"I wish Vince had sealed it off," Nancy said.
Frank shrugged. "Yeah, but he's all about progress. The sooner he opens up another cabin, the sooner it generates revenue."
"A little too convenient, though," Joe offered. He lowered his voice in a sarcastic impression of Vince. "Gee, you guys, I had to stick to the schedule. Sorry about your crime scene."
Nancy was looking at their own cabin again. "Do you think we have indoor plumbing?" she pondered. "Or will we have to hike down to the communal bathroom in the campground?"
"Only one way to find out!" Joe strode ahead, key ready in his hand. He flung open the door, paused, and whistled.
"Get a look at this," he said over his shoulder.
Silence fell over the trio for a long moment as they stood, taking it all in.
"Well," Frank said finally.
"It's hideous," Nancy said, still staring, and feeling unsure whether the feeling bubbling up in her chest was laughter or dismay. Both, probably.
"It has personality," Joe declared. "It's very retro."
"Retro?" Nancy echoed. "More like tacky, or, or- "
"Moth-eaten," Frank supplied.
Nancy took a tentative step forward into the shag-carpeted living room. Who had decided that that was a practical choice for a cabin at a camp? And more importantly, when was the last time it had been cleaned? Nancy's vivid imagination had already conjured up images of mouse droppings and decades-old food particles lurking in the thick pile.
"It's awesome," Joe insisted. "When's the last time you saw an orange sofa?"
"When's the last time you wanted to see an orange sofa?" Nancy retorted. "Is the whole place this dated?"
"Looks like it," Frank said. He, too, had ventured inside, and was peering through one of the two doorways opening off the tiny living room. "There's a kitchen over here."
Nancy and Joe crowded in behind him, surveying the lurid avocado-green appliances, the gold-and-brown curtains framing the window over the sink, and the worn linoleum underfoot.
"This place is like a time capsule," Joe said.
Frank opened a cabinet. "At least the food is fresh," he said, relief evident in his voice.
Leaving him to his investigation of the kitchen, Nancy re-crossed the living room to take a look at the second doorway. This led, as it turned out, to a bedroom. She glanced around, taking in the meager furnishings. One bed, neatly made with a garish but clean-looking bedspread and two pillows. One amateurish painting of a local mountain scene, hanging crookedly on a flimsy, faux-wood-paneled wall. And one small side table, holding a bulbous orange lamp.
There was one final closed door on the opposite side of the room.
Bathroom, or closet? Nancy wondered, and skirted the bed to take a look.
Her first impression, when she had opened the door, was one of overwhelming pinkness. The sea of rose-colored tile and enamel made her blink and step back.
"Wow," she said involuntarily. "Mamie pink!"
"Did you say something?" Joe asked from the bedroom.
"Come look at this," Nancy called to him.
He came over and repeated Nancy's stop-short-and-blink performance. "Wow," he echoed. "I think we just time warped from 1970 to 1950."
"The original camp did open in 1957," Nancy pointed out. "This must be one of the older buildings on the property."
Joe was in motion again, twisting the taps to test the hot and cold water, pulling back the cheap shower curtain to peer into the tiny, rust-stained shower; but Nancy felt suddenly weary, worn down by the drive and the emotional upheaval of meeting with Vanessa. She retreated to the bedroom to sit down on the edge of the bed- which, to her surprise and horror, rippled beneath her.
What?
She gasped, grasped the edge, and regained her balance just as Joe came out of the bathroom.
"It looks a little rough, but it seems functional. Like the rest of this place," he announced. And then, before she could warn him, he was plopping down beside her.
"What the hell!" he yelped, swaying.
Nancy grabbed his arm to steady them both. "Don't struggle. It makes it worse," she ordered.
"A water bed?!"
"I thought you loved the time capsule," Nancy told him.
"Very gross. I wonder how much action this thing saw, back in the day."
His good humor appeared to have reasserted itself. Nancy herself could only make a faint noise of disgust.
There was a brief silence. Nancy released Joe's arm and they sat awkwardly for a moment, afraid to move or speak lest the equilibrium be upset once more.
