Chapter 4
BRETT SPREAD THE MAP of the south-east side of Lake George over the hood of a non-descript, four-door sedan. The layout from his remote view had been identical to the map. Not that he doubted it wouldn’t be, but occasionally his view could be tainted by outside forces.
He glanced up, eyeing Hazel with her long blond hair pulled into a ponytail, flowing just over her shoulder. She wore a white tank top and jean shorts, which showed off her hour glass figure. He found himself wondering how much trouble he’d get into at Phoenix if he slept with the client. He figured he should get a pass since he’d already slept with her once.
She sauntered across the parking lot of the convenient store with a couple of plastic bags in her hands. Her hips swayed with each stride. When he’d first met her at his buddy’s party, he’d seen a strong, confident, young woman who seemed to have her entire life wrapped in a perfect bubble and all he wanted to do was find a way to burst into it.
The grown-up version of Hazel wasn’t much different, only sexier.
And smarter.
However, there was one thing that disturbed him: he’d been able to access her vision. The second he touched her skin, his mind snapped inside hers like two magnets smacking together. What he saw had been a little different from what she’d described on the plane, but he figured that was because he’d entered the vision from a different angle, so his point-of-view had been from the other side of the bay.
“Did you get me some beef jerky?” he asked as he folded up the map. Most people plugged in an address into their phone and followed the little purple line, or some computerized female voice that, oddly, some men found sexy, but not him, on both accounts. Well, he did use the GPS, but he still preferred to look at a physical map before heading anywhere.
“No idea how you eat Jerky, it’s disgusting.” She opened the passenger side and slid onto the cloth seat, tossing the bags in the back. “Its shriveled meat dipped in sodium.”
“Don’t ever call a man’s choice of meat shriveled. Besides, it’s protein.” He maneuvered the vehicle out onto a windy road heading toward the east side of the lake. “Any idea how to get access to a youth camp without looking like perverts?”
“Actually,” she said waving her phone. “I called Camp Keokuk’s director. His name is Morty.”
“Morty? What kind of a name is that?”
“A camp director's name.”
He laughed. “And what’s our cover?” He pressed the gas, taking the corners tight. The car didn’t handle near as nice as his Camaro, but the roads were still fun to navigate.
However, it was more fun to let Hazel take point on the op. He’d spent an entire career being in charge. It was nice to take direction from someone else, especially when that someone else had a voice like honey and a body like the curves of back road.
“I’m a reporter for an on-line parents’ magazine doing an article on camps in New York.”
“And who am I?”
“My photographer.”
“Why can’t you be a model and we’re there to do a bathing suit shoot? I remember what’s under your clothes and—”
A quick jab of her fist landed on his biceps. “Ouch.”
“Going back to the task at hand. We’re there to capture the essence of camp life.”
He’d like to capture something else, but decided to keep those thoughts to himself. “I don’t have a camera.”
The tires squealed as he took the left turn down Pilot Knob Road. The map indicated this would be the most challenging road yet. But it also showed that in one particular section, you could avoid the twists and turns if you drove in a perfectly straight line.
But that would-be dangerous if there were oncoming cars, still the idea intrigued him.
“Lucky for you I always travel with one.”
“I hope it’s like pointing and shooting a gun.”
“It’s similar, and my camera is really easy to use.” She gripped the handle on the roof, giving him the evil-stink eye. “Do you always drive like a maniac?”
“I’m actually being cautious because there’s a lady in my car.” He turned, flashing his best cheeky smile.
“Real cute.” She grinned back, but hers dripped with sarcasm. “Slow down.” She pointed to a large rock and a sign with the words: Welcome to Camp Keokuk. “Turn here. There’s a cabin on the left after the fork where we can find the camp director.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“If you ever call me ma’am again, I’ll kick you while wearing a pair of heels, somewhere you never want a sharp object.”
He hit the brakes, a little too harsh, and the seat belt caught her chest, jerking her head forward.
“Asshole,” she muttered.
“Hey, you’re the one who threatened my pride and joy, scaring me so damn much I had a knee jerk reaction.” Gently, he pushed the gear shift to park. “All because I was a gentleman.”
“Ma’am is something you call an old person, or a stranger. Not someone with who you’ve parked your car in her garage.”
He laughed as he stepped from the vehicle. “Not sure I’ve ever heard sex described that way.” The hot summer sun smacked his skin. He should have worn shorts, not jeans. He took the backpack she handed him and pulled out the camera. It had a decent size lens on it with a lot of little buttons and numbers, but otherwise, it looked easy enough to handle.
A voice came over the loud speakers calling someone to go to the mess hall. Memories of dehydrated food that tasted like cardboard topped with sawdust and a side of glue filled his brain. God, he hoped these poor kids had better food than Camp Quest had served him.
A small cabin with a nice size porch nestled between lush trees stood proudly across from a makeshift parking lot with a vintage orange truck. It looked similar to the one his grandfather owned, which he used for his first experience with a stick shift. He half expected Credence Clearwater Revival to suddenly play from a fuzzy speaker somewhere.
A man dressed in casual shorts, a T-shirt with the camp logo on the upper left corner, stepped from the front door. “You must be the folks from the magazine.”
Brett figured the man to be in his mid-thirties and already hated the pretty boy with his blonde hair, blue eyes, and tanned skin that screamed, ‘I’m so sexy and I know it’. Hell, even a man would have to be dead not to notice Morty.
But really? Morty? That name alone had to be a buzz kill for women.
He smiled as he jogged down the steps, stretching out his hand. “Welcome to Camp Keokuk. I’m Morty, Camp Director at large.”
“Thanks for letting us come out today,” Hazel said. Her sweet smile sparkled in the sun.
