In Too Deep (5 page)

“They can be a little rough around the edges—and cocky when they first arrive at Larry's. But Larry mostly keeps them in line. Even manages to teach them some manners. That said, I wouldn't recommend them as appropriate company. Your dad would probably have my head if he thought I'd expose you to boys like that.”

I wondered what Chief Lafayette would think if he met Nick.

“Enjoy your summer, Robyn,” he said. “Call anytime. And check with the ranger station if you decide to do any hiking in the area. We've had a few incidents involving bears.”

“Bears?”

“There seem to be more of them around this year. From what we can tell, they're hungry, and a few of them are acting a little bolder than we'd like. A couple of people have had bad scares. The rangers are tracking them as best they can. They can tell you what areas to avoid and what precautions to take.”

“It's okay,” I said. “I wasn't planning to do a lot of hiking.” Not with Morgan on crutches. And certainly not after what I had just heard.

When I got back to the office with everyone's lunches there was a truck out front. A man was throwing down bundles of newspapers.

“Hot off the press,” Doug Griffith said.

I glanced at the photo on the front page. It was a medium shot of a big brown bear out in the woods somewhere. The headline above it read “Bear Crisis.”

  .    .    .

“Hold on a minute, Billy,” Morgan said that night after dark. She watched as I did a circuit of the summerhouse's main floor. “What are you doing, Robyn?”

“Checking the windows.”

Morgan shook her head. “You really need to relax. In all the years I've been coming up here, I've only ever seen bears out at the garbage dump.”

“You saw the headline,” I said. “I'm not taking any chances.” I looked more closely at the phone she was holding. “Hey, is that mine?”

“Sorry. I forgot to recharge mine after last night.” She meant, after she had talked to Billy for nearly two hours. I didn't begrudge her such a loyal boyfriend, but her gabfest reminded me that I still hadn't heard from Nick. “And I promised Billy—” She suddenly remembered that he was still on the line. “Sorry, Billy,” she said into my phone.

“Don't forget to recharge your phone when you're finished,” I said. “And while you're at it, recharge mine.”

She nodded, her way of telling me not to worry.

A

t noon the next day, Mr. Hartford waved me into his office again. I grabbed a notebook and a pen and took them with me.

“I've got an assignment for you, Robyn,” he said.

I flipped to a clean page in my notebook and waited for him to give me his lunch order.

“Tom's up in Eden interviewing a bear-attack victim—”

“There was a bear attack?”

“The man he's interviewing was attacked by a bear five years ago—while he was hiking in the mountains out west. Tom's doing a story about how he survived the attack, a couple sidebars on proper precautions and what to do if you run into a bear. We get a lot of tourists up here who wander off into the woods like they're strolling through a city park. The
Lakesider
has a role to play in making sure they use a little common sense. In my experience, there's nothing like a good bear-attack story to make folks sit up and listen.

“I've got to go down to Westly,” he continued. “The politicos are making an announcement about funding a new hospital for the area. So I was wondering how you'd feel about handling a story—bit of a fluff piece, but a good photo op. You know how to operate a camera, right?”

“Sure.”

“Great. There's a new camp opening this afternoon. For kids with cancer. It's funded by a foundation set up by that movie star—the one who started that organic snack company and donated all the profits to charity. His wife's here for the grand opening. All I want you to do is drive out there with a camera and a pocket recorder, take a few pictures, talk to a couple of the kids and their parents, see if you can get a quote from the wife—she was pretty big herself for a while—and bring it all back here. Tom or Nan can write it up if you don't feel comfortable doing it. Or you can take a first run at it if you'd like. What do you say?”

“Well, I—”

“Doug told me that English is one of your best subjects at school. Think of it as a school assignment—and you get to meet a movie star.”

A used-to-be movie star whose movies I had never seen. But stil ...

“Okay, sure,” I said. How hard could it be?

Hartford gave me a map and marked my route on it with a yellow highlighter.

“It's a little out of the way,” he said. “And most of the driving is on dirt roads, which will slow you down a little. Give yourself at least an hour to get there.”

I shoved the map, the camera, and the audio recorder into my tote bag and hurried down to the marina parking lot. I rummaged around in the bag for my keys. Not there. I checked my pocket. No keys. Where were they?

I ransacked my bag again, then emptied it onto the hood of my car. Still no keys. I glanced through the driver's side window—and there they were, on the floor! I had driven across town after work the day before to pick up a bunch of things that Morgan had insisted she needed—sunscreen, a special moisturizer, some organic snacks that she had acquired a taste for, thanks to Billy. But I'd been distracted—I'd been thinking about Nick—and must have dropped my keys.

I checked my watch. If I didn't get going, I'd be late for my first-ever reporting assignment.

I tried the driver's-side door. It was locked. I tried the other three doors. Locked, locked, and locked.
Okay
, I thought,
what to do?

Coat hanger—people in movies tackled situations like this with a coat hanger. I ran to the marina restaurant to see if I could borrow a wire hanger.

And all their hangers were plastic.

“Problem?” said a quiet voice behind me.

I spun around and found myself face-to-face with the police officer who had responded to the call at the record store. I couldn't see his eyes behind his mirrored sunglasses.

“I locked my keys in my car,” I said, “and I'm late for an assignment. I'm working at the paper for the summer.”

“I can give you a hand with that. Where's your car?”

I led him to the parking lot. He walked around my car, inspecting it closely. Then he walked over to a police cruiser that was parked nearby. He opened the trunk and hunted inside. He returned carrying a thin piece of metal.

“What's that?” I asked.

