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Focused on refitting my shoe, I ignore the brothers talking. Michael and Kaleb chat while Daniel stands over me, watching my every move. His eye twitches with every stone that falls out.
“You should have said, little one.” He’s upset.
I don’t know what to say, unsure how to express my thoughts. “I guess I didn’t want to disrupt our truce.” I shrug.
Daniel’s face softens. His fingers grasp my chin. “You and I, we don’t need a truce. We just work.”
I give him a watery smile. My sweet man is back.
“Can she see?” Kaleb asks, interrupting our locked gaze.
I look away at the question to see Kaleb holding out a set of binoculars toward me. I can’t see Daniel’s quiet reply, but I feel it when the hands on my shoulders squeeze in approval.
Taking the proffered binoculars, I peer in.
It’s the camp, and we’re behind the counselor’s cabin.
We must be standing on a hill not far behind the campgrounds.
I watch as police officers mill around. Looking among them, I realize that the shorter one passing out coffee is one of the men who came to the cabin yesterday, the younger one.
“Cooper tried to corner me in town this morning,” Kaleb says.
Michael clicks his tongue in disapproval. “Didn’t you go with Dad?”
“Yeah.” He laughs. “He was furious. Hence why a deputy is babysitting the crime scene.”
“Plan,” Daniel grunts.
I bite my lip at the sound.
Michael nods. “Daniel’s right, we stick to the plan . . . for now.” He heaves a sigh. “She’ll have to talk to them at some point, Daniel.”
I feel a puff of air on the top of my head, a sign of his frustration.
“My offer to kill the deputy is still there,” Kaleb offers casually. Too casually.
He hasn’t even lifted his head out of his own binoculars when he spoke, like it was an everyday thing. That’s when I realized . . . it is.
He is one of them, three peas in a pod. Kaleb is a killer, too.
“Easy,” Michael warns, pointing a finger at both of them. “Once a year, that’s the deal. Any more than that, and we’d get caught. We don’t change what works.”
“My bad,” Kaleb acknowledges, lifting a hand in apology. “I should have come this year, but it didn’t sound as exciting, which was clearly a mistake. Next year, pick someone who’s going to run, please?”
I feel sick. Bending, I try to drag air into my lungs. A solid force pushes my head down farther until it hangs between my knees.
“Deep breaths, good girl.”
And just like that, my heart stops racing, and my chest rises with deep breaths. My body eager to follow his instructions.
We sit there for hours, watching and waiting as the campground is cleared out. The brothers observing and joking.
My stomach rumbles, and Daniel immediately stands, his face drawn with worry.
“That would be those meals you didn’t eat,” Michael reprimands from where he sits against a thick tree next to us, his disapproval clear.
I smile sheepishly, but he reaches out to knock me under the chin to show he’s not truly angry.
