Chapter 6: Darek - Pisces

Lizzy had been in a strange mood all morning, and there was no indication that she and Darek had been intimate in any way the night before. He didn’t know if she was trying hard to prove that she wasn’t going to let her feelings get in the way of her job, but she was ready to go to work before he opened his eyes and had even gotten him breakfast for the road and offered to drive.

She sat behind the wheel, taking them to Camp Victory. “I’m going to have to get this car cleaned inside and out when we get back to the city.”

“I’m trying not to make a mess.” Darek shoved the last bite of his breakfast sandwich into his mouth. The thing had been made up of two pancakes, an egg, and the thinnest bacon he’d had in years. “Thanks again for getting it for me.”

“Yeah, well, the hotel had a good spread. It seemed terrible to let it all go to waste, and I thought you’d need your rest for the day. I know this is going to be boring for you, and I didn’t want you falling asleep on me.” She gave him a wink as she slowed the car and took the next road, which led to the camp.

Darek’s stomach tied in knots. “Bored? Why do you think that?”

“I know you didn’t want to come on this trip and that you think this is a waste of time, which you might just be right about if the fire really did destroy the main office.”

He brushed the crumbs off of his pants. “We’re about to see.”

“Yeah, I think this place is close.” She narrowed her eyes at him, but he pointed ahead.

“See, I was right. We’re here.” He had to remember not to seem too familiar with the camp, and he was thankful he was much different now than he’d been as a kid.

She turned and looked at the big sign overhead. “It’s actually a nice place.”

Darek took one look and knew it had been remodeled since he’d last been around. Sure enough, where the log cabin used to be, a large metal and stone building stood in its place. They’d rebuilt it not to burn, and he breathed a sigh of relief as she pulled up and parked in the new rock lot.

“Well, it looks like a new structure,” Lizzy said. “Let’s hope it’s just been remodeled and not replaced.” Lizzy’s mouth was turned down in a frown, and Darek reached over and took her hand.

“Hey, stay positive.” He winked, and she stared right through him. He realized that she was looking over his shoulder.

“Can I help you?” A voice called out from behind him, and he turned to see a man in khaki shorts walking over.

Lizzy opened her door and so did Darek. While she walked around the car to join the men, the old man held out his hand to Darek. “I’m the owner, Greg Williford.”

“I’m Detective Blake. This is Special Agent McNamara with the FBI. We’re here working on an old case.”

Greg’s expression turned serious. “Oh? You mean the Johnson case? That girl who got murdered over a decade ago?”

Lizzy stepped up and offered her hand, which the man promptly shook. “Yes, sir. We have reason to believe the killer was falsely identified and that maybe one of the boys from Camp Victory had something to do with it.”

The news shocked the man, who covered his mouth and rubbed his stubbly chin. “I can’t imagine any of our boys doing that. Most come back year after year.”

“Which is why we’d like to look at the registration lists from back then.” She had a hopeful look in her eyes, and Darek watched her hope fade as Mr. Williford shook his head.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible. We had a fire out here a few years back, and it destroyed all of our old paperwork. All we had was what was left here by the original owners. When we took over just two years before the fire, we started keeping electronic records. Those were recovered by our system, but the paper files hadn’t been transferred.”

Lizzy frowned. “So, you’re telling me that there’s no record of who attended back then. Is there someone we can ask? Someone who would remember names from that year?”

Darek knew that was a stretch and hoped he wasn’t about to take a walk down memory lane that could get him identified. He’d gotten lucky so far.

“Not that I know of. The place had been shut down for a year before we showed up to buy it, so everyone that worked for the other owners had scattered to the winds. We started fresh here, my wife and me.”

“I see. Well, it’s a beautiful place.” Lizzy looked around, and Darek could tell that the grounds were used recently. Banners still hung, and the kids’ art was on display on the front door of the main office.

“Thank you,” Greg said. “The kids just left yesterday, so it’s a bit of a mess, but you’re welcome to take a look around. Some of the cabins were burned that were close to the main office and the mess hall, but many of the structures, the playground, and the activities center are still the same.”

“I know this might sound like a dumb question, but have you ever seen symbols painted anywhere?” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a list of the zodiac symbols.

“Oh no. I heard about that.” Greg shook his head. “My wife was in town, and someone told her all about the zodiac symbols. They said the killer had carved them into that poor girl’s back. I didn’t think it was true. I told her not to listen to gossip. Us being new around here, they were saying lots of things to scare us off.”

“Scare you off?” Darek thought that was a little odd. Who would want to do that?

The older man scratched his head. “Yeah, well, I don’t know who it was, but I kept getting some threats about opening the camp back up. I figured it was some of the locals who’d either attended or who liked the other owners better. I didn’t listen to them. I didn’t even tell the police about it until the fire, but by then, of course, it was too late to find out who did it.”

