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"So what is Campfire?" asked Ella.
"Oh, it's not that, um... uh..." Rory trailed off.
"It's awesome!" said Noah.
"We get bitten by mosquitoes," growled Rory.
"We get bitten by mosquitoes anyway," said Noah, scratching his left ribcage as if he'd learned off a howler monkey. He turned to Ella. "At campfire, we go wild!"
"It's like primal scream therapy, but we provide more appropriate chemical accouterments," said Blanchard. At Ella's raised eyebrow, he added, "Enough of the ol' skeeter spray to kill a double-wide full of jumbo liver flukes."
"I do love me a low parasite load," said Ella.
"All the counselors will show up for Campfire, unless they have other duties," Blanchard continued. "The storytelling kids take turns presenting. The acting kids do skits. The music campers play, but getting them to do it in unison is like putting socks on a chicken. I expect they'll sound like something other than a rubber band factory being turned on its head by August."
Rory snorted.
"I meant August ten years from now, Deer Girl. Right now they can't carry a tune in a bucket."
Rory laughed harder.
Chloe looked away from Blanchard's tight smile to watch Stevens. Sure enough, the deputy was halfway to glaring at Blanchard, "Thanks for the help, Mr. Blanchard, but we need to come up with a plan. I'll call if we need anything more from you," with a detectable dab of sauce on that you.
"Come on. I've hardly been as useless as a milk pail under a bull."
"Why would you put a milk pail under a boy cow?" said Noah.
"Don't make me smack you," Ella mumbled to Blanchard under her breath. Then she looked down at Blanchard's wrist. "What's that?" she asked, pointing to his hand.
"Hm?" he frowned, still scratching at his sleeve.
"That," Ella picked up his wrist and pushed the sleeve back. It only moved half an inch before getting stuck on the button, but Chloe caught the start of a raw, maroon bruise.
"Oh..." Blanchard seemed confused. "That's not normal?"
"You've been scratching at your arms all afternoon." Ella frowned. "Both hands..." She reached for his other sleeve cuff.
Blanchard didn't pull away but didn't move to help her. "You don't need to bother yourself, Miss Lopez."
"It's poison ivy, isn't it?" she said, a little too brightly, stepping between him and Stevens. "I heard it was ranging further west. Aw crud, it wasn't growing out by where we were looking for the camera, was it?"
"Do you think Erinne ever got a good look at the camera?" Chloe asked before Stevens could respond.
"Probably not," said Stevens. "Why?"
"Because the X-550 looks almost exactly like Ella's Acer if you don't know much about them," said Chloe.
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"He's being helpful," Ella commented as Blanchard walked out of earshot
"He's hiding something!" said Stevens. "I realize you don't think Blanchard is a suspect, but you could at least not encourage him. And poison ivy, my ass!" she snapped. "Those marks looked like they were from handcuffs. He got arrested, maybe last night."
"We saw him last night," Chloe reminded her. "You'd have heard if someone else in the county arrested someone related to your case, wouldn't you?"
"He was wearing long sleeves at the diner."
"He probably got bruised being the dummy in a knot tying class or something," said Ella. Chloe covered her mouth. The thought of him sitting in a chair with Chipmunk campers crawling all over him, glowering while Alvarez critiqued a bunch of gradeschoolers' cow hitches and half-slips was so comical that she had to hold in a snort.
Stevens didn't notice. "No, those bruises looked fresh. And old? Like he'd gotten them a lot of times."
"Look, sorry about the fraternizing or whatever," said Ella. "I just miss being on a team, you know?"
"We need to come up with a plan," said Chloe.
"I think you should go to this Campfire thing because you can just tell everyone you're there to see Rory play the banjo or whatever."
Chloe pushed her eyebrows back down and managed, "I can see why they'd find that plausible."
Stevens smiled tightly and nodded her head. "Right, these dorks will totally buy that. But you can't approach or apprehend Erinne without me there. Can you sit there and listen to your kid play an instrument in public—" she winced as if in apology "—for maybe an hour?"