After a moment Joe reached for her hand.
"Look, I'm sorry," he said.
Nancy swallowed. Drew in a long, even breath. Watched him trace a design on her knuckles with his thumb.
"No," she told him. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have acted snippy earlier. I had no right to make you feel ashamed." The words were heavy at first, reluctant to begin the journey from her heart to her tongue, but they needed to be said. She had regretted her attitude ever since getting back into the truck. Nancy knew it was unfair to hold anything against Joe- not his past relationship with Vanessa, and especially not Vanessa's current interest in rekindling that relationship. He had done nothing to encourage her recent desires. And as for the past- well, Nancy understood why he had been with her back then. Vanessa was gorgeous, for one thing; and Vanessa had always had her own agenda, leaving Joe free to close off his emotions and channel a lot of pain and anger, a lot of destructive restless energy, into the physical release she offered.
Joe went on tracing his thumb across the back of Nancy's hand. "It's all right, Nan. And if she was antagonizing you- "
"She was just trying to get a reaction," Nancy said quietly. "I can handle that."
He squeezed her hand. "This is going to be messier than I'd hoped."
"You have her all packed away neatly in the past," Nancy guessed, "and she doesn't. She told me she was hoping to hook up with you while you're here."
Joe grimaced. "Not happening."
"I know," Nancy assured him.
The conversation, though short, had served to clear the air between them. Nancy leaned into his side, despite the heat and the disagreeable mattress, and Joe wrapped his arm around her and bent to kiss the top of her head.
Frank's voice came from the doorway, surprising them both.
"Oh, god," he said, with weary forbearance. "That answers that question. You two can have the bedroom, and I'll take the sofa."
Joe winked at Nancy before releasing her and turning toward his brother. "No way," he said earnestly. "We were just saying we wanted you to take the bedroom."
"We insist," Nancy added.
"You deserve a little comfort," Joe concluded.
That was piling it on a little too thick, Nancy thought. And sure enough, Frank looked suspicious. "Why?" he asked.
Nancy glanced at Joe, who shrugged, grinned, and bounced gently, causing the mattress to ripple once more. Frank's dark eyes went wide.
"A waterbed? In a campground cabin? Why?"
"It makes no sense." Joe was laughing again.
"As touched as I am by your generosity, the sofa is looking better and better," Frank said.
Nancy grew serious. "All joking aside, maybe I should take the sofa," she said thoughtfully.
The men paused, and she could see them following her line of thinking- that two brothers bunking together while their cousin slept on the pull-out sofa bed would be a more normal-appearing vacation sleeping arrangement.
"As long as the curtains and the door stay closed, I don't see the problem," Frank offered after a moment. "But you guys do need to be careful- "
"We know," Joe interrupted impatiently.
Frank went on speaking anyway. "Because at best, anything going on between you will look like an uncomfortably close cousin relationship, and at worst it'll look like incest, which won't exactly help us fly under the radar."
"We have no intention of blowing our cover," Nancy said.
"We wouldn't have invited you along if we were planning to jump on each other every time we get behind closed doors," Joe concluded. "So quit worrying. Deal?"
"Deal," Frank agreed.
But the moment still felt slightly strained. Nancy broke the tension by exclaiming brightly "That reminds me. I haven't read those rules of yours yet!"
It worked. Frank relaxed and smiled, saying "I still can't believe you held onto those;" and Joe extracted a folded, faded sheet of notebook paper from behind his library card in his wallet.
Nancy smoothed it out on her lap.
"This is a high school physics assignment," she said.
"Turn it over," Joe said.
Nancy was already doing so. "Oh, wow," she murmured, scanning the page with interest.
Based on the handwriting, Frank had been the one to compile most of the list. He had been characteristically organized. Nancy quickly scanned the category headings- which included Basic Etiquette, Sex, Music, Food, and Prohibited Conversational Topics- before returning to the top of the page and settling in for a more thorough read.
