I felt like I was caught in the crossfire between two warring sides. Except they looked exactly alike. And were completely insane.
“Yeah, but he didn't want to,” Carrie said. “It was only because you set his pants on fire.”
I looked at Mary. I didn't want to keep engaging her or her psychotic twin but I had to know. “You set his pants on fire?”
Mary shrugged. “It was an accident. We were making s'mores.”
“It wasn't an accident,” Carrie said. She frowned at her sister. “She probably killed him.”
“You threw a hammer at him,” Mary said, her voice high and squeaky. “And hit him in the head.”
Carrie rolled her eyes. “Not hard.”
“She probably killed him,” Mary said.
My impression of Harvey was changing by the moment. If he'd been dumb enough to date both of these girls, then he wasn't nearly as smart as everyone made him out to be.
I stared at Carrie. “Wait. Why would he still be alive if he hadn't broken up with you?”
Carrie's face colored just a bit and she reached for her sunglasses. “Just because,” she said evasively.
Her sister positioned her own glasses over her eyes. “Oh, just spill it. Since you think you know everything about him. Which you don't...”
Carrie leaned close and I shrank away. But she wasn't talking to me any more. She was talking to her sister. “We would've been too busy having sex,” she hissed. “Because Harvey loved having sex with me.”
Mary laughed and shook her head. “He loved it with me more,” she said smugly. “We probably would've been in the camper when the killer was looking to...to kill him. It would've been like I'd saved him.”
Carrie stiffened and I waited for steam to pour out of her ears. “You wish!”
“You wish,” Mary taunted.
I'd finally had enough. I pushed off the wall and swam away from them and toward the stairs.
“Where are you going?” one of them called.
I didn't turn around to see who was talking to me. Not that I would've been able to tell them apart, anyway. “Goodbye, girls,” I said, swimming toward the toddler in the inflatable duck.
“We were still talking,” one of them complained.
But I was done listening, I said silently. I swam further, not responding, weaving in between the elderly ladies still twisting and turning as they did their water aerobics.
I lifted myself out of the pool and made a concerted effort to not look their way. I felt their creepy eyes on me but I ignored them.
I needed to find some sanity.
Quick.
NINETEEN
Jake was still passed out in the lounge chair and I really was getting hot. I'd gotten away from the creepy twins and promptly closed my eyes so they wouldn't be tempted to wander over and resume our conversation. Thankfully, they'd either gotten the hint or simply forgotten about me because I didn't hear a word from them. The afternoon sun was unfettered by clouds and beat down on all of us. I liked the sun as much as anyone, but I could only sit around in it for so long. I slipped on my sandals and wandered into the clubhouse, where I knew I'd find a ceiling fan and some ice cream.
Delilah was behind a wooden counter tucked in the corner of the clubhouse. A small freezer sat behind her and there was a metal cash box in front of her. She smiled at me when I walked in. “Tired of the sun or the people?”
I thought that was a curious question. “Right now, the sun.”
She slid the door back on the small freezer, pulled out a drumstick and handed it to me. “This might help.”
I took it from her. “Jake has some cash. I'll go get—”
She waved a hand in the air. “Nonsense. Your trip is all expenses paid.” She smiled. “Ice cream included.”
I felt horrible taking anything from her, especially knowing her financial circumstances. “I couldn't--”
“I insist,” she said firmly. Before I could object again, she said, “I saw you talking to the twins. Mary and Carrie.”
“Yeah,” I said. I pulled the paper from the ice cream, balled it up and dropped it in the small wastebasket. “That was...interesting.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, I'm sure it was. They're both lunatics. Their family has been coming here since they were little girls and I'm pretty sure they've caused some kind of problem every single summer during that time.”
“Like?” I couldn't help but ask. I was curious.
“You name it, they've done it,” she said. “Stolen golf carts. Jumped the fence to the pool after hours.” She gestured at the freezer. “They've broken into this thing twice to take ice cream.” She shook her head. “And they are never apart.”
I took a bite of the ice cream. “They said they dated Harvey.”
She sighed. “Yes. They did, unfortunately. He should've known better, but, you know. They're both very attractive girls and Harvey was still a young man. Couldn't think with the right part of his body, I'm afraid.”
“Did he date them for a long time?”
“Not really,” Delilah explained, leaning her hip against the freezer. “I think he dated Mary first, then Carrie. Both were over the course of last summer. They'd been after him for a couple of years and he'd managed to stay away from them. But they finally broke him down last summer.”
“And it didn't go well?”
She snorted. “That's putting it mildly. No, it did not go well. Mary got so angry at him one night that she tried to set his pants on fire at the campfire ring.” She shook her head. “He had to hide from her and ended up staying at my place for the night so they couldn't find him.”
I'd half-thought they were kidding about setting his pants on fire, but clearly I'd been wrong.
“So then he moved on to Carrie,” Delilah continued. “They managed to make it about a month of sneaking around behind Mary's back, but then the crazy came out of Carrie and he decided he'd had enough of both of them. He told Carrie they were done and she picked up a hammer and threw it at his head. Fortunately, she's a bad aim The handle nicked his ear. But once again he found himself hiding at my place.”
I polished off the ice cream. “Wow. That's...crazy. At least he managed to be done with them.”
“Well, he was done with them, but they weren't finished with him,” she explained. “They kept harassing him, taking turns asking him out, following him around. He made it clear to them that he wasn't interested. Then they cornered him one afternoon down at the bottom of the trail.” She shook her head. “They wouldn't let him leave and wrestled him to the ground, telling him he had to pick one of them. Some campers came by and called the local police. They were both charged with assault and I let them know that if anything else happened, they would be banned from Windy Vista.” She rolled her eyes. “Harvey refused to press charges but he told them he'd go to the sheriff if they bothered him again. That seemed to finally get through to him. They'd left him alone this summer.”
I licked the ice cream off my fingers. “For sure? They'd left him alone.”
“He hadn't mentioned them,” she said. “So I assumed all was fine and they were keeping their distance.”
Given the way they'd approached me in the pool and their interest in Harvey, I wasn't sure she was right. They didn't seem like they'd forgotten Harvey and they were clearly interested in my interaction with him. I wouldn't say they were obsessed with him, but I thought they still had Harvey on the brain and I wondered if they'd had much interaction with him before he died. Worse, I wondered if they were the reason he'd ended up dead on the trail.
Delilah pulled the cash box up onto the counter and popped open the lid. She laid the cash out on the counter as she counted it, frowning when she was done. Then she let out a massive sigh.
“What's wrong?” I asked, alarmed. “Are you missing some?”
She shook her head. “No, it's all here, unfortunately. But it's far less than what we are used to. And at this point every single penny counts. The problem is that I don't have any more pennies to count.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I don't know what I'm going to do.”