"Yes?" said Chloe.
Ella nudged Stevens gently in the side, "There's an evolutionary quirk in humans that makes your own kid seem less annoying, more good-looking, more talented..."
"What?" said Stevens. "Is that why Sherriff Adams was always showing us pictures of his mutated grandkids?"
"You got it!" said Ella.
"But they were like something out of Toxic Avenger. There's no way he couldn't see that!" Stevens shuddered and then turned back to Chloe. "The only thing we need you to do is text me if Erinne tries to leave. And I'll be waiting for the alert, but probably not able to read it, so that has to be the only text you send."
Chloe nodded and dug out her phone to check that Stevens was top of her recent contacts list.
Ella gleed out something about synchronizing watches while Stevens vocally brainstormed. Chloe breathed out. It was good to get the gang back together, or at least do the gang's old thing with two new faces.
When they explained Hayleigh's role in the plan, she raised her chin to the side and shrugged. "The best directors spend some time in front of the camera. I think I can manage."
"She's not dumb," Ella murmured as Stevens walked away to finish briefing Hayley.
"Not all blondes are," said Chloe.
"Not bad instincts, all things considered," said Ella.
Chloe breathed out. "Let's hope she points them in the right direction."
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The Campfire clearing was just far enough into the woods that the lake was a barely visible silver-blue gleam down the path.
The trees here were old enough for the branches to meet overhead, even with the wide space in between. The grassy expanse was studded with roots exactly at ankle-snag height, but there was a cleared gravel walkway down the middle and some kind of fire pit to one side. The canopy dimmed the sunlight enough for it to feel half an hour later than it should have. Chloe figured that was probably the point—finish up the late-night stuff by the youngest campers' bedtimes—but she couldn't help feeling a streetlight would zhuzh the place up. On the other side of the fire ring, she could see a big, clamshell-shaped structure that she recognized as the stage from Rory's brochure.
Across the way, Blanchard and one of the counselors were fussing with something over the bench-style risers. She heard the snap of a guitar case opening and the twang of someone getting it in tune. She could see stands for sheet music and an amp old enough to have voted for Reagan. Chloe tried to catch Blanchard's eye, but the counselor reached for the geriatric wiring and Blanchard smacked his hand out of the way. Chloe remembered the story about his being electrocuted by an AC unit.
Chloe made herself comfortable(ish) on the picnic table bench near the campfire area. It practically had a sign saying "parental quarantine zone—contagious uncoolness within."
Millner finished whatever his role in setup had been and waved from the far side of the fire ring. She waved back, playing the complacent parent. If all went well, Hayleigh would throw her fit, and Erinne would scurry off to incriminate herself.
Blanchard turned around as one of the older kids jogged over and flipped open a musical case. Chloe guessed he was one of the advanced string students. He took out a banjo and plucked away more or less competently as the Chipmunk campers filed in, led by Erinne and a Hispanic-looking teenager whom Stevens hadn't picked for questioning. Erinne waved a blue flag with a blindingly bucktoothed but long-tailed chipmunk on it. Chloe watched her with care. She seemed tired, but that meant little. Killers could lose sleep, but so could innocent people whose coworkers had been killed. The campers began a shrill chant that made up in loudness for its lack of unity. She guessed it was supposed to rhyme. Chloe blinked as if she could get the noise out through her eyes. In the very back, the tallest Chipmunk held up a smaller flag with a squirrel.
The Chipmunks stopped in a roughly rectangular grouping and clapped more or less in time.
The Deer group was larger, led by a girl and boy she recognized from Rory's Strings class. Chloe noted Moira bringing up the rear.
This time, she could tell what they were saying:
"UP THE HILLS!
"ON THE LAKE!
"SILVER CAMP IS NEVER FAKE!"