Well, this is enlightening, she thought, lingering over an escalating series of remarks. No sleeping with suspects, Frank had written, and this was followed by No phone sex in shared hotel rooms in a scrawled, angry version of Joe's handwriting. There were several such exchanges. No smoking in the car, in Frank's hand, had been countered with No stealing my lighter, I use it for other shit besides lighting cigarettes, you pompous asshole, in Joe's. Joe's directive to Stop fucking tapping was nearly blotted out by Frank's NO WHISTLING.
Now I know exactly when these were written, Nancy thought. She had been wondering about that, straining to remember a time when the brothers- lifelong partners who had always seemed to function like two halves of one intelligent and athletic person- had clashed enough to warrant actual written rules. Now she understood: it had been in their late teens, the very end of their partnership; a time of many changes which had created friction between them.
More friction than any of us realized, apparently, she thought.
Not all of the rules were so serious. She read on and then paused, resting her index finger on a rather plaintive directive printed in nervous, jerky block capitals beneath the heading "Basic Etiquette."
" 'No running off without telling everyone?' " she read aloud.
Frank leaned in to look. "Chet," he explained.
Nancy was already reading on. " 'No more goddamn Shania Twain singalongs,' " she murmured, giggling. " 'No whining about meal breaks... No 1952 World Series'...what's that about?"
"Oh, god, don't go there," Joe said.
"We have a...difference of opinion," Frank said carefully.
Beside her, Joe was muttering something about time travel and proving Frank wrong. Nancy wisely decided to let the matter drop.
"These are fascinating," she said. "Thank you for letting me look at them."
"May I see?" Frank asked. He put out his hand, and she handed over the paper, which he perused with an expression of nostalgia and curiosity before handing it back to Joe.
"Think we'll need 'em?" Joe asked.
"That was a different era," Frank said.
Joe stuck the paper back into his wallet and stood up. "Ancient history," he agreed. "Give me a hand with my bike?"
. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . .. . ..
The sun was high overhead, now, and the unkempt shrubs bordering the front of the cabin seemed to droop in the heat of the day. Nancy gave the plants a sympathetic look as she went by. Any hopes she had entertained of it being cooler in the mountains had proved false- during the day, at least.
Frank and Joe had reached the truck first and were beginning to unload Joe's motorcycle, which he had brought along in case Frank needed to make a hasty return to Bayport. While they worked on unfastening the straps and setting up a ramp, Nancy began carrying their luggage toward the cabin.
"Nadia, wait. We'll give you a hand with those," Joe called, winding up a ratchet strap.
He was right. It would be more in character for "Nadia" to wait, or to let the men do all the heavy lifting. But no one seemed to be watching, and Nancy found herself disinclined to sit by and wait.
"I'll leave you the really heavy ones," she called back.
They really did not have too much baggage. Nancy made a quick mental inventory, checking off clothes, toiletries, first aid and basic survival gear, laptops, cameras and lens cases, a set of lock picks, and a tool kit which included fingerprint dusting equipment and Joe's beloved night vision goggles. Their years of experience had allowed them to pack all of these essentials efficiently and minimally. In all likelihood, Nancy could have had it all moved into the cabin in the time it took the brothers to finish unloading the motorcycle; however, true to her new persona, she simply carried in a few of the lighter bags and then waited, using the time first to find her personal research notes and add them to Vanessa's folder, and then to check her text messages.
Her first message was innocuous: a selfie from Camille, herself and Carson holding drinks and smiling big, breezy vacation smiles. "Brunch with the fam. Wish you were here!" the caption proclaimed.
A postcard for the modern era, Nancy thought, and she typed out an equally fast and breezy reply.
Her next message was from Bess, whose mood had swung toward contrition. It seemed likely, Nancy thought, reading over the rambling, typo-ridden message, that wine had played a part in its composition- though she hoped not, especially this early in the day.
Her final message was from a desperate-sounding George.
She's not even baking, Nance. She's parked on my couch eating shredded mozzarella straight from the bag and watching some godawful reality show about a family with, like, twenty kids and just WTF am I supposed to do?