“Glad to have you. Follow me and I’ll give you the five-cent tour.”
The last thing they needed to do was waste their time with an excursion coupled with a well-planned pitch on why every parent should send their kid here. Brett needed to get to the waterfront and case out the house where he believed her sister was being held. But that obviously wasn’t going to happen right this second, as Hazel looped her hand in the crook of Morty’s elbow, he smiled at her with lust in his eyes.
She had the audacity to laugh as she patted his impressive biceps.
Brett stayed two steps behind, ignoring Morty’s rhetoric about the history of Camp Keokuk. Normally, Brett would find the stories of the original Native American inhabitants fascinating, but not when it came at the expense of watching another man hit on Hazel.
Brett stuffed his right hand deep into his pocket, fingering his good luck charm, remembering where’d he got it and what she might think if she knew he had it.
The camp itself covered a large amount of ground, and when they finally made their way across the camp toward the waterfront, Brett focused on understanding how the camera worked. He’d taken a bunch of practice shots, using the zoom, trying to figure out how to focus. Thus far, he’d done a decent enough job.
Now standing in the middle of what Morty referred to as Greenhorn Bay, he adjusted the lens and drew the house in question as close as possible, doing his best to pretend to shoot pictures of the children pushing kayaks into the blue water.
He noted the shades on the second floor had been drawn shut. Silhouettes moved about in what appeared to be the family room, but he couldn’t see inside as well as he’d like. Glancing around, he decided it was time to use his skill. He signaled to Hazel what he planned on doing. She nodded, so hopefully she understood, because for the next ten minutes or so, his body would be in one place, while his psyche was somewhere else.
Bringing the camera to his face, he closed his eyes, taking in a few calming breaths as he projected his mind toward the house. Short distances views were always difficult, especially in a case like this where he had to be able to shift between the two planes.
The tunnel came in the form of an underwater path. His mind's-eye raced through it, holding his breath, feeling the water trickle against his body. Once on the other side, he glanced over his shoulder. It was always strange to see himself in one place when his mind was somewhere else.
The sound of an engine roared to life. Swiftly, he moved to the back of the house where he saw a dark SUV peel out of driveway, heading south on Pilot Knob Road.
Fuck.
He memorized the license plate number, then made his way to the back door, entering the house quietly, which made him laugh in his mind. No one should be able to see or hear him.
There was no one in the kitchen and he didn’t sense anyone in the house at all. He moved from the kitchen to the family room. Standing in the middle of the typical lake camp house with beachy-feel furniture, he saw something that caught his breath.
C4, tucked against the windows.
And a lot of it.
Fuck.
Looking across the bay, he calculated the distance from the house to the kids in the water, wondering if the bomb was set on a timer, or if whoever drove away had a detonator. The explosion in Hazel's vision didn’t include children.
He raced through every room of the house, making sure Savanah hadn’t been left behind. Satisfied the house was empty, he summoned his tunnel. As soon as he returned to his body, he’d have to report the bomb and…
The crackle of a fuse igniting forced him to snap his body and mind together in a way that would leave him weakened, disoriented, and it was always possible it could fracture his brain, but no way could he leave those kids in harm’s way.
For a split second, he saw Savanah in what people described as the space between the physical plane and the remote view.
When his mind merged with his body, he’d already leapt into the water, swimming methodically toward the kayaks as the wood from the house exploded outward into the water.
Screams ricocheted across the lake as chaos and confusion erupted.
He fought the pounding headache and the burning muscles as he focused on the five girls gripping a broken kayak, floating in the burning debris.
His heart skipped a beat.
Before his view started, he’d seen six girls.
“Brett!” Hazel's voice filled his ears. In seconds, she was at his side, along with the camp director, helping the girls back to shore.
“There was another girl,” he whispered, scanning the debris. Large pieces of wood continued to burn, smoke billowing toward the sky. He swam closer to the shoreline where the house had exploded, looking everywhere until a faint whimper stole his attention. The girl gripped her life preserver. “Stay right where you are, I’m coming to get you.”
The girl nodded.
He swam as fast as his water-logged clothes would let him. The girl couldn’t be older than ten, if that. Her eyes wide with fear and her face blackened with ash and tinges of blood. “What’s your name?” he asked as he got closer.
“Mindy,” she said.
“What hurts?”
“My arm.” She held it up. Burn marks streaked her forearm and her wrist was badly swollen.
He gently looped his arm around her middle, turning her body so her back was against his chest. “Keep your arm resting here.” He laid it gently across her body as he side-stroked toward the camp shore.
Morty and Hazel had the other girls wrapped in towels sitting at a picnic table. Other camp counselors and staff members shuffled children from the area. An announcement that all campers report to their units, surged over loud speakers.
He carefully lifted Mindy into his arms and carried her toward Hazel. A wave of nausea spread across his body. The quick snap between realities caused an imbalance in his body, but he’d experienced worse. Needing to rest, he sat down at the table, wrapping the girl in a blanket, before Morty took the girl.
“You’re not bleeding,” Hazel said, her fingers touching the side of his face.
“And there was no gun fire,” he whispered, curling his fingers around her wrist and brought her palm to his lips. “Savanah wasn’t in the house, but a car drove off just before I got there.”
Hazel nodded. “I saw it.” She sat down next him, her arm draped over his shoulder. “You look like death.”
“Feel like it too.”
Sirens echoed in the background.
“When I get my energy back, I’ll try to view your sister.”
“I need to tell you something.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“I saw you run around the back of the house. I saw the truck drive away and I saw the bomb the precise moment you did.”
“You had a premonition of my view?” Carefully, he checked his pocket for the pendant. He let out a sigh of relief when he felt the circular object.
“I think it occurred simultaneously and that has never happened before.”