A tall girl in the back row waved a flag with a moose on it. The last campers called, "But cook the food for goodness' sake!" to general giggling. Chloe thought she could feel Rory roll her eyes from there. By the campfire, she could see Millner clapping his hands, so she supposed the improvised last line was customary.
The Pumas came in next, boys and girls clapping in a more complicated rhythm. Chloe could see Mrs. Abby in the back, probably filling in for Patricia or for Trence's partner who'd gone home.
"We're all here at lake camp,
"Got fires, friends, and fun!
"Learn nature, arts, and music,
"Until the day is done!
Tanisha and one of the Puma boys called in unison: "And inside Ms. Abby's updo, there's croutons in the bun!"
Abbatemarco sighed so hard her beads clacked. Millner kept clapping.
Then the counselors all called out at once, the banjo player twanged like a dragonfly in a bug zapper, and Marvina Carraway ushered some of the Chipmunk kids up the wood-log stairs onto the stage. It seemed smaller and dingier and a little further from the lake than it had in the brochure, but the floorboards echoed solidly. The other campers mostly sat in place on the uneven ground. There was a lot more space than there needed to be. She wondered exactly how many parents had taken their kids home before she and Ella had arrived.
"Our first performance of the night, Zelda, Michael, Lamar and Khaleesi will show us their amazing Solstice dance!"
Blanchard nodded to the banjo player who passed off his instrument to one of the Deer boys. He was joined by a flute player and a girl with some kind of handheld drum. Marvina waved at the girl, who started the beat.
The four younger kids managed to get through their performance in passable unison as the flute squeaked away. It wasn't the worst recital Chloe had ever seen, but it ended earlier than she expected—she clocked it at three minutes. She guessed that an audience full of kids eager for a chocolate fix could only put up with so much and still pretend to clap politely at the end.
The Chipmunk performers hopped off the stage—one boy jumped straight to the ground with a percussive "Oof!"—and went to what Chloe realized were benches near the fire ring, taking sticks from a clump leaning against a nearby tree. At a wave from Erinne, the other Chipmunks joined them as two other counselors trotted over and lit the bonfire. It went up with a suctioning FWOOP! that Chloe guessed was less backwoods skill and more lighter fluid.
Patricia might have gotten flak for drilling her older campers like they were in the military, but overall, things at Camp Sierra Lake seemed organized. The Chipmunks lined up fairly neatly and Erinne handed out cups of what was either cocoa or bug juice from a big plastic cooler.
Chloe looked at the Deer Group section. Rory was turned away from her, chatting with another kid. At the back of the group, Moira was watching with her arms folded, looking no worse than wilted. Trence made eye contact with Chloe, and then looked away as if he'd gotten caught with his old banana split poster.
Millner clapped his hands, "While the Chipmunks are toasting, we have Deer Group's presentation for tonight. Noah, from our storytelling track!"
There were a few obligatory-sounding cheers that didn't quite muffle at least one, "Aw, fuck."
Blanchard barked some folksy saying about manners.
Noah hopped up the steps to the outdoor stage, now admirably lit by the campfire glow. He waved like his hand was stuck to a vibrator, then looked at his feet exactly as if he'd just learned what hitting his mark was. With a deep breath, he raised both hands and began.
"Edmund was the first to die," he called out, voice projecting clearly across the space. "He hadn't been feeling well, his sister knew. She'd expected him to fall victim to the White Silence, pale spots forming on his skin as his strength faded away. She had not realized she would find his body torn open by the fangs of a vicious lake monster, half consumed and drifting in the current!"
As Noah continued, Chloe found herself getting drawn in. She didn't usually like stories with lots of gore, but Noah's tale had decent pacing and vivid images, and he had clearly paid attention in his elocution lessons. The villagers, she guessed ("Who lived in a place not so unlike this one!"), were being hunted by a humanoid beast with huge teeth and an even huger appetite for flesh, all while dealing with a hideously contagious plague.
She looked over at Rory and saw she was pinching the bridge of her nose. Then she looked back at Noah. There was another shoe about to drop, and it was a high-heeled croc.
