Why had Jack turned on them? Was it a desperate kind of grief? After the horror of what had happened, had he needed to lash out at someone? No. That wasn’t it. It wasbeforethe shot that he’d made the decision to hold a knife to her throat... why had he done that? What had that whole conversation with his dad been about? “Can we talk about Jack?”
“Drugs,” Mariana said instantly. “He’s on drugs.”
“Or he owes someone money,” Reyva said. “Or his dad did. He planned to hand us over to whoever it is as payment.”
“And that person would try to... what? Sell us? Ransom us?” It sounded highly outlandish. On the other hand, Jack had said something about “trading them.” And there was someone who Jack’s dad needed to be “free” of. She didn’t have a better explanation. “If that’s true, then it means there’s someoneelseout there, whoever Jack and his dad are afraid of.”
“’Kay. So long as we steer clear of Jack, his dealer or loan shark or whatever won’t have any reason to targetus,” Mariana said. “I refuse to add another fear. Got enough, thanks.”
“What about the wild man?” Claire asked. “How does he fit in?”
“Why does he need to fit in?” Reyva asked.
“Both Jack’s father and the wild man were outside the cave when we emerged,” Claire said. “Was that a coincidence? What about the dead program director? Why did Jack’s father killher? And let’s not forget, we don’t know who burned down the Lake House or why.” She was warming to her topic. There was so much wrong with this place, but she didn’t know how it all tied together—or evenifit all tied together. Reyva could be right, and they could be unconnected. But she wanted all the pieces to click together into a satisfying puzzle. One that she could declare solved. Finished. Over.
“Maybe the fire was part of some kind of insurance scheme,” Mariana said. “It’s obvious the camp didn’t have much money. Look at the state of the tennis court. This wasn’t the golden paradise that my parents promised.”
Claire nodded. She’d had that thought too, even before they saw the cage in the underground bunker. There was somethingoff about the state of the Lake House, even without the fire. A recently reopened camp should have undergone some refurbishment, or at least basic maintenance. She remembered the lack of information online. The Lake House hadn’t even had a website. Whoever owned this place had barely been trying to reopen.Evidence that this was all just a failed insurance scheme?she wondered.
“Do we know who owned the camp?” Reyva asked. “Jack was tasked with bringing us here—that sounds like the kind of summer job you could get through nepotism.”
“Okay, try this,” Mariana said as she ducked under a low-hanging branch, “Jack’s father owned the camp. He set the fire to get the insurance money, and the program director found out it wasn’t an accident and threatened to expose him and so he killed her? He thought she was his sole witness since she was the only one who had survived the fire. Everyone else, dead. Lots of sympathy. Lots of attention. And lots of insurance money to set himself free. Whatever that means.”
“Then we show up,” Reyva said. “And we discover the program director in the woods before he can get rid of the body. Boom, three more witnesses. Now he has a problem.”
Claire nodded. “He thinks he has us where he wants us when we’re down in the bunker. He closes the trapdoor, piles lots of rocks on top so we can’t escape, then remembers there’s another exit. He waits for us there in case we make our way through the cave, which we do.” She skirted around a moss-coated fallen branch.
“The wild man who lives in the woods sees all these suspicious things and follows the killer to the cave,” Mariana continued thestory. “He sees us emerge and, because he’s kind of confused to begin with, blames us for everything that’s wrong with his life. Then sees the man with the shotgun and decides he’s the bad guy instead, which, you know, accurate.”
“Meanwhile, Jack’s worried about his dad,” Claire said. “He’s found out about the money his dad owes. Maybe he suspects that his dad has done something he shouldn’t have at the Lake House, but he loves his dad and wants to save him.”
“He was surprised by the burned-down house.” Thoughtfully, Mariana held a branch back until both Reyva and Claire had passed, then she released it. It snapped back, spraying pine needles. “I don’t think he expected that.”
“I don’t think he expected to be shot at either,” Claire said.
“The shot didn’t hit him,” Reyva pointed out. “I think his dad just wanted to scare us. Or maybe his dad wanted us to trust Jack?”
“Jack hatched a plan to trade us for his dad,” Claire said. “But we caught on—”
“Youcaught on,” Mariana said. “Ijust thought he was cute, confused, and lost.”
“And when you two discovered the satellite phone, it all fell apart on him,” Claire said. “His dad, consumed by guilt and regret, decided there was only one way out....”
Reyva hissed as a branch slapped her arm. Stopping, she drew in breath, while Claire and Mariana hovered next to her, ready to help if needed. “I’m okay,” Reyva said. “But if we’re right about this, then Jack might still want to trade us to get rid of the loan he just inherited from his father. He won’t follow us becausehe blames us. He’ll follow because he needs us. We’re not safe.”
Claire had never really thought they were safe, so this wasn’t news.
“This is a lot of conjecture. The kind that’s based on watching a whole bunch of TV crime dramas,” Mariana said, helping Reyva navigate over a fallen tree trunk. “We don’t actually know anything.”
“Probably never know,” Reyva said.
Mariana shrugged. “I can live with that.”
Just so long as we live, Claire thought.
“You can say it out loud, you know,” Reyva said.
With an overly dramatic sigh, Mariana said, “Go ahead, Claire.”
