let up, and he wandered further away from the dining hall. Still, the signal bars never rose above two.
He figured the mountains were blocking the signal, or else there simply was no signal available out here.
With no cell service, what would they do if there was an emergency and they had to call for help?
One of the other guy’s phones might use a different service and pick up a better signal, but what if all of their cells were useless?
Had Evan planned ahead? Did he have a radio or a landline to call for help if they needed it?
The wind was picking up, and the moon had cleared the clouds; but off to the west, a thick bank of dark clouds was closing in, moving fast across the night sky. Leaving the shelter of the trees, Jeff walked along the shore, all too aware that—once again—he was heading toward where they had pulled Jimmy Foster out of the lake.
He hesitated and was about to turn around, but for some reason, he couldn’t change direction. He was still convinced something wasn’t quite right about this weekend, and he didn’t want to believe it had anything to do with what had happened back then. In spite of his overactive imagination, he didn’t really think Jimmy Foster’s ghost haunted the beach where he had died.
No … It was something else … something he was either not seeing … or was forgetting.
Regardless, he was still convinced his friend hadn’t drowned.
He had been murdered.
That thought kept gnawing at Jeff’s mind and wouldn’t let go.
So if Jimmy was killed, who did it?
And why?
Why hadn’t anyone been arrested and convicted?
Has someone gotten away with murder and—even more frightening—might they still be alive?
And then a terrible thought occurred to him.
What if it’s one of the men in the dining room?
What if Evan or Tyler or Mike or Fred knows more about what had happened that day than they’ve admitted?
Is this why Evan seems to be acting so strange?
And what’s the deal with Fred?
He sure seems uptight about something?
Or what if Mike or Tyler know more than they’re letting on? What if their gregarious natures are a front to hide the terrible truth they know?
What if one of them knows exactly what had happened?
Even if they aren’t the killer, what if they saw or heard something and never told anyone?
Jeff glanced at the cell phone in his hand. The signal bar was back to one, but he tried Matt’s number anyway simply because he was desperate to hear a friendly voice.
It would help reassure him.
But the call failed again, and Jeff kept walking, his feet dragging in the wet sand, leaving long, scalloped tracks behind him. When he reached the end of the beach, he turned to start back. The stretch of beach before him was all but lost in the darkness. The white sand at his feet glowed with an eerie luminescence that looked like thick ground fog, not sand. Dark water lapped against the shore, sounding like a thirsty animal, drinking. Feeling the cold and knowing more rain or snow was on the way, Jeff started back, picking up his pace.
He was halfway to the dining hall when a thought hit him so hard it staggered him.
“Holy shit,” he whispered.
His voice was whisked away by the wind. He imagined it was twisting and turning like ribbons as it was carried away on the breeze.
What if I know?
His throat was raw and burning as he swallowed and looked around frantically at the night as it pressed in close around him.
What if I saw something … and I’ve blocked it out all this time?
Is that possible?
The idea unnerved him so much his body began to tremble. The ache in his shoulders got worse. The cold, sour nausea in his stomach was a memory of how he had felt that long-ago day when he had seen Jimmy’s pale white body lying on the stretcher.
He was gripped by the terror of realizing the pitifully small body was one of his friends … someone he had known for the last three or four summers … someone he had played baseball with and gone swimming with and goofed around in the tent with, and now he was dead and was never, never coming back again.
Jeff couldn’t be sure Jimmy had been murdered, but he was suddenly confronted by the thought that maybe he had seen it happen and had been so traumatized he had blocked it out of his mind entirely.