They all seem to be names of businesses in town, full of forms requesting liquor licenses and tax credits. In the back of the drawer is the thickest one and when I pull it out, I cock my head to oneside. Written on the tab in Heller’s loopy cursive it saysCamp Alpine Lake.
I flip through some of the papers, but I can’t tell what they mean. Not yet. I grab my phone and snap a few photos, figuring I can look at them at some point when I’m back to safety. But when I try to stuff my phone back in my pocket, I accidentally elbow the photo of the two of us off the desk, so it lands facedown. When I lean over to pick it up, Heller’s handwriting jumps out at me. He’d written something here in dark blue ink.
G E 11 1 5 H M 0 3 0 7
It only takes a second for me to realize what the marks mean. Our initials and our birthdays lined up together. It must be his password.
My heart races as I try to type the letters and numbers into the computer. After all this, he used my info to guard his secrets.Why?
Sure enough, the password works.
His computer is as organized as his workspace, but I don’t even know what the hell I’m looking for. It’s not like there’s going to be a document labeledIF I DIE AT CAMP ALPINE LAKE, PLEASE READ MEbut I start opening folders anyway.
Nothing seems that interesting, so I click over to his email, which he’s thankfully still logged into. It takes a few moments for all his messages to load and when they do, I start scrolling.
As I move the mouse down, I try to picture him sitting in this exact seat on the day he died, wearing the round glasses he only put on while looking at a screen. He was probably eating an apple, pecking away at the keyboard, trying to figure out whatever the hell he was working on. He had no idea that in a few hours, he’d bedead. He loved this town so much. He wanted to give back to it in so many ways, to change it. To make it better. But why would any of that have led to his death?
I jump to the date he died and look at the emails that came in the morning, before he showed up at camp in the dinghy and spoke to Ava on the dock. None look particularly interesting so I move over to his sent folder to see what he was up to that day. It’s all mundane, messages to coworkers and business owners, until I get to a series of emails that make me pause.
I hover over the first one, addressed to [email protected] and the subject line says simply, “Cantor Assets.”
With shaking fingers, I open the email and start reading.
To whom it may concern,
I doubt you’ll actually read this but I don’t know what else to do. I’m an employee at the clerk’s office in Roxwood, Vermont. I have uncovered evidence of a massive financial scandal involving Cantor Assets, run by famed financier Mark Cantor. I have proof. I’d like to share it with you.
Sincerely, Heller McConnell
My heart beats fast as I look through the rest of his sent emails from that day. There are dozens of other identical, desperate messages sent out to various news outlets—The Boston Globe,The Wall Street Journal,Bloomberg,HuffPost, Reuters, New York Post. And it seems like no one wrote him back.
As the wheels in my brain start to turn, I hear the scratching of metal and a door swing open somewhere on the other side of the building. Someone’s here.
I quickly take a photo of the screen and stuff the picture of Heller and me in my pocket. I set the computer to standby and rush toward the door, my heart beating fast.
“Hello?” someone calls. “Office is closed today.”
The side door is only a few steps away and I can hear footsteps coming closer. I know I only have seconds before I can get out of the door without being seen.
The footsteps get louder but I make a break for the exit, stepping into my boots and grabbing my poncho as fast as I can. I swing the door wide open and sprint toward the van. When I get to the van, I throw it into drive, not even bothering to look at the clerk’s office, to see if anyone saw me.
Go go go go. That’s all I can think.
Until I get on the main road, only a few miles from camp. That’s when everything hits me. If Heller actuallydidfigure out that Cantor Assets was doing something illegal, something that washarmingRoxwood, then he must have been trying to talk to Ava about it when he came to camp on his dinghy. And if he came to camp later that night to confront her again...
But no. That’s impossible. I make a left into the Camp Alpine Lake driveway and go slow up the hill, through the rain, trying to ignore the obvious truth—that if Ava knew Heller had dirt on her dad, she would probably do anything to shut him up.
CHAPTER 36
Then
The night before visiting day our first year as campers, Ava was the only girl in our cabin who seemed nervous to see her parents. After flashlight time, she climbed into my bed and curled herself around me, shallow breaths seeping out into the night.
When I turned to face her, I saw she was crying. “I don’t want them to come,” she whispered. “They’re going to fight.”
I wrapped her in my arms but we were both so little then. All I knew about her family was they were rich. And her dad was mean.
It wasn’t until I met them the next day that I realized how different our lives were. Her dad barely said anything and wore a shiny watch that he kept looking at while Ava’s mom unpacked a Louis Vuitton suitcase full of presents. He looked at my bedding like it had germs, like he was afraid he might catch something.
