Special Agent Johnson didn't look very surprised. He looked over at Shane, who was sitting up in bed, fingering a plastic sheriff's badge one of the deputies had given him for his bravery.
"That sound right to you?"
Shane shrugged. "Yeah."
"I see." Special Agent Johnson closed his notebook, then exchanged a significant look with his partner, who was sitting on the end of my bed. "A hero. And just how, precisely, did you happen upon the scene, Mr. Wilkins? It was my impression that you left the camp some hours ago."
"Well," Rob said. "That's true. I did. But I came back."
"Uh-huh," Special Agent Johnson said. "Yes, I can see that. Any particular reason you came back?"
Rob did something very surprising then. He reached out, took hold of my hand, and said, "Well, I couldn't leave things the way they were with my girl, could I? I had to come back and apologize."
His girl? He had called me his girl! He had taken my hand and called me his girl!
I was grinning so happily, I was afraid my lips might break. Special Agent Johnson, noticing this, looked pointedly toward the ceiling, clearly sickened by my adolescent enthusiasm. But how could I help it? Rob had called me his girl! So what if he'd done it to throw off a federal investigation into my affairs that evening? Prom had never seemed so likely a prospect as it did at that moment.
"Um," Special Agent Johnson said. "I see. Please forgive me if I sound unconvinced. The fact is, Special Agent Smith and I feel that it is a bit of a coincidence, Jess, that you went looking for young Master Shane in Wolf Cave. You certainly didn't mention that he might have been in this cave to anyone when you first learned of his disappearance."
"Excuse me, sir." The nurse appeared and stuck a mug of extremely hot, extremely sugary tea in my hands. "For the shock," she said in an explanatory manner to the agents, even though they hadn't asked, before she handed a similar mug to Shane.
I took a sip. It was surprisingly restorative, in spite of the fact that I was trying to look like someone whose only recent shock had been finding her boyfriend's tongue in her mouth.
Yeah, I know. Wishful thinking, right?
"Jess," Special Agent Smith said. "Why don't you tell us what really happened?"
I sat there, enjoying the warm tea flowing down my insides, and the warm arm flung across my outsides. Talk about a happy camper.
"I already told it," I said, "exactly like it was."
At their raised eyebrows, I added, "No, really. That's it."
"Yes," Shane said. "She's telling the truth, sir."
We all looked over at Shane, who, like me, was downing his own mug of tea. He had, through it all, clung to his bag of Chips Ahoy cookies, and now he slipped one from the bag, and dunked it into his tea.
Special Agent Johnson looked back at me.
"Nice try," he said. "But I don't think so."
"I highly doubt, for instance," Special Agent Smith said, "that that little boy was the one who set off a Molotov cocktail beneath our van."
I rolled my eyes. "Well, obviously," I said, "that could only have been Mr. Larsson."
Both Special Agents Johnson and Smith stared down at me.
"No, really," I said. "To distract you. I mean, come on. The guy's a real psycho. I hope they put him away for a long, long time. Going after a little kid like that? Why, it's unconscionable."
"Unconscionable," Special Agent Johnson repeated.
"Sure," I said defensively. "That's a word. I took the PSATs. I should know."
"Funny how," Special Agent Johnson said, "Clay Larsson happened to know exactly which vehicle was ours."
"Yeah," I said, swallowing a sip of tea. "Well, you know. Criminal genius and all."
"And strange," Special Agent Smith said, "that he would pick our vehicle, out of all the other ones parked in that lot, to set on fire, when he doesn't even know us."
"One of the hardest things to accept," Rob remarked, "about violent crime is its seeming randomness."
They both looked at Rob, and I felt a moment of pride that I was, as he'd so matter-of-factly put it, his girl.
Then Dr. Alistair appeared at the end of my cot, wringing his hands.
"Jessica," he said, glancing worriedly from me to Special Agents Johnson and Smith and then back again. "You're all right?"
I looked at him like he was crazy. Which I was pretty sure he was.
"Oh, thank goodness," he cried, even though I hadn't said anything in reply to his question. "Thank goodness. I do hope, Jessica, that you'll forgive me for my outburst earlier this evening—"
I said, "You mean when you asked me why I didn't get my psychic friends to help me find Shane?"
He swallowed, and darted another nervous look at the agents.
"Yes," he said. "About that. I didn't mean—"
"Yes, you did," I said. "You meant every word." I looked hard at Special Agents Johnson and Smith. "How much did you guys pay him, anyway, to report my every move to you?"
Jill and Allan exchanged nervous glances.
"Jessica," Special Agent Smith said. "What are you talking about?"
"It's so obvious," I said, "that he was your narc. I mean, he scheduled that one o'clock appointment with me, and then when I didn't show up, he called you. That's how you knew I'd left the camp. You didn't have to sit outside by the gates and wait to see if I'd leave. You had someone working on the inside to spare you the trouble."
"That," Special Agent Johnson said, "is patently—"
"Oh, come on." I rolled my eyes. "When are you guys going to get it through your heads that you're going to have to find yourselves a new Cassandra? Because the truth is, this one's retired."
"Jessica," Dr. Alistair cried. "I would never in a million years compromise the integrity of this camp by accepting money for—"
"Aw, shut up," Shane snapped. I could see that his campaign to be kicked out of music camp had now entered high gear. I hadn't any doubt that the traumatic event in Wolf Cave was going to—for the time being, anyway—have a detrimental effect on his ability to play the flute.
Dr. Alistair, looking startled, did shut up, to everyone's surprise.
Special Agent Johnson leaned forward and said, in a low, rapid voice, "Jessica, we know perfectly well that Jonathan Herzberg asked you to find his daughter, and that you, in fact, did so. We also know that this evening, you again used your psychic powers to find Shane Taggerty. You can't go on with this ridiculous charade that you've lost your psychic powers any longer. We know it isn't true. We know the truth." He leaned back and regarded me menacingly.
"And it's only a matter of time," Special Agent Smith added, "before you'll be forced to admit it, Jess."
I digested this for a moment. And then I said, "Jill?"
Special Agent Smith looked at me questioningly. "Yes, Jess?"
"Are you a lesbian?"
After that, the nurse made everyone leave, on account of the fact she was worried Shane was going to make himself sick from laughing so hard.
C H A P T E R
18
"Doug," I said, trailing one hand through the cool, silver water.
Ruth, sprawled across an inner tube a few feet from mine, gazed through the dark lenses of her sunglasses into the clear blue sky overhead. "Do-able," she said, after a moment.
"Agreed," I said. "What about Jeff?"
Ruth adjusted a strap on her bikini. After six weeks of salads, she had finally deemed herself svelte enough for a two-piece. "Do-able," she said.
"Agreed." I leaned my head back and felt the sun beat down on my throat. It was beating down on other places, as well. After several weeks of spending my afternoons floating across the mirrored surface of Lake Wawasee, I was the color of Pocahontas. I would look, I knew, exceptionally good at tonight's all-camp concert, at which I was playing the piece Professor Le Blanc had despaired of me ever learning, except by imitation.