His hands came to her shoulders. “Hey,” he said, and when she looked up, he met her eyes and frowned. “What happened?”
“I think I saw him. Earl, he’s—” She turned, pointing, but the road was dark and the only people on it were a group of teenagers in backpacks, heading toward them, not away.
Wolf looked from the road back to her face. “We can call the police. Are you sure it was him?”
She closed her eyes, shook her head. “I didn’t see his face. It was too dark, he was too far away, and I could only see the back of him, but his shape, and the way he moved…” She sighed and lowered her head. “I sound like a crazy person.”
“If you say it was him, I believe you.”
She took a deep breath, replaying the whole thing in her mind. “No, I can’t even convince myself, for sure. I’m triggered, I think. It felt so safe and secluded at our site.”
He sighed heavily and looked around the place, probably in search of something that would make her feel better. He was thoughtful that way.
“What’s the deal at the kiosk?” she asked to change the subject.
“It’s just a sign-in book, like the one at every gate. There’s a large group on separate sites, trying to find each other.”
Camellia frowned and looked that way. “Anyone can just look in the book and find what site you’re on. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Looks that way. We’re not in that book, though.”
“We’re in one of them.”
“Yeah, but we’re not in our assigned site. Nobody can find us that way, Camellia.”
The way her name sounded on his lips gave her a whole different set of chills. He pronounced both Ls or something and made it sound more beautiful than it had ever sounded to her.
“We can check the books, too,” he suggested. “See if he’s registered.”
“He wouldn’t have used his real name.”
“They looked at our ID, though. He carry a fake ID around with him, to your knowledge?”
She shook her head, sighed. “I’m just jumpy. It probably wasn’t even him.”
“We don’t have to stay?—”
“Yes, we do.” She nodded at one of the diners. “They close soon. Let’s get churros. Better than cocoa!”
“Sure.” They went into a sit-down Mexican restaurant and ordered churros and coffee. Soft Spanish guitar came from speakers mounted along with the cameras in the upper corners of the small dining room. Booths of red Formica with seats upholstered in green lined three walls. A counter stretched across the fourth wall, and tables filled the space in between. Camellia picked a small booth in the back corner where she could see everyone in the place.
It wasn’t logical to think she’d seen Earl. There was no evidence to support her having seen him.
There was that black Chevy Blazer on the highway.
But that was two hundred miles from here.
Okay, one scant piece of evidence, and a weak one—a car he might not even have anymore, for all she knew. It was still registered to him, though.
But no, she’d glimpsed a fellow camper with a similar build from a distance in the dark. It wasn’t enough to worry about, much less enough to distract her from Wolf’s case.
Their order came, and they dug in. There wasn’t a lot of conversation after that.
When they finished and left the establishment, Wolf veered into the souvenir shop next door, clasping her elbow and steering her right in there with him. He walked through theplace with purpose, on a mission, snatching a pair of baseball caps with the park logo on them. He plopped one onto her head, and one onto his own. Then he went to the spinning rack of sunglasses and gave it a slow turn before plucking a big round purple pair that would’ve made Elton John blush and slid them right onto her face.
“What are you doing?” she asked around her laughter.
He put on a pair of Aviators and blinked at the mirror, and she laughed even more. He was soothing her nerves with his antics, if nothing else. And she appreciated the distraction. He leaned in, putting his hand to one side of his mouth, and stage whispered, “I’m getting our disguises together. Do you think they have any of those wax lips?”