"And as Isabella was staring down the slavering jaws of death, she felt something change," Noah's voice grew cryptic. "Even as she watched, stubby limbs seemed to protrude from the creature's round body, and its tail grew stout and thick..."
Round? Tail? Hadn't Noah said that the monster looked almost exactly like the villagers?
"Isabella's own tail began to thicken and whip, as she found in horror that she was growing legs of her own!"
There were some confused sounds from the campers. Judging from the look on Rory's face, she knew where Noah was going with this and did not want to be along for the ride.
"Isabella's gills were reabsorbed into her body!" Noah continued. "Unable to breathe (except through her skin), she realized her only hope of survival was to crawl to the edge of the pond and up into the air—but the creature that had devoured her brother was doing the same!
"Gasping, eyes dazed from the sunlight (because her retinas hadn't lost their blue light receptors yet), she saw the creature was no longer a monster. It was a newly metamorphosed eastern tiger salamander—like herself! And she realized that the cannibalistic tadpole had been eating only those members of her cohort infected with the deadly chytridiomycosis fungus. Without this beast devouring the sick, she too might have carried it into her new upland habitat as its unwitting host!"
"SHUT UP!" heckled one of the older boys.
"This was supposed to be a ghost story, you dork!"
"THERE'S NO GHOST SCARIER THAN PARASITIC FUNGAL DISEASE, BERNICE!" bellowed Noah.
"Mind your manners, Elliot!" called Millner. "Remember the Silver Lake Camper Code of Courtesy!"
Elliot's voice dropped to disgruntled mumbling.
"Yes there is!" called a high, female voice. Hayleigh stood up from the middle of Puma Group, levelling a one-fingered j'accuse at Millner. "The monster in this lake is scarier, and the world will have proof as soon as I review my footage!"
Without moving her head, Chloe began to watch the counselors.
"Hayleigh, I'm glad we were able to recover your lost property, even if it's a little worse for wear," Millner recited the words exactly as Chloe and Stevens had told him, "but you know we've gone screenless this year. You will get the camera back, along with your phone, at the end of camp." Millner's performance was terrible, especially after Noah's good one, but as Chloe watched Erinne from the corner of her eye, it seemed to be doing the job. This had to be obvious enough for Erinne to figure out there was a camera sitting on Millner's desk but not so obvious that she thought it was a trap.
"I bet you broke it," Hayleigh said, crossing her arms. For all her showboating, she was a better actor than Millner. "I saw you drop it like four times when we took it back to the office! It was covered in yuck!" Chloe didn't let her face change. That last line hadn't been in Hayleigh's instructions. For all they knew, Erinne had seen the camera fall out of Patricia's hands. She might know whether it had fallen into the water or a thicket. If Hayleigh kept going off-book, she might give the ruse away.
"Fine," said Millner. "I'll take you to my office, and you and I will check your camera to see if it still works. Right after Campfire. Ms. Carraway can come be the second adult. Deal?"
Hayleigh let a smirk cover her face. "Deal," she said, a little too sweetly. "But don't be surprised if my brand-new footage shows what's really going on in this place!"
"You didn't footage anything but Noah's dumbass salamanders!" someone heckled.
"Did too!" called Hayleigh as Noah's face crumpled. "There was loads of stuff on that camera. I just haven't reviewed it yet."
"I'm sure you're both right in a way!" Millner interrupted with the forced grin that Chloe had come to think of as his default expression. "Scary is in the eye of the beholder, after all. Now I believe our last performance is from Puma group!"
"Our last performance is always from Puma group," someone muttered.
