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She knows he’s not. Sherwood isn’t big enough for people to live their lives here without just about everyone else at least knowing of them.
“I am and I haven’t heard of it,” I pointout.
“You’re different,” Sarah tells me.
She doesn’t go into why. She doesn’t have to. I know what she means and Jeffrey doesn’t need to. I’m working with him. We’re notfriends.
“What is this camp?” Jeffrey asks.
“Camp Hollow. It’s a summer camp just past the edge of town. It used to be really popular. My parents went there all through their childhoods. They were there the summer itclosed.”
“Why did it close?” Iask.
Sarah’s eyes flicker back and forth like she’s checking to make sure no one else is listening.
“A bunch of kids were murdered by some crazy guy living in the woods. They never found him,” sheexplains.
“Jesus,” Jeffrey groans. “But those women were talking about it like it’sopen.”
Sarah nods. “They opened it this summer. It’s the twentieth anniversary of themassacre.”
“Are they having some kind of ghost hunt or something to commemorate it?” Iask.
My mind immediately goes to that movieGhostbusters.In the two months since it hit the theaters, Xavier has made us all go to see it ten times. He might be a fairly extreme example, but I know he’s not the only one who loves the movie, and its popularity could definitely inspire people to try to cash in by doing anything having to do with ghosts and the paranormal. An abandoned summer camp fitsperfectly.
But Sarah shakes her head. “No, nothing like that. The people who own the camp now just want to make some money. They think it shouldn‘t have been closed for so long and that a lot of people would love it, so they opened it backup.”
Jeffrey raises an eyebrow. “And people are sending their kidsthere?”
“Well, because so many people were so nervous about it, they made it only for people sixteen and over, but still. It gives me the shivers. Why would anyone want to go to a summer camp where people died? Haven’t they seen thosemovies?”
She shudders and pats the table. “Do you need anythingelse?”
I look over the plates of food she put in front of us and shake my head. “I don’t think so. It looksgreat.”
“Just let me know if youdo.”
She walks away and I pick up my fork to dig into the massive mound of biscuits and gravy on the plate. Just as I expected, Jeffrey is looking at it like Sarah served him primordial ooze. Jeffrey is a black coffee, fruit, and yogurt kind of man. Which he should have thought about before handing over the reins of ordering breakfast.
“Want to go over the plan for the day?” I ask, taking another bite and washing it down with a swig of coffee.
“What do you know about Camp Hollow?”
I massage lotion into my hands and run it up my arms as I balance the phone on my shoulder. I’m sitting in bed, the lightweight cotton summer blanket over my legs and my pillows as well as Sam’s propped behind myback.
“Camp Hollow?” Sam asks. “That old summercamp?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Do you know anything about it? Did you go there as akid?”
The timing of the closure would mean Sam would have only been a young teenager at the time and I can’t remember if that was one of the summers I spent here in Sherwood with my grandparents or if I was traveling around the country with my father. It would have only been a couple of years after my mother’s murder, so it’s likely I was here since my father went through after her death of trying very hard to give me stability for at least part of every year. That meant beinghere.
“When I was pretty young I went for a week of day camp a couple of times. My mother didn’t like the idea of me doing sleepaway camp, which the other guys loved, let me tell you. I stopped doing the day thing for a while, then the summer I convinced her to tell me I could go for regular camp the next year, it closed down,” hesays.
“You never told me you did day camp,” Isay.
“Not one of my finer moments,” he admits. “Why are you asking about thecamp?”
“When I was meeting with Jeffrey this morning before we started our investigation, I heard a couple of women talking about it,” I tell him. “I can’t remember ever even hearing about it. Then Sarah told me it closed because of some crazed guy murdering a bunch of campers, but now they reopenedit.”
