I stood up from the chair and padded down the hall to Ava’s room so I could show her Paul’s handiwork. I peeked my head inside the door, waiting for her to turn around. But she was hunched over in the corner, talking quietly, angrily into her phone.
“What are you saying?” she asked.
I couldn’t tell who she was talking to, not at first. But then she rested her head against the bookshelf, weary, and when she spoke, her voice broke.
“Is everything going to be okay, Dad?”
She nodded a few times and then stood up straight. “Will I see you over winter break?” Ava paused and ran a hand through her hair. “Switzerland? Again?” She paused. “Fine,” she said, her voice hard.
I took that as my cue and tiptoed out of the room, back down the hall, to where Imogen was running her fingers through her hair. There we waited for Ava to come out, smiling and excited, as if nothing strange had happened at all.
CHAPTER 45
Now
Meg blares a plastic vuvuzela through the cabin.
I pull my hoodie up over my head and groan. I’m perched on Fran Gertz’s bed, weaving her curly hair into two tidy French braids. “Shut it down,” I say, which causes Fran to erupt into giggles.
“No can do,” Meg says, her voice cheerful, so far from how nervous and freaked out she was this morning. Stu and Mellie must have calmed her down. Jordie and Bianca, too, considering they’re now playing jacks in the corner of the cabin with some of the other girls.
Meg claps her hands together. “We’ve got world cup tonight.”
I will not be participating in the annual event, where all of the American counselors play soccer against all of the international counselors and force the kids to pick sides, plying their fans with extra cookie patrol in exchange for loud-ass cheers. But I did promise Meg I would be on camper duty all night so she could play—and kick all the Americans’ asses, a challenge I firmly support.
She’s wearing her Manchester United kit and she’s got a Union Jack temporary tattoo slapped on her arm.
“Spirited, are we?” I ask.
“Don’t you know it!” She feigns punching me in the gut and calls for the campers to get their asses into gear.
I pull on my sneakers, going about my getting-ready motions like everything’sfine, but it’s impossible not to think about theNew York Postarticle and the mess that links the Cantors to Heller. I need to talk to Ava, even if I’m terrified if what she’ll say or how she’ll react. Because in my most honest moments, I can admit that I’m frightened by what I’ll find out, what she’s done.
“Hey, you all right?” Meg asks. “You look like you’re gonna puke.”
“There’s a lot going on,” I say.
Meg shakes her head but her eyes grow serious. “It’s a weird summer, ya?”
I mumble my agreement.
Meg gives me a knowing look. “It’s all right, you know.” She pauses and pulls her hair into a high pony. “For this place to not be perfect.”
I pick my head up. “What do you mean?”
“All you lifers. You act like this camp is the best place on earth. Everything about it. But it’s a business, a piece of land.”
She snaps her mouth shut like she’s said too much, and heads into the camper room, ready to rile them up.
Meg’s wrong though. She doesn’t get it. This place has to be perfect—especially when there are so many things that aren’t.
I peer out the window and see Imogen and Ava walking hand in hand toward the soccer fields. Ava’s head is ducked, her platinum hair loose around her face.
I don’t know what I see when I look at her anymore.
Is she my best friend, the girl who stands up for me, who would give me the world? Or is she a killer, someone who hurt Heller because he found out her family’s biggest secret and threatened to expose it to the world?
All I know is that I have to find out.
