THIRTY SIX
“I'll miss this place,” I said, zipping up my bag.
Jake fixed me with a stare. “Like you'd miss the ebola virus?”
“Stop.”
“I'm just glad it's all over with,” he said, grabbing his own bag and pulling it off the bed.
At least part of it was over with. We'd called the police and they'd come and arrested Ellington. They caught Jaw and Chuck running away, as well, and arrested them, too. We'd given our statements, telling them what Ellington had confessed to us. Delilah showed up right on the heels of Sheriff Larrabee, her pink golf cart skidding to a stop directly behind ours. She'd listened and cried when she heard the story of Harvey's death. After, she tearfully thanked us for stopping them. I wished there was more that we could've done.
We'd come back to the camper, showered, and, after making arrangements with the airlines, made plans to leave the next morning.
So we were packed up and I was doing the final walk-thru of the camper to make sure it was cleaned up. I'd packed up our leftover groceries and walked them over to Wayne and Rhonda Hackerman. Wayne had eyed the bags suspiciously at first, like he'd expected the ketchup and mayo to be laced with rat poison, but Rhonda had happily taken them off my hands. And then asked where Jake was.
A knock on the glass door interrupted me. Jake went to open the slider and I heard Delilah greet him.
I walked out to the front room and she was standing there with a small envelope in her hands.
She smiled at me. “I wanted to make sure I got to say goodbye to you before you left.”
I smiled back. “We're almost done cleaning up.”
She waved a hand in the air. “Don't worry about that. You both have already done enough.”
“You were the one who gave us a free stay,” I reminded her. “The least we can do is clean up after ourselves.”
Delilah smiled. “I came by because I have some good news,” she said. “Which feels like a change.”
“Oh?” That was a change. Almost every interaction I'd had with Delilah over the past week had involved some type of bad news.
“We're going to be able to keep Windy Vista open,” she said. Her eyes were moist. “And it's because of Harvey.”
“Really?” I said. “How?”
“Kat came over this morning,” Delilah said. She leaned against the kitchen counter and folded her arms across her chest. “There was a life insurance policy in Harvey's name—a fairly sizable one, actually. She's giving it all to me.”
“She is?”
A tear escaped and trickled down her cheek. “For Windy Vista. Because that's what he would've wanted.”
“Oh, wow,” I said. “That is incredibly nice. And generous.”
Delilah nodded. “It really is.”
I walked over to her and gave her a hug. “That is great news.”
“There's more,” she told me. “Kat has agreed to come over and help me manage the campground. She already gave her notice at the restaurant. So she'll be helping me keep this place together and hopefully helping me make it better.”
“So you're back on good terms with her?”
She nodded again. “We are. I think we were just a couple of old, stubborn women who didn't want to say we were sorry.” She smiled a sad smile. “But tragedy brought us back together. I'd give anything to have Harvey alive. But I'm grateful that he brought us back together, you know? That there was something good to come out of this huge mess.”
“I'm glad,” I said gently, stepping away from our embrace. “I'm sure Harvey would have wanted you two to patch things up. To be friends again.”
“I also wanted to thank you,” she said.
“Thank me?” She'd already done that after Ellington had been arrested but I'd told her it was unnecessary.
“We might not have ever known what had really happened if you hadn't gone nosing around.”
Jake snorted at her choice of words and I shot him a glare. He smirked and turned back to his bag.
Delilah held out an envelope. “I have a going away present for you.”
“We don't need a going away present,” I told her. “I mean, you gave us a free vacation here to begin with.”
“Well, I'm afraid it hasn't been much of a vacation,” she said, still holding the envelope out. I opened my mouth to protest but she cut me off. “Take this.”
I took the envelope and opened it. A small laminated card was tucked inside. I pulled it out.
Daisy & Jake
Lifetime Pass
Windy Vista
“Given what this week has been like, I'm not sure why you'd ever consider coming back,” Delilah said ruefully. She let out a deep sigh. “But hopefully you'll at least consider it. Maybe you can bring your kids back with you. So if you do, you'll always be able to stay here. For free.”
Jake peered over my shoulder to look at the card. “We can't accept that,” he said. “Really. We don't need—”
Delilah held up her hand. “I don't care what you need. What I need is to give you this as a way of saying thank you for your help this week. You listened when no one else would and you cared enough to help. And I know a free pass to here isn't much, but I'd like you to know that you'll always be welcome here.”
I reached out and hugged her again, harder this time. “Thank you. And we'll come back.”
She patted my back. “I do hope so.” She pulled away and tugged on the hem of her purple polo shirt, straightening it. “Alright. You two finish up packing. You can leave the keys on the counter. Think we've gotten rid of all the riff raff around here so no need to lock up.”
I stared at the card I was holding. “That was incredibly nice,” I said. “Incredibly nice.”
“It was,” Jake said. He lifted the bag and set it down by the sliding door. “But I can't imagine coming back.”
I turned to look at him. “Why not?”
“Why would we?”
“Because it's beautiful up here. Because we like the people. Because it's family friendly.”
“We found a dead body,” he reminded me. “And, with the exception of Delilah, most of the people we've met up here could probably qualify for asylum residency.”
“They're nice,” I said stubbornly. I thought about the Hackermans and the twins and old Copper. “Even if they're a little crazy. Anyway, I think we should come back every summer.”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “You can't be serious.”
“Oh, I am,” I told him, smiling. “Make it a new tradition. Bring the kids. I mean, we have a cabin to stay in for free.”
“Camper,” he corrected.
“Whatever. A camper.” I looked around. “With the loft area upstairs, there's more than enough room to throw down some air mattresses or sleeping bags. We have a golf cart. A pool. Access to a lake. The kids will love it.”
“Uh, until we tell them you found a dead body here and that we were nearly burned to death by a crazy real estate agent.”
I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him. “So let's just tell them about the good parts.”
His arms snaked around my waist. “Which were?”
I thought about our week. We'd definitely had our share of misadventures. Telling the kids about finding a dead body in the woods and almost being burned to death would probably not go over well with them. I imagined their reactions and fought back a smile.
“We'll come up with a few,” I told him. “On the way home.”
THE END
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