“It's called a slim jim. Just the thing for opening locked doors.” He fed the thin strip of metal between the top of the driver's side window and the doorframe, worked it down inside, and—yes!—popped the lock.

“Thank you!” I could have hugged him. Well, maybe not. But it would have been terrible if I'd missed the camp opening.

“No problem,” he said. “Part of the job. For some reason, summer people are always locking their keys in their cars.” His voice echoed with disapproval. “Drive safely.”

I got into my car, checked the map Mr. Hartford had given me, and drove out of the lot. Once I got to the camp, I shoved the map and my keys into my bag and grabbed the pocket recorder and camera off the front seat. I'd arrived just in time to take the grand tour. After that I met some of the kids and their parents, took some pictures, and listened to speeches by the movie star's wife, the camp director, some local politicians, and a couple of the kids who would be attending the camp's first two-week session. The speeches were followed by a corn roast, which I opted to skip. I got in my car and headed back to town.

At least, I thought I was heading back to town. I drove down the dirt path that led to the gravel road and made a turn. I had the windows down—the air conditioner in Ted's friend's old Toyota seemed to be on the fritz—and was feeling pleased with myself for having handled the assignment so well. The movie star's wife had answered all of my questions—and then thanked me for coming. She'd even given me an autographed photo of her husband for Ted, who was a huge fan.

Thirty minutes later I came to an unfamiliar crossroad. Almost every intersection that I had passed that day had had posts with signs pointing the way to camps and summer homes. I hadn't paid much attention to them. But there was a pole at this intersection with a huge spruce tree–shaped sign advertising a cut-your-own Christmas tree business. I didn't remember seeing it on the way to the camp. I drove on for another ten minutes, watching for anything that looked remotely familiar. Disoriented, I pulled over to the side of the road to check my map.

Big problem.

I was sure I had put the map into my bag, but it wasn't there. I turned the bag upside down, dumping the contents onto the seat. The map was definitely gone. I had set my bag down during the speeches so that I could take some pictures. One of those big floppy satchels that's open at the top. You could cram a lot of stuff into it, but there was nothing to stop things from falling out if you dropped it. I scrabbled through the bag again.

No map.

It had been nearly forty-five minutes since I'd left the camp. If I had been going in the right direction, I would have been getting close to town. I would have passed the occasional house. But I hadn't. I was still driving past dense forest on either side of the road and, every ten miles or so, a dirt crossroad leading to summer homes located along even smaller, narrower dirt roads.

So obviously I was going in the wrong direction. All I had to do was turn around and head back the way I had come.

I executed a three-point turn that would have made my father proud and started back toward the camp. Easy, right?

So why, as the sun began to dip toward the tree line, didn't I pass the camp?
It's probably just a little farther
, I told myself every few minutes.

The sun disappeared behind the trees. When it gets dark out in the country, it really gets dark. There were no streetlights, no lights from nearby houses. Nothing except a half-moon overhead that gave off just enough light to cast weird shadows in the deep woods on either side of the road. A creepy-crawly feeling crept down my spine. I glanced at the Toyota's gas gauge. I had a quarter tank left. That would be enough to get me back to town, right? Assuming I could find town.

But what if I couldn't?

Totally confused and increasingly panicky, I groped in my bag for my phone. I would call Morgan. Or maybe Dean Lafayette. Or Doug Griffith. I would do my best to describe where I was. Then I would sit tight and wait for someone to come and get me.

Something darted across the road. Something big—big
ish
. A deer?

I swerved to avoid hitting it.

And went off the road into the ditch.

My seat belt mostly did its job, but my head slammed against the steering wheel. It took me a few moments—maybe longer—to absorb what had happened. I raised a hand to my throbbing forehead. I wasn't bleeding, so that was good, but I felt a lump forming. I would probably end up with an ugly bruise. And now I wasn't just lost. I was in a ditch, and I wasn't sure that I was going to be able to get out.

I felt over the passenger seat for my phone. It wasn't there. It must have fallen when I swerved to avoid whatever it was that had run across the road. I unbuckled my seat belt and ran my hand over the floor.

Found it.

I moved my thumb across the touch screen. Nothing.

The battery was dead. Morgan had used it to talk to Billy for hours last night. She must have forgotten to recharge it when she had finished. There was nothing I could do about that.

I put the car in reverse and stepped on the gas to back out of the ditch.

No luck.

I tried again. The car's wheels spun, but the car didn't move. I told myself not to panic. I told myself that if I didn't get back to the house, Morgan would eventually call the newspaper—assuming it was still open. If it wasn't ... Morgan is smart. She would call the police. Chief Lafayette would know how to contact Mr. Hartford, who would tell him about my assignment. Someone would come looking for me. Or maybe a car would pass—except that I hadn't seen another car since I had left the camp.

Morgan would do something when I didn't show up at the Point. She would call someone. Everything would be okay.

I stayed calm for the first half hour.

Then I caught a glimpse of something out in the woods to my right. Something big and lumbering. My heart pounded. I rolled up all the windows and squinted into the darkness. I wished I had a flashlight. Then I remembered who had arranged for the car. Mr. Thinks-of-Everything—Ted. Maybe there was a light in the trunk. I peered into the darkness again. Whatever I had seen was gone. Had it wandered away? Or was it lying in wait behind a tree or a rock, ready to attack?

Cautiously, I opened the driver's-side door. I circled around to the trunk, unlocked it, and groped inside. Jack. Tire iron. Something long and tubular. Yes! A flashlight. I turned it on and pointed it into the woods—right into a pair of eyes set into a smallish head attached to a large brown body.