Get in touch with Callie, Nancy typed, feeling horribly guilty for not being there. She has time on her hands and is willing to help. And then, after a moment, she added I'm really sorry. I should have stayed.
The response, which came seconds later, was gruff. Don't you start getting emotional on me, Drew. Just do your thing and get back soon.
Joe came in and dropped the rest of the bags against the bedroom wall.
"I figure if we put them all in here, it'll help mask who's sleeping where," he said. He paused and looked at Nancy. "Everything okay?"
She nodded. "Yes, it's just Bess."
"She's grieving," Joe said matter-of-factly.
"And I'm afraid George is taking the brunt of it. I told her to call Callie if she needs help."
"Good. Callie can handle an emotional crisis better than George can."
Nancy picked up her folder, sighed, and changed the subject. "Where's Frank?" she asked.
"In the truck, calling Callie. Signal is strangely good, considering we're way out in the mountains."
"Wifi, too," Nancy told him, having noticed while checking her messages. "The password is in our guest information packet."
"So people can post to Instagram while they're 'roughing it,' " Joe commented. "Shrewd move on Vince's part."
"You sound surprised."
"I am, a little. I'd assumed that anyone trying to establish their business on a risky property like this one must be a little naive. But I got nothing but business vibes from Vince. He's on the ball."
"I agree. He seemed organized and intelligent." Nancy had, in fact, liked the man. But she knew the importance of putting her personal feelings aside to focus on the facts.
"We should read through the rest of this stuff," Joe said, gesturing toward the folder in Nancy's hands.
Nancy nodded. "Should we wait for Frank?"
"He'll catch up."
Nancy had considered sitting on the couch to look through her folder, but the shag rug in that room really did bother her. Instead she picked her way across it to the kitchen and settled herself at the battered laminate table. Joe squeezed himself into the chair beside hers, she opened the folder between them, and they spent the next few minutes reading and absorbing its contents in quiet synchronicity. When Frank joined them, Nancy barely glanced up.
"How's Callie?" she asked absently.
"She's fine," Frank said, pulling out a chair. Clearly, he was already in business mode. "Where are we?"
Nancy pushed her personal notes across to him. "Just reading," she told him. "This is what we have in addition to the materials Vanessa gave us. Basic property records and a little bit of data on Vince Luttrell."
Frank pulled a sheaf of notebook paper from his own folder. "Names of contractors and subcontractors," he said, "and a list of neighboring property owners."
Unexpectedly, Joe pulled up the notes app on his phone, set it on the table, and turned it for the other two to read. "I did my homework, too," he said, grinning. "The local newspaper covered a town board meeting at which several residents publicly expressed opposition to the re-opening and expansion. I've got names, including the name of this group," he said, indicating an item on his list. "It's a historical preservation group which had been petitioning to have Caldwell House preserved and run as a museum."
"Nice," Frank commented. "That's a strong lead."
"We can follow up on all of this, but I think our first task is to get to know the staff and the other guests," Nancy suggested.
"Did Vanessa give us a list of guests currently on the property?" Frank asked.
"Doesn't look like it," Joe said.
"We'll need to convince her to give us that information," Frank said. "Joe, I think that ball is in your court. She's more likely to bend the rules for you than for me or Nancy."
Joe nodded. "I'll get it."
"Meanwhile," Frank continued, "I'll grab my camera and wander around a bit. Establish my cover story, see who I can meet."
"And I'll do the same, minus the camera," Nancy said. "Nadia can scope out the amenities and get a feel for whatever staff members are on this shift."
"I'll meet up with you along the way," Joe said. "Whichever one of you I bump into first, I guess."
"Great." Frank got to his feet decisively. "Meet back here for dinner?"
"Yes, sir," Joe said, saluting smartly.
"Dinner, and a little light breaking and entering," Nancy reminded them, remembering the vandalized cabin they intended to inspect after hours. She was amused at the contrast in the brothers' expressions. Frank looked vaguely uncomfortable with the idea, while Joe appeared enthusiastic.
Joe leaned over to kiss her, lightly, before he left. "Be safe," he told her.
"You, too," she replied softly. "Both of you."