Noah, his mouth trembling and his face red around the nose and cheeks, jumped down the steps from the performance space two feet at a time, each landing sounding like a slammed door. On the opposite side of the stage, Tanisha, Hong-jae, and two of the boys collected instruments from the risers. Chloe heard Millner say something about a concerto. Most of the other campers turned toward each other, clearly taking a reference to classical music as an excuse to start yapping. Mrs. Abby shook her head. Maybe earlier in the summer she'd tried to enforce good audience manners, but as Hong-jae's clarinet pealed out the opening to "Rhapsody in Blue," Chloe found she couldn't blame her for giving up. This wasn't exactly a Gershwin crowd.
Noah had made his way back to his seat next to Rory. Chloe could just make out, "...you said to tell the truth for once!"
"I thought it wasn't that bad."
"But they didn't like it!"
Clearly Noah's lessons had done a better job about finding your mark than about finding your audience.
Chloe's eyes trailed further back ...where she saw the male Chipmunk counselor standing alone, trying to spray his own back with OFF.
Chloe slipped her phone out of her pocket. It was already set to group text: SHE'S GONE.
Not three seconds later, ROGER THAT.
Chloe felt a familiar taste in her mouth, the righteous excitement of bringing the truth to light. Reforming the LAPD was a worthy mission, but it just wasn't the same thing.
By now, Ella would have installed her own camera in Millner's office. The two deputies that Stevens had called in as backup would have arrived to help spring the trap, but…
…but it would go better if she were there, Chloe decided.
Stevens was still raw. She didn't know what to say to prompt a suspect to confess, to confess and think it was all their own idea, and Chloe did. Erinne and Chloe had already interacted, relatively positively, and she could use that rapport. Chloe felt her heart start to beat harder. She'd spent too much time behind a desk, behind a podium. She missed catching the bad guy herself alongside people she could count on. Rory was so busy talking to Noah that she wouldn't even notice Chloe had left the—
Her eyes landed on the spot where Rory and Noah had been a minute ago. Had been. Had Chloe gotten disoriented in the dark? No, an older Deer camper was leaning back against the root where Rory had propped her feet. Chloe looked over to the fire pit. Erinne stepped out from behind the bug juice cooler that had hidden her from view a minute before and started pulling marshmallow string out of a Chipmunk camper's ponytail. Chloe reached for her phone but didn't take her eyes off the scene.
Rory and Noah hadn't gone over to the snack circle. And Erinne hadn't left it. She tried to blink away the glare from the campfire as she searched the rest of the clearing. It was a full minute before she realized she'd gotten to her feet.
Across the way, Blanchard had stopped watching the Puma quartet. He was looking at her, seeming confused. Then his eyes drifted to the empty spot where Rory was supposed to be.
Chloe was already halfway across the clearing, one hand reaching for Trence's neckerchief.
"Whoa—!"
"Where is my daughter?" she demanded.
"You've got a—? Huh?"
"You just let two eight-year-olds run out into the dark?" When there was a murderer on the loose?
Trence squeaked. "Sundown's not for another half-hour. I know it looks that way under the trees, but—"
"Where's your partner? The other Deer Group counselor?"
"Moira? I don't know," said Trence. He shook his head in disgust. "Did she leave me to do all the work again?"
Chloe looked around. Moira wasn't here.
Moira, who'd seemed dull and depressed since Chloe had arrived. Moira, who was practically Patricia's roommate.
Erinne wasn't the only female counselor that Patricia might have suspected of doing something wrong. What if... Chloe fought the urge to smack herself. Patricia had been following Moira around. Patricia had been following Moira around. Noah had said he thought Patricia wanted Moira's boyfriend for herself and was trying to catch them. When Rory had yelled at him for making up stories, she hadn't contradicted that part.
Something clenched in Chloe's stomach. Something was wrong, something she hadn't quite put together. The fact that it was Moira and not Erinne walking into the trap was important. She didn't know why, but she did know that she needed Rory back within scruff-of-neck-grabbing range, and she needed her back there now.
"It's all right, Detective Decker," Blanchard said, suddenly at her elbow. "I think I know where she's going. It's one of the things I've been trying to tell you. Aurora tends to run off to—"
To the rock by the lakeshore. Rory liked to spend time there. That was how the wrapper from the Hungry Gila Diner had gotten into the pile of camper trash between the boulders.
