Wooden slats are all that’s beneath.
Okay, Rebekah, where are your skeletons?
I drop the mattress and remake the bed. She has two drawers, but she shares the small dresser with Tia, so it’s unlikely she would keep anything in it.
Or it’s the perfect cover. Isn’t there something about hiding in plain sight?
What would she hide in there, though?
A voodoo doll of me and Kayla would be a dead giveaway.
I open the first drawer. There’s a photo of Rebekah with who must be her mom and dad. It’s framed in pink glass, so I don’t know why she wouldn’t display it.
Why hide your parents?
I put the photo back down and root through the rest of her stuff. Deodorant, headbands, toiletries, a charger—Kayla and I keep ours in the wall socket—a notebook, wire-bound with doodles on the front.
Her diary?
I open the notebook, ignoring the pang of guilt in my gut. The first page has her name drawn graffiti-style.
I turn to the second page. There’s a doodle of herself, I assume, and another little girl. Rebekah’s good at drawing, her sketches are so lifelike, every pencil stroke is precise. I wish I could draw like her.
Turning the page again, I almost drop the book. Fire. She has drawn fire. No forest, no campers running away, just fire. Jagged flames take up the whole page. I run my finger over the raised, angry ink.
This is something.
Why would she have drawn this?
I know she’s been burned. I have zero idea of burn victim statistics, but I’m willing to put everything I own on it being higher than one. Rebekah was burned; Lillian was burned. That doesn’t make them the same person. But it does mean they have something in common.
I think about the flames that night—how vicious they were. If Lillian was burned—and I am pretty sure at this point that she was—and Rebekah is Lillian, wouldn’t her burns be worse?
My stomach clenches as the memory flashes through my head over and over, like a horror flick on repeat.
As I start to turn the page, the cabin door creaks. Someone has opened it.
My heart leaps. I drop the notebook back into the drawer and push it shut.
“Rebekah?” Kayla calls from outside.
No!
Rebekah cannot find me in here.
I have no reason to be in here.
Rebekah calls back to Kayla from the doorway of the cabin.
Kayla replies with a question about going for a walk. I don’t hear Rebekah’s reply because the sound of her opening the door has my pulse racing.
I look around. The window in the bedroom is big enough for me to climb out of—it’s a fire escape route—but it’s too far away for me to make it there in time, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to do it quietly anyway.
Her footsteps thud closer.
I freeze.
31
I’m about to be busted.
I scramble, shoving her sketchbook away.
Hide!
Dropping to my stomach, I wriggle sideways under the bunk bed.
Kayla says something, but her hurried voice sounds quiet from where I am. She’s trying to stall Rebekah. I press my lips together as the door to the bedroom opens.
Rebekah steps over the threshold. Her gray and pink tennis shoes tread lightly, but they make a ridiculously loud noise in my ears.
What the hell do I say if she finds me under her bed?
Her feet pass me, and I bite my bottom lip.
What is she doing? Please leave.
Where the hell is Kayla?
Rebekah sits on the bottom bunk and the mattress depresses, almost touching my head.
I lie flat, with my head turned sideways.
Why didn’t Kayla keep her outside? They had looked deep in conversation when I snuck into the cabin.
Does Rebekah suspect us?
No. If she did, she would be looking for me.
I can hear her fingers tapping something. Her phone?
She’s hiding something.
“Hi, Mom.”
She’s calling home.
Listening to Rebekah talk to her mom feels like a step too far.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” she says, though her voice is low and she sounds anything but okay. “Honestly, I am. Things are just kind of full-on, that’s all….No, I don’t want to come home….Some great friends, yeah…”
Will she say something about me and Kayla? If she is Lillian, will she say something that gives her away?
“How’s Dad?…Good. Yeah, I’m using the cream. I never forget.”
Cream for her burns? Does she use it daily?
I close my eyes. We did that to her.
Well, if she’s Lillian.
“I’m remembering to take my meds, yeah….Yes, Mom,” she says in exasperation.
Rebekah hasn’t mentioned anything about medication, but then, no one has. It’s not something she needs to share. Still, I am curious.
Could it be a condition related to the accident?
“I have to go—we’re about to head into the conference room. Okay, speak soon….Love y’all too.”
Conference room?
I hear her tap the screen and then she stands up. I can’t see her, but I think she puts the phone in her pocket, because I don’t hear her put it down.
I watch her tennis shoes walk past me and leave the room. The door bangs shut.
I wait until I hear the cabin door close before I slide from under the bed and stand.
In hindsight, I should have brought my phone with me. That way, I could text Kayla and ask if the coast is clear.
“Esme?”
I startle and grip the doorframe, my fingers digging into the wood.
Kayla opens the door and walks into the room.
“What are you doing?” I hiss.
“Don’t worry. The others are walking around the lake.”
“Why did you let Rebekah come in? I had to hide under the bed!”
Her eyes widen. “Let her? Let?”
“All right, all right, you didn’t let her. What happened?”
“We were talking, and I mentioned that I miss my parents, like you said to, and then she suddenly got up. She told me she was late calling her mom. I tried to stop her, but she was adamant that she needed to speak to her mom that second.”