One Summer (33 page)

“Unfortunately,” Kara and Sedona both said.

Charity couldn’t argue.

Johnny was standing on the bank of the lake, snapping away with his new camera as Angel splashed her way through the beginners’ swim test. Considering she hadn’t even known how to float at the beginning of camp, and had been afraid of the water last year, this summer she’d leaped right in and seemed to be having a great time.

He’d been worried that his mother might come back, but so far, it had been five days since he’d seen her in the woods and she seemed to be staying away. Which he’d decided was a good thing because as much of a magpie as Angel was, if she knew Crystal was back, she would never have been able to keep the secret.

“Your sister’s looking good out there,” a familiar deep voice behind him offered. It was the Marine. Gabe, he’d said to call him, although since that seemed too weird, Johnny didn’t take him up on it.

“Yeah. I think she’s going to pass.”

“With flying colors. She’s taken to swimming like all those ducks she’s been photographing.”

“That was nice of you to say that about her pictures. She can’t stop talking about how she’s going to go to Africa and photograph lions when she grows up.”

“Everyone needs a goal. And I wasn’t being nice. It was the truth. The kid’s got a good eye—she just may make it.” He looked down at the camera Johnny was holding in his hand. “You’re not so bad yourself. You capture moods more than a lot of pros I’ve worked with.”

“Right.” It was one thing to toss compliments to a little kid. But Johnny hadn’t just fallen off the crab boat.

“Seriously. That one of your sister putting the necklace on my dog is close to professional quality.”

Angel had made the necklace by stringing together wildflowers she’d picked from the butterfly garden Fred and Ethel had planted. The bright red and yellow flowers had shown up really well against the dog’s black fur. Johnny had been pleased with the way he’d managed to capture the shot as the dog gazed up at his sister with what appeared to be adoration in those round brown eyes.

The compliment, which seemed genuine enough, shouldn’t give him so much pleasure. But it did.

He shrugged, trying for nonchalance, as Angel dived off the board, disappeared beneath the water, then, just when Johnny started to worry, bobbed up like a cork. “Thanks.”

“I was about your age the first time I picked up a camera.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It changed my life.”

Johnny wasn’t comfortable talking with anyone about Angel or his life. But he also wasn’t used to people talking to him like they actually cared about him and what he had to say. And he was curious.

“How?”

“It’s a kinda long story. I didn’t exactly come from a stable home. My parents were both drunks.”

Johnny knew something about having a parent who drank. “That’s tough.”

“Yeah. It was. I wasted a lot of years being angry.”

And couldn’t Johnny identify with that?

“I used to run, too. Like you do. Sometimes it helped. Sometimes it didn’t.”

Johnny was surprised the guy had been watching him. Then wondered why.

“How about you?” Gabe asked. “Does it help?”

“Maybe I just run because I like it.”

It was Gabe’s turn to shrug. Damned if the kid’s wall wasn’t thick and high. Which made sense since he’d undoubtedly spent a lifetime building it. It wouldn’t be easy to break through any time soon. Probably not even in the length of time left. But although Gabe was sure all the campers came with their own compelling stories, there was something about this particular teenager that tugged at him. Enough that he’d never be able to forgive himself if he didn’t try.

“Whatever works,” he said with studied nonchalance. “Anyway, I used to get in trouble a lot. Mostly for fighting. I was one of those tough kids who was perfectly balanced.” He paused, waiting until the kid finally caved and looked up at him. “I had a chip on both shoulders.”

Okay. So much for that try. The teen didn’t even crack a smile.

Undaunted, Gabe forged on. “I got in trouble with the police once.”

That drew another sideways glance.

“I was out with some older kids, which, I want to point out, is no excuse. Because I knew what we were doing was wrong. We got drunk, hot-wired a golf cart, and drove it all around the greens at the country club.”

He didn’t add that while he’d been down on his knees, puking his guts out into the toilet of the small-town two-cell Lowcountry jail, he’d wondered what the hell his parents liked about liquor and vowed never to follow his parents down that dead-end alcoholic path.