Lizzy closed the distance between them and placed her hand on the man’s shoulder. “What kind of threats were they? Phone calls?”

“No, they left notes. I didn’t bother to keep them.” He gave them an apologetic look.

Darek was glad the notes no longer existed, but he wished he’d gotten a look at them. Bay was capable of making threats like that, and he was also Darek’s biggest suspect in the burning of the main office. He wondered if Bay would admit it. He sure didn’t seem worried about the two of them going on this little adventure. Maybe that was why?

Darek couldn’t let Lizzy ask all the questions. “Did the notes have those symbols on them?”

The old man met Darek’s eyes and held up his hands. “No, and I’ve never seen them before. I wish I could help.”

Lizzy patted his arm. “You’ve been very helpful. We’ll just go look around if that’s okay.”

“Feel free. It’s a big place. You can take my cart if you like.” Mr. Williford dug into his pocket, but Lizzy backed away.

“No thank you. On a beautiful day like this, we’ll walk.” She turned to Darek, and he wished that she’d have just taken the damned cart. She had no idea how fucking big the place was, and even though it was a nice sunny day, it was also going to be heating up soon, and he didn’t want to work any harder than he had to.

The two walked away from the office and headed out on the path that led toward the activities center, or where Darek remembered it being anyway.

The sun was beating down on his forehead, and he wiped his brow. “We should have taken him up on the ride.”

“And miss out on a walk with you? I don’t think so.” She gave him an elbow, and then her face lit up with a smile that told him she did remember the night before and it hadn’t been a dream. He was beginning to think she’d wanted to forget about it.

Being in the camp was strange, and he tried not to focus too hard on the past for fear that something he’d blocked out might come creeping up on him. He didn’t pay attention to the shower house or look out to the dock where they used to go fishing for hours on end, and he damned sure didn’t want to look toward his old cabin or the cabins where the counselors stayed. He kept his head down and thought about what a beautiful walk down memory lane this could be for a normal person, someone who never met Bay Collins or joined the Zodiacs and felt an emptiness inside him.

They walked to the water and Lizzy paused, looking down to where the old millhouse was. “What’s that?”

He looked up, and before he could stop her, she took off. “Wait,” he called out. “It’s just some old storage or wellhouse probably. You need to watch for snakes.” He took off and caught up to her. “Slow down.”

“It could be a hideout. Some place these little shits go to sneak away from supervision.”

And here he thought they’d been original. There were enough trees and brush to hide the place from the camp, and only someone like Lizzy would even notice it. Then again, she was a detective, and this was her job.

“I just think it’s a waste to run all the way out there.” His heart was beating, the sweat beading on his brow, and when they made it to the patch of trees that separated the old mill site from camp, he froze.

“Think about it, Darek. If you were some twisted little fucker stuck at camp goody-two-shoes all summer, you’d want a secret place, right?” She walked over toward the entrance, and Darek’s vision went blurry.

He felt the ground beneath him as he hit it hard, landing in the tall weeds.

“Darek!” Lizzy’s voice sounded like she was at the other end of a tunnel, and when he opened his eyes, he couldn’t see anything but the earth. She rolled him over and wiped his brow. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I guess I just got too hot or something.” He hadn’t wanted to tell her about his condition and have her think he was batshit crazy, especially since she’d already put in a good word for him at the FBI.

She offered him a hand, and he got to his feet and dusted himself off, but he couldn’t stop itching. There were all kinds of plants in the little patch he’d fallen in, but he didn’t think much of it. As long as he wasn’t on a snake, he was good.

“We should get you back to the hotel.” Lizzy brushed him off, and he stepped away, standing on his own.

“I’m fine.” He didn’t want her to fuss over him.

“Are you sure?” He nodded, and she stepped away to the old structure, which was in much worse shape now than it had been years ago. “Good, I wanted to check out the building.”

“It looks like a perfect place to get a snake bite,” he said. He didn’t want her to find the millstone where Emily had been tied. Surely, the thing was bloodstained, and the symbols had been painted around the edges.

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll just look in the doorway; I won’t go inside. Please don’t faint on me again. I’ve never seen a grown man go down like that.”

He was self-conscious but let the remarks go. He just hoped she didn’t look at him any differently. The last thing he needed was to feel weak.

He walked with her up to the doorway, carefully watching their steps in case she didn’t, and hoping the stone had been covered in grass or dirt that had washed in from a high river.

“Damn, look at that big stone,” she said.

Darek’s adrenaline started pumping as he turned his head to see the millstone, but it was nothing like he expected. The thing was dirty and covered in mud, and he could tell that the paintings were gone. The thing had been flipped over.

“That thing has to weigh a ton,” he said. He couldn’t help but wonder who had managed to turn it over, and once again, Bay popped into his mind. The man had thought of everything.