Olly and Jake walk into the food hall as Cora walks out to meet Andy.
I sit taller when they reach us. “What happened?”
Jake turns to address the room.
“Everything is okay. We caught up with the guy; he’d taken a wrong turn on a trail from the other side of town. He was apologetic, and we helped him get back to where he needs to be.”
“He’s gone?” one of the boys asks from across the room.
“Yeah, he didn’t mean to be here in the first place.”
The room erupts with chatter again, this time voices are higher and filled with laughter and about Olly and Jake chasing away the “stalker man.”
Olly sits close to me, his arm pressing against mine.
“That’s great,” I say.
Olly subtly shakes his head.
“It’s not?” Rebekah asks.
I sink into my seat, understanding. “You were just saying that so they wouldn’t worry.”
Jake rubs his jaw. “It was Andy’s idea. I’m going to go and tell the other counselors.”
He walks away, heading to Mary’s packed table first.
I place my clammy palms on my knees. “What happened?”
Olly clears his throat. “We couldn’t find anyone. But we did find a box of matches that he must have dropped.”
“Esme has a theory that it’s someone who worked here and was fired or whatever, since this guy seems to only be messing with the counselors,” Rebekah says.
Olly glances at me, smiling. “Good one, Esme.”
“Cora is telling Andy.”
“This jackass is going to get hurt if he comes back here again. Did Isabel mention anything about a weapon?” Olly asks.
“What?” Kayla hisses.
“Last night you didn’t want me and Jake to go after him because we couldn’t be sure he wasn’t armed,” Olly says.
“She didn’t say anything about a gun, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have one. It could be concealed,” I tell them.
Olly leans back, effectively ending our little arm cuddle. I do my best not to pout.
“This is insane. I came here to help kids have an awesome summer,” he says, shaking his head. “I didn’t sign up for some freak in the woods.”
“I’m sure the cops will do something now,” Kayla says.
Tia huffs. “What can they do? We don’t know who it is or why he’s doing this.”
“Andy will have records of who’s worked here and how they left. They’ll start there,” I say, backing Kayla up, although I’m not at all convinced there is anything the cops can do.
We have two sightings of a man, one of which was uncertain and possibly a tree. We can hardly say we were chased through the forest at one a.m. by someone taking our picture.
Still, the police might take it seriously because there are children here.
“What’s the relationship like between camp and town?” I ask.
Tia shrugs. “I don’t know, why?”
“Well, my cousin was a counselor at a camp in Michigan and said that the camp and local community hated each other,” I say. “The town was mad because of the noise or something stupid like that. There were arguments and a lot of bad blood between staff and residents.”
“Where are you going with this?” Olly asks.
I shrug. “I just wondered if it could be someone from town. Andy visits, so they know him and maybe someone there is tired of staff getting wild in their town. Did you hear that Cora and the others go drinking there?”
Tia ties her hair into a bun on top of her head. “Ugh, I wish we could go drinking.”
I ignore her. “Maybe someone has a grudge against Andy?”
Olly leans forward. “Maybe.”
He doesn’t sound like he believes me. But it’s a totally plausible explanation for the strange things happening around here.
So is Lillian.
“What do you think?” I ask him.
“I have no idea, Esme.” Olly looks away, toward the table of food. “I need something to eat.”
I watch him with narrowed eyes as he gets up and walks away.
Rebekah’s eyes slide from Olly’s vacant chair to me. “That was odd.”
I turn to her. “What do you think?”
“Well, I think the same as you. Maybe someone in town is annoyed with the camp. We’re close to town. They can probably hear us sometimes, smell smoke from our campfires if the wind is in the right direction.”
“We should find out if there is a grudge. Maybe Andy has been invited to town meetings or something,” I say.
“How would we find that out?” she asks.
Tia rolls her eyes. “We ask him.”
Such a simple response.
“I vote Esme has that discussion with him,” Kayla says.
“Why me?”
She arches a plucked brow. “You’re the one who’s going full Sherlock.”
“I’m not,” I defend weakly. “Don’t you want to know who’s behind the graffiti?”
“I can sleep without knowing who’s been turning innocent pranks creepy. Now, if I wake up to find a bloody deer head on my pillow, I want to know.”
How can Kayla say that?
Has she forgotten all about the note we found in her jacket pocket?
Despite my best attempts at distracting myself with theories, the more I think about it, the more I think Lillian is behind this.
Why else would this all be happening now?