“Fortunately, since one of the kids’ dad was a lawyer, he pulled some strings and we got off with paying restitution and community service. Even better for me, the sheriff’s brother-in-law was the newspaper editor, who needed someone to photograph that night’s high school football game after his sports reporter moved on to a job in Charleston. The guy stuck this old thirty-five-millimeter camera in my hand and told me to go out, and if I got anything decent, he’d pay me for each shot he used.”

It was only much later that Gabe realized how fortunate he’d been. The other two kids’ parents had simply written the checks to pay their share of the damage. Which his parents were too financially strapped to do, even if they’d been inclined to get him off the hook. Which they hadn’t been.

But his life, which had been on the road to some serious trouble, took a 180-degree turn.

Seems I had a knack for it. And I liked being able to freeze time in that single frame. I went through six rolls of thirty-six exposures on that first Friday night game.

“Maybe the guy thought I had talent, or maybe he just wanted to save film, but he started teaching me how to bracket my shots, and how to choose how to tell the story, and how to select the image that would make the most impact.”

“Like you were telling us today. About how if your picture wasn’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.”

“Yeah. Which I got from Robert Capa, who covered five wars and really knew what he was talking about. Anyway, this editor who introduced me to photography worked for a weekly that was part of a syndicate of small-town papers scattered throughout the South. So, pretty soon I was picking up some extra cash taking other shots for them.” He’d used some of the money he’d earned to buy a police scanner, which had paid for itself the first month.

“I went to college and spent two years majoring in photography, but by then I’d already been getting paid for my work for three years and didn’t want to waste time. I’d already decided I wanted to be a war photographer because it sounded dangerous. Since I was young, green, and wanted adventure, and figured the uniform would impress girls, I joined the Marines.”

“So, did it? Impress the girls?”

Ha. He’d finally hit on something the kid was really interested in. Gabe grinned. “Yeah.” Wanting to focus on the positive, he didn’t see any reason to mention that hadn’t always turned out to be a good thing.

“Were you afraid? Being in war?”

“Sure. But fear’s not important. It’s how you manage it that matters.”

Johnny Harper thought about that for a long, silent time.

Then,
damn
, just when Gabe thought he might be going to share something personal, or ask something important, his sister came running up to him, waving a blue ribbon over her wet blond curls and calling out, “Did you see me floating, Johnny? On my back?”

“I sure did.” As the teen bent down to scoop her up, soaking the front of his shirt and jeans, the moment was lost.

For now.

Jack Craig had practiced what he was going to say over and over again on the drive here from his two-million-dollar Seven Hills golf course home. But now the words stuck like a stone in his throat.

Where the hell to begin?

“I got married last year.”

“Yeah. I don’t read the social columns, but I saw something about that on the business page. So, did your ex really take you to the cleaners in that divorce?”

“I believe she left me enough to pay your fee.” Jack glanced around the office, as if pointing out that the guy hadn’t exactly set up shop in the Bellagio.

He was seriously considering walking out the door, but knew that he wouldn’t have a moment’s peace unless he “cowboyed up,” as his Texas-born oil-heiress wife put it, and did what needed to be done.

“There’ve been other women in my life, of course,” he stated. “Before my wife.”

Three wives now, but who was counting? Their lawyers, who’d soaked him for alimony every time. If Jack thought about how many cars he had to sell every day before he began to make a profit, he’d never get out of bed.

“Why don’t you tell me something that would surprise me?” O’Keefe suggested dryly.

“One in particular. Several years ago.”

“And she’s surfaced to cause you a problem.”

“No. Well, not directly.”
Time to just spit it out.
“We had a close relationship.”

Close
meaning you fucked her.”

“Yes.”

“And now she’s threatening to make trouble with your wife?”

“No. I doubt she even knows I’m married.” Christ, he was making a mess of this. “But my wife knows about
her
.”

“So? You’re, what, fifty years old?”

