No, Lacey told herself firmly.You can do this on your own. It's time to find out who this faceless enemy is and what they really want.
But as she walked toward her office door, her conscience reminded her that going alone was exactly the kind of reckless decision that had nearly gotten her killed twice already. She needed to let someone know where she was going, just in case something went wrong.
She quickly typed a message to Dean:Dean, please meet me at the burnt-out cottage in the campground. I've made contact with the enemy.
She hit send and slipped her phone into her pocket, not realizing that the message had failed to transmit due to poor cell service in the historic building's thick-walled upper floor.
Twenty minutes later, thinking Dean would be arriving shortly behind her, Lacey walked cautiously toward the burned remains of the cabin where Shaun and four other young people had died ten years earlier.
She was almost to the ruins when two teenagers on bicycles rode up beside her.
"Hey, are you going to that old burned place?" one of them asked with obvious concern.
"Yes," Lacey told them, not wanting to slow down when her mysterious contact might already be waiting. "Sorry, I'm in a hurry."
"You shouldn't go there alone," the other teenager called after her as she continued walking. "It's dangerous. The structure isn't stable, and people say it's haunted."
"I'll be careful," Lacey assured them, walking away quickly before they could ask more questions.
She cautiously stepped into the skeletal remains of the cabin, a burned-out reminder of the tragedy that had ripped through the community ten years earlier. The charred timbers and collapsed sections of roof created an eerie landscape of shadows and unstable debris.
"Hello," she called out, her voice echoing strangely in the empty space. "I'm here."
She waited, listening for any response or sign of movement. Nothing.
Then suddenly someone was behind her, their voice artificially distorted by some kind of electronic device.
"Don't turn around," the person commanded. "I have a gun."
Lacey's spine stiffened, and her heart began pounding as she thought desperately about Dean, who should be arriving any minute, she reminded herself. He’d know what to do.
"Where is the other one?" the distorted voice demanded.
"I couldn't get hold of them," Lacey lied, hoping to buy time until Dean could arrive.
"It's you that I want anyway," the voice sneered with obvious malice. "I can deal with the other one later. What do you know about what happened here ten years ago? And don't lie to me."
"What everyone else knows," Lacey replied with genuine confusion. “Five people died here, including the perpetrator.”
"Is that what you believe?" the person shouted angrily. “Don’t lie to me. Tell me what you know!”
"That is honestly all I know," Lacey insisted. "What do you want me to say? Is there something else I should know?"
"If you really don't know, then you're no use to me at all, and if you’re lying, that’s just dangerous for me," the person snapped with cold fury. "I should have finished the job at the hospital."
The last thing Lacey heard was the sound of something whistling through the air toward her head. Then pain exploded through her skull, her body turned to liquid, and she crumpled to the ground as consciousness fled.
19
DEAN
The elegant dining room of the Sandpiper Yacht and Country Club felt increasingly uncomfortable as Dean checked his watch for what had to be the twentieth time in the past hour. The white tablecloth, gleaming silverware, and crystal water glasses that had seemed appropriate for the important conversation he and Lacey needed to have now felt like props in a play where the other actor had failed to show up.
Seven thirty had come and gone. Then eight o'clock. Now it was approaching eight thirty, and Dean found himself fighting a growing knot of anxiety in his stomach that had nothing to do with hunger.
The waiter approached his table again with the kind of professionally polite expression that suggested he was wondering whether Dean planned to order anything more substantial than the club soda he'd been nursing for the past hour.
"Would you like to see a menu while you wait, sir?" the young man asked. "Perhaps an appetizer?"
