"Piece of cake," I lied.
What the hell. The girls were expert swimmers, and we could make them go in groups together.
We found the boathouse on the map. That was the starting point. The creek ran in a loop around and, often, through camp, beginning and ending at the same place. I suited the girls up with flotation vests and gave them each an inner tube.
"All right," I said once everyone was suited up. "You will float down the lazy river with a buddy, two by two. You never let the other person out of your sight, and when there's a rapids area, hold hands. Got it?"
Kelly offered to go to the halfway point to watch and make sure the girls went by. I stayed at the little beach by the boathouse, and we would coordinate the girls' locations using our cell phones. Kaitlyn and Inez offered to go first. They climbed into their tubes and pushed them off.
The creek had a natural current that slowly carried the girls away. Once they were out of sight, I started to get Betty and Lauren into position. Ava cleared her throat and put her hands on her hips. That's when I remembered we had five girls.
"The three of you are going to have to go together," I said.
"I can wait and go with you," Betty offered.
I shook my head. "I'm not going. I have to stay here to check on you guys."
Betty looked at the creek. It was a hot day and the water was icy. Did she want to miss out on that?
"I'll go with them," Betty said, and soon I pushed all three girls off.
Once they rounded the bend and were out of my line of vision, I sent Kelly a text explaining who was with whom. She sent back the thumbs-up emoji.
I stood there with my legs in the cool water. It was a pretty amazing perk of the camp. I looked up and spotted the high ropes course. It would be fun to take the girls on it, but I had zero experience. Sure, we had the harnesses, and yes, we could probably figure it out. But with everything else we had to do, did we have time?
We still had to do the mud pit, explore the camp, check out the burial mounds, hunt for ghosts, and make s'mores. Back in Behold, we had to continue going through the house, and I had to question more people.
We would have to extend our stay.
I called Rex.
"Hey, babe!" my husband answered on the first ring. "How's it going?"
I loved his voice. It was masculine and warm all at the same time. It was weird for me, who'd been so independent my whole life, to miss having him here. Plus, his insight as a detective would be invaluable.
I gave him a quick rundown on everything, from the gossip about the three boyfriends and the treasure, the dangerous bugs, and Sheriff Carnack's cousin. Rex listened patiently.
"I don't think you should take the girls back to the house," he suggested. "It sounds really dangerous."
I agreed. "I know. But you try to keep these kids away."
He chuckled. "You make a valid point. What are you going to do?"
I decided to ignore his teasing. "I should stick around a couple more days just to make sure I'm certain that she was accidentally murdered by her pet spider."
Rex said nothing for a moment. "Have you thought about digging more into Aunt June's past?"
I told him about the photos with celebrities. "No one seems to know what she did for a living, if anything."
Rex said, "In my experience, there's always something in the victim's past that leads to murder. From what you're saying, I think it's pretty important to find out what Aunt June did with her life."
"Any chance you could check into that for me?" I practically begged. "I don't have a computer here, and I doubt this camp has decent Wi-Fi."
"I could do that," he said. I could tell he was smiling. "Things are slowing down here. Let me see what I can find. Do you have her address?"
"Technically, it's our address now." I gave it to him. "Thank you. I wish you were here."
"Me too."
After a few more words that are none of your business, I hung up.
I heard giggling, and soon Kaitlyn and Inez showed up, splashing each other and laughing hysterically.
It went a long way toward relaxing me. And it gave me perspective. The girls were my priority. While it was true that Aunt June may have been murdered and had left me her things, my first concern was them.
Starting the troop with Kelly, back when these girls were five years old, had given meaning to my life when I'd been forced into very early retirement from a career I thought I'd have for a few more decades.
Over the past few years, I'd kind of grown up with them. They were family now. Aunt June was not. I needed to keep that in mind should things lean toward the idea that she died accidentally. If things got carried away, with no conclusion in sight, I'd have to cut the cord and go home.
"How was it?" I asked as I dragged their inner tubes to shore.
"Awesome!" Inez shouted. "Kaitlyn and I talked about the ghosts!"
I eyed them skeptically. "You saw ghosts?"
"No. Not really. In fact," Inez said, "I don't think there are any here."
"They wouldn't show up in daylight." Kaitlyn rolled her eyes.
"Can we go again?" Inez asked.
"Of course!" I couldn't help getting caught up in their enthusiasm as I sent them off for another round and texted Kelly that they had arrived and gone again.
Ghosts. That was all I needed. The girls said they hadn't seen any…yet. Maybe, like the aliens, this was just one local myth people liked scaring outsiders with. Then again, the only people who'd told us about the ghosts were Hal and Toad. And it