“Fifty-eight.” A year-round tan, racquetball three times a week, and a personal trainer kept him looking younger than his years.

“So, it’s not like she expected you not to have a life before you married her.”

“Of course not.” Jack’s fingers clenched so tightly his knuckles ached. “She recently discovered she can’t have children. It’s some kind of female problem,” he said, briskly brushing aside any unpleasant medical details he hadn’t wanted to know himself. And which weren’t pertinent to the situation.

“That’s tough. I guess she wants a kid?”

“Yes. She’s somewhat younger than me.” Twenty-eight years younger, which might have been a mistake, since he’d thought he was done raising kids. “We were talking about adoption, but she’s big on blood ties. Which is when I screwed up.”

It was her fault. If she hadn’t been nagging him to death about wanting a family, he wouldn’t have been drinking too much, and his damn secret never would have come out.

“I told her that perhaps I had a child.”

“With this other woman.” The detective did not sound surprised. Then again, in his line of work, he’d probably seen just about everything.

“Yes.” Jack’s hands were sweating. He rubbed them on his thighs. “I don’t know… . Crystal Harper was a secretary in the parts department of one of my dealerships. I had to let her go after a few weeks because she proved unreliable.”

“Which didn’t stop you from fucking her.”

He felt his cheeks burn beneath his tan. He was a pillar of the community, dammit. No one talked to him this way.

“My point is that she could have been lying.”

“Or not.”

“Which is why I’m hiring you. I need to find out if she was telling the truth. And if she was …” He took a deep breath and finally found the strength to spit it out. “I need you to find my child.”

It rained for the next three days, keeping the campers indoors much of the time. Which wasn’t the worst thing that could happen, Charity decided as she and Gabe worked together helping the kids put the photos into a scrapbook.

Since many of the campers hadn’t grasped the concept of editorial choice, she and Gabe had stayed in the workroom while the kids went off to paint scenery and work on the songs and skits they’d be performing with the counselors on the closing night.

“Have you heard from the judge yet?” he asked as they sat in the lodge office, culling through at least a hundred photos of ducks.

“Unfortunately not. But he did check in with his office. The court clerk assured Mom that he hadn’t been attacked by pirates or anything dire.”

“Your mother seems to be doing okay.”

“She’s hurting.” After the ducks came several dozen of Gabe’s dog, who in one was wearing one of the glittery cardboard tiaras Amanda had picked up at a local party store. “I think it’s unusual for her because typically I hear a litany of complaints when a marriage goes south. This time she’s being strangely closemouthed.”

“Maybe because she wants things to work out. And if they do stay together, family get-togethers would probably be more uncomfortable if she dumped a lot of personal stuff about her marriage on you.”

“That’s very perceptive for a guy who doesn’t have any family.”

“I may not have one now.”

Just when Charity had thought Angel Harper only knew how to take photos of animals, Gabe paused on a shot of the girl’s brother swinging over the lake on a rope Fred had hung from a tree limb.

“But I did,” he said. He zoomed in on the photograph. “Who knew that kid could laugh?”

“Not me. He’s not nearly as sullen as he was last year, but except for the photography, which he really seems to be into, thanks to you, he hasn’t exactly been the poster boy of a happy camper.”

“Something’s weighing heavily on his mind.”

“Not surprising, given his circumstances.”

“True. But one of the reasons I’m still alive is that I’ve learned to trust my spidey sense. Which is telling me that this is something different. Something more recent.”

“Something that’s happened since he arrived here?”

“Yeah. He might have arrived with the cloud of doom hanging over his head, but whatever’s on his mind has him a lot edgier. He keeps looking around like he expects Bigfoot to leap out of the woods and take his sister away.”

“Do you think he’s having a problem with some of the other campers?”

“It doesn’t feel like that.” Gabe rubbed his chin as he considered her question. “But I suppose it could be, although Fred and Ethel seem to have everyone pretty well supervised, so it’s unlikely, if he was dealing with a bully or anything like that, that no one would have noticed. I thought he might tell me the other day—”