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

too. She’s not answering her phone, and she didn’t come back to camp. Right now it’s just Dirk and me here. I need to make sure he’s okay, get him warm and safe, and in the meantime, I’ll keep trying her.”

“Did Dirk say anything else about what happened? Where he was when he saw Martijn? Is he talking about what happened to him?”

“No, he’s very shook up. I’m giving him some food now, and I’ll try to sit down with him when he’s a little more, well, calmer. Something seems to have spooked him badly. He seems like he is kind of in shock, I think. I’m as confused as you are. I don’t understand what’s happening. And we don’t have Margot or Lotte or Karin. And now both of the supervisors are missing as well. So things have gone really wrong somehow, I have to admit. I’m sorry about this, Grace. I’m calling the Scout organization to see if they can send out some help. Maybe you can drive down.”

“I’m already in the Veluwe,” said Grace. “I told you that this woman called me on the phone because she found Karin’s shirt. So I drove down here. We found the place where Karin lost it; we discovered her backpack here too. But she’s not here.”

“Oh?”

“It is a strange place, I think a meth lab. I really don’t know what it is, but it’s creepy. There’s no one here, but there were people here recently. I can’t tell if they took Karin with them or if she got away. I can’t see any signs of any of the others here, but there is a lot of garbage. Maybe they are attacking people in the park. I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. It’s all very upsetting. We were just about to call the police when you called me.”

“Oh Jesus,” said Rutger. “I don’t understand what’s going on. Should we come to you?”

“No, stay where you are, in case anyone shows up there.”

“Okay, but we need to coordinate. Can you try your husband again?”

“I will try again. I have been trying and trying,” said Grace. “Dirk says he was with Margot when he saw him last?”

Rutger sounded like he had pulled his mouth away from the receiver; she could hear him speaking to Dirk in the background. “Yes, he said Margot sprained her ankle and Martijn was going to help her walk to camp. He says he told Dirk to go ahead.”

Grace felt herself recoil inwardly. Oh God. She felt as if invisible hands were creeping up her throat, trying to strangle her. Could Martijn have something to do with this? Or was it something else that had somehow gotten to all of them? Whoever was here at this weird campsite? They had obviously had contact with Karin. But could they have somehow had contact with everyone else too?

“I don’t understand,” said Rutger.

“Neither do I,” said Grace, and she thought at that moment that she might just start to cry. “It’s clear only that something has gone terribly wrong. I’m hanging up to call the police and then I’ll call you back.”

“Yes,” said Rutger. “I agree. I’ll call the Scout program to see if we can get some extra hands out here. I’ll also contact the other parents. You call the police.”

Chapter 27Confessions

Karin’s wrists hurt a lot. They were tied behind her back and to a tree. It was the tree where she and her dad had pitched their tent. Martijn had used some kind of really prickly rope to fasten her hands together, and her arms were pushed up against the hard bark of the tree. She squirmed and wriggled to try to free herself, but it only tore at her skin.

Martijn seemed to have gone actually nuts. He had this headlamp he’d put on, and he was bent over, on his knees, wildly digging in the ground around where she had said her dad had pitched their tent. He kept asking her questions, like she was supposed to know something about something. She told him what she could—where they had put this and that—but she really didn’t know what he wanted. He kept saying that she had to know more, but she didn’t know anything.

“I promise, I swear, I don’t know what you’re looking for,” she said. “Please, Martijn. Can’t you untie me? I won’t go anywhere, I won’t. I will stay with you here until you find what you’re looking for. I promise.”

“There’s no point in going to the campsite anyway,” he said. “No one is there.”

“What do you mean, no one is there? They’re all waiting for us.”

He stopped digging, stood up, and came toward her. She turned her face away, thinking he might smack her. He didn’t. He just stood there looking at her, staring at her, with his headlamp shining into her eyes. That hurt her eyes. It blinded her too.

“I swear,” she said again, this time starting to cry. “I swear I don’t know what this is about.”

“I believe you,” he said. “I believe that you don’t know. Or maybe you think you don’t know. Maybe he told you but you don’t remember. That might be it.”

It was like he thought if he just stared at her, shining that light in her eyes, she would suddenly remember something she had forgotten. But all she could think was that she wished her dad were here right now to save her. “My dad was my dad,” she said. “He just was a dad. He didn’t tell me his secrets, ever. He protected me.”

That seemed simple enough. And anyway it was so long ago that they were here last. Martijn was completely losing his mind.

“Maybe if you tell me what this is all about…” Karin started. She had to think about ways to get him to let her go. If he would talk to her, maybe he would calm down. “He did tell me some things, but maybe not what you think he told