She stepped past us and disappeared into the office, the wooden door slamming behind her.

Hackerman let out a low whistle. “Well. Damn.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I feel terrible for her.” I paused, thinking of Ellington and his offer to buy the place. “Do you think a buyer might keep it the way it is? As a campground?”

“I doubt it,” he said. “This is a pretty big piece of land.”

“What do you mean?”

He rubbed at his chin for a moment. “Lot of development up here. Most of the prime pieces of land have been grabbed up.” He took a long look around. “This would make a pretty nice spread for somebody to throw some overpriced houses up on. I don't think too many people would be interested in taking on an old, high maintenance campground.”

He was right, of course. The land would be far more valuable to someone looking to buy it and then either develop it or resell it. That would be the best way to get their money out of it. I was sure that even though Ellington was local, he was looking at it from a monetary perspective and what he could make off the land. But it made me sad to think that someone might start throwing up McMansions at Windy Vista. It just seemed like...a campground.

“Listen,” Hackerman said.

I looked at him.

“You need to know something,” he told me.

“What's that?”

His cheeks flushed. “I didn't do anything to Harvey. No matter what you think. I considered him a...a friend. Just because we didn't always get along didn't mean we weren't friends.”

I still had my doubts, but I wasn't looking for an argument. “Okay.”

He squinted hard at me. “You don't believe me, do you?”

“Does it matter?”

“Does to me.” He folded his arms across his chest. “I'm not a liar.”

“If you say that's the truth, then I believe you,” I said, unsure of what he wanted from me.

A muscle in his jaw twitched. “You said you heard about that argument I had with Harvey?”

I nodded.

“Okay, well, you're right,” he said slowly. “We did have an argument.”

I wasn't surprised by that. Given the way he'd reacted after the ping pong game, I was pretty sure there had been some sort of argument and that Copper hadn't been making it up.

“But it wasn't what you think,” he said.

“I don't think anything.”

“Of course you do,” he said, shaking his head. “You think we had some sort of fight and then I got mad and did something dumb to Harvey. Look, we don't have to like one another, but I'm no liar and I didn't do a damn thing to Harvey.”

“You keep saying that.”

“I offered him money,” he said. “For the stupid medallion.”

I had to think for a moment, but it still didn't make sense. “The medallion?”

He sighed. “I offered him five hundred bucks if he'd tell me where he hid the medallion. I offered him two hundred bucks first, then five hundred. He wouldn't tell me. I got mad.”

“Why did you want him to tell you?” I asked.

He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Because I didn't want to lose. There are more people up here this year and he was making noise about Delilah making it super hard to find. I got nervous. I wanted to keep my streak alive. So...so I tried to pay him off. I told him I wouldn't tell a soul and no one would think anything of it because I've won so many times before. But he refused.” He chewed on his lip, then took a deep breath. “I got mad. He got mad. We yelled at one another. He walked away. Far as I know, he didn't tell anyone.”

I nodded, listening.

“Then I felt stupid about it,” he said “I tried to apologize but he avoided me. Then he was...well, you found him. But I didn't do a damn thing to him. I wouldn't ever do that. That ain't me.”

I couldn't believe that anyone would be willing to make a bribe to win a scavenger hunt. That was just absurd. But there was something about the way Hackerman said it that made me believe him. He may have been a cheat, but he wasn't a killer.

“Okay,” I said. “I believe you.”

“Well, you should,” he huffed. He slid back into his golf cart. “It's what I told the sheriff and it's the truth.”

He stepped on the gas and his wheels spun, then caught and he sped away, up the hill.

I watched him go. I did believe him. I thought it was crazy that he cared so much about winning the medallion that he was willing to bribe Harvey, but I'd seen a lot of crazy over the previous few days.

Wayne Hackerman just fit in with everyone else at Windy Vista.

TWENTY EIGHT

As I drove the golf cart back to the cabin, I couldn't shake Delilah's words. All of this stuff had happened at Windy Vista and I was having a hard time believing it was a complete coincidence. For a place that supposedly hadn't had much trouble in the past, it was now overflowing with it.

Jake was passed out on the bed in the camper, still in his running clothes. He must have come back while I'd been chasing Chuck and Jaw through the campground and I wondered briefly if he'd seen me, tearing down the road at breakneck speed. I sat down on the bed, my hand outstretched, intending to wake him up and tell him everything he'd missed.

But then I paused, my hand arrested an inch above his shoulder. Maybe I didn't want to tell him everything right away. Maybe I could use the time he was sleeping to do a little more of something he didn't particular like me doing: investigate. I stood up slowly, wincing when the bedsprings squeaked. I tiptoed away from him and closed the door to the room. I fished a pen out of my purse and scrawled a note on a paper napkin.

Running to town. Be back soon.

I purposely didn't tell him what I was going to be doing in town because I was pretty sure he would've told me I was nuts. Which was fine, because I probably was a little nuts. And I was okay with that.

I found the keys to the rental and, after a cursory look at the new tire, climbed in and pointed it toward town. I pulled out of the campground and, after a few minutes, passed the golf course and the lake. I glanced at my phone every few seconds, waiting to see when reception would kick back in. Within a minute of hitting the lake, two bars appeared on my screen and I typed in my destination. The talking voice on my phone directed me past The Landing and beyond the small area that housed Davis Ellington's realty agency, down a two-lane highway that eventually led to a county government building. It was housed in an old fire station, complete with oversized garage doors. Two white pillars had been erected out front, probably in an effort to give it a more stately appearance, but they looked off-center and slightly out of place.

I pulled the rental into the mostly empty lot and parked beside a dusty old station wagon. I made my way toward the front of the building, surveying my surroundings. There was an empty lot to the right that housed the remnants of a building and a parking lot pitted with weeds. To the left was a small deli. It looked well-kept but a Closed sign hung in the window.

I opened the door to the building and stepped inside. A woman with grayish-blond hair and wearing a brown sheriff's uniform looked up from her desk. She offered me a frosty smile.

“Afternoon,” she said, adjusting the thin, gold rimmed glasses perched on her nose. “Help you?”

“I'm not really sure,” I said, looking around the small, wood-paneled office. “Is this the town jail?”

She pushed the glasses up her nose. “Among other things, yes.”

“So if someone was arrested, this is where they'd be brought?”

“Hence, the word jail...”

I tried not to frown at her tone. “Right. Of course. If I wanted to speak to someone who is...in jail...would I be able to do that?”

The woman studied me for a long moment. “Are you an attorney?”

“No.”

“A law enforcement officer?”

“No.”

“Related to anyone we might have incarcerated here?”