What was it about that rock?
"Do we have a problem, Captain?" Millner was suddenly right behind her.
"Rory's not here," she said. She felt the red rise on her face. A half-dozen adults had failed to notice her wander off, and she'd been one of them. She'd spent the past two days mentally scoffing that these people were irresponsible guardians, but what did that make the kid's parents?
Millner waved across the clearing. "Abby, you're in charge!" he called out. He turned back to Chloe, "I promise, Captain. I will handle this personally." Which was like hearing a marshmallow say it would stop a bullet.
"I'm sure she just went back to her cabin to get something. Right over there." He pointed to the shadowy space down the gravel path that eventually swung around to the dorm cabins on the far side of the woods. There were no people, large or small, in the space between.
…which was also the way to Millner's office.
No kids. No counselors. Had Moira already gotten inside? No… No, there would be light and noise from Stevens and her backup and texts from Ella on her phone.
"I think I know where Rory's taking Noah," Blanchard said quickly. "You may recall I promised her she could play Excalibur if she kept Noah from caterwauling and it seems she took it more seriously than I—"
"Show me," Chloe cut him off, already starting to move.
Blanchard turned in the opposite direction, and Chloe realized with a chill in her stomach that they were going to the lake. She grabbed his arm.
"Do you mean the rock? The place where Hayleigh set up the camera originally?"
"I think that's where she's bringing Noah, yes."
Chloe felt her spine freeze. "We've got to go there now. Run!"
Blanchard obeyed, and Chloe followed him, never minding the young heads that turned their way.
"What's going on?" Blanchard asked.
Chloe's mind raced. "After you left, Stevens and I coached Hayleigh and Millner to say the camera was locked in Millner's office with the campers' phones." Moira should have headed straight there, mistake Ella's Acer for the camera that had recorded Patricia's death, and gotten caught red-handed trying to interfere with an investigation. This would have given Stevens enough evidence to arrest her while she convinced her sheriff to request warrants that would prove that Moira was the thief, and enough emotional evidence of guilt to persuade her to confess.
Blanchard's voice was practically a hiss, "But half of Madera County knows you can pop the lock on Millner's door like it's a can of cola—"
"You can?!" Millner shrilled.
"—and Little Miss Pulitzer couldn't help ad-libbing," he finished.
"Moira thinks Hayleigh's camera is in your office," Chloe explained as she half-stumbled through the thickening dark toward a pathway that she remembered as narrow and slippery in full daylight. "She wants to get it before we see actual footage of Patricia's death—"
"But the path to my office is that way!" Millner pointed to the manicured gravel path they'd expected Moira—Erinne—to take, the one that would have left her in full view of anyone still at the cafeteria, the parking lot, or cleaning up in the art cabin.
The one no possible murderer would ever use if they knew about any of the desire paths that circled around to the lake and came through the woods to Puma Cabin, where she could get to Millner's office from the other side.
Chloe shook her head as Blanchard led them to the lakeshore and turned left toward the rock path. "She doesn't want to get caught."
"—and she's spent half the summer in Puma Cabin, so she knows exactly where the shortcut is," said Blanchard. Moira studied outside—or did something outside at night. She'd have seen Hayleigh's headlamp as she moved back and forth through the woods. She'd have seen other Puma campers and maybe even her own, maybe Rory, using the path whenever they wanted to sneak off alone. But she wasn't Patricia. She wouldn't have reported it. She might not even have told them she'd seen.
"And that's where Rory's taking Noah," finished Chloe.
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I would like to especially thank forestsloth for telling me about Campfire, which I have modified to suit the art camp format. I would also like to thank the whole crew at Discord for helping to pick out Rory's nightmare shoes. Chytridiomycosis is a very real threat to amphibian species worldwide. If a frog population you know has been affected by chytridiomycosis, remember that you are not alone.