“Come check this out.”
I put the cap back on the camera lens and went over to him. “What’s up?”
He pointed. “That’s the old petting zoo, isn’t it?”
I looked and my knees buckled, almost sending me to the ground.
Four police cars lined the road beside The Gingerbread Love Shack. Their blue and red lights flashed, giving us a glimpse of the scene below. At least a dozen people—maybe even two dozen—lined the path from the shack’s door to patrol cars and vans parked nearby.
“Looks like there’s some action in Perth after all. Maybe a drug bust. Whatever it is, it’s big.”
I felt my balance falter. I took a knee for fear I would tumble over the edge, and I uttered in disbelief, “Oh, no.”
15
Greta
On the bus ride back to the lodge, I couldn’t keