You'll Thank Me for This by Nina Siegal (top novels txt) 📗

jabbed at the phone too quickly. She hung up and tried again.

Once she had gotten the number right, he picked up immediately. “Hello, you’re speaking with Rutger,” he said, rather formally, in Dutch.

“Rutger,” she said. “Thank God you answered. It’s Grace, Karin’s mom. I just had the strangest call. Please tell me that Karin is there with all of you, safe and sound.”

“Oh, Grace,” he started. “Is there something the matter?”

“Is Karin there? Did she make it to the camp yet?”

There was an excruciatingly long pause, during which Grace wished she could put her hand through the phone and grab Rutger and shake him.

“She hasn’t gotten here yet, no not yet,” he said grimly. “The kids haven’t made it to the site yet. They are still finding their way.”

“Is that…?” Grace just wanted to come out and ask for reassurances. “Is that normal? That must be normal, right?”

Rutger paused again. “It really depends on the group. Sometimes it can take longer and sometimes it is shorter.” There was a dry and officious way he was answering all the questions that Grace found irksome, but this was what people liked to refer to as “typical Dutch.” Noncommittal and middle of the road. In her mind, a useless answer.

“Could I—” Grace started. “Would you mind putting my husband on the phone? I tried his cell, but he didn’t pick up. I’m sure he must be tending to the fire or something, and I don’t want to interrupt your activities, but it’s important. Something has come up.”

Grace couldn’t tell if Rutger’s next long pause was the result of a poor connection, a problem with finding the right officious answer, or some actual dementia on his part, but she was about to scream when he finally said, “Oh, Martijn isn’t here at the campsite. He went as the backup leader. Meaning, he went behind the kids. Riekje and I came ahead to set up the camp, and Riekje just left to track back and be the front guide. I’m staying at the campsite to welcome them when they arrive, preparing the sausages and hot chocolate.”

This new information did not correlate with what she thought she already knew about Martijn’s whereabouts. She’d heard him setting up the camp with the others, hadn’t she? “But I spoke to him earlier tonight, and he said he was setting up the campsite, hauling logs, with you.”

Rutger laughed, a sign of human life. “Ha ha, no, we aren’t doing any hauling of logs over here. They send us out with precut timber. The park has rules about using local wood. Not allowed. Makes it easier, and more environmentally sustainable. When they came in, Martijn chose to follow the group, and Riekje and I came here.” His tone in the last part suggested that he might be irritated at having to repeat himself because she somehow failed to grasp the protocol.

Grace wasn’t going to start to question what a “backup leader” was supposed to do. But she gathered that Martijn was following the group, probably not far behind, to make sure they were safely making their way. That was what she had been told when they signed up for the dropping—that the kids would certainly feel like they were on their own in the woods, but in fact there would be plenty of adult supervision. The adults would be just a little bit ahead and a little bit behind, and if the kids got lost, there was a pretty vast safety net. The important thing was that they had the sense they had to make their own way out there. But they didn’t, really.

Now she was miffed. Why was it that at every turn she had the feeling she couldn’t trust her eyes and ears, or what Martijn was telling her? A piece of information she’d received conflicted directly with her own impression of things. Was this something Martijn was doing? There was a word for this, if this was what this was: “gaslighting.” A term she’d always liked, because it came from that wonderful black-and-white movie with a young, stunning Ingrid Bergman. She is married to a man who is trying to steal her inheritance; he seems to have his wife’s best interests at heart, but in the night he’s trying to rob her, up in the attic. When he goes up there to search for jewels, she notices the lights dim, because the gas powering the lights in the house is being diverted to light that extra room. But he tells her that can’t be happening—something that doesn’t jibe with what can be directly observed. She begins to not trust herself, thinking she’s going mad.

Could Martijn be doing something like this to her? Or was she, perhaps, actually just going mad, like he sometimes accused?

Grace waited to try to collect her thoughts. Certain things were clearly true. “Some lady just called me and said that she found Karin’s T-shirt in the forest,” said Grace. “And she told me the T-shirt may have blood on it.”

“What?” This time Rutger’s response was at lightning speed. “Wait, what?”

She repeated herself. “Karin’s T-shirt was found by someone, some stranger in the Veluwe. She said it was bloody. I don’t know why that would be. Do you have any idea why that would be?”

There was silence on the other end of the phone, but Grace understood that this time it was a stunned silence. “I…I don’t know what that means,” he said when he finally spoke. “I do not understand that. She was with the group when we last saw her. I have no reason to believe that anything has gone wrong, or that anyone lost anything. They haven’t arrived at the campsite yet, but that seems normal. We were here, setting up, waiting for them. Your husband followed them, and Riekje is on her way to guide them here. Nobody’s hurt, as far as I know. I’ll call around. But I’d recommend you contact your husband. He’s the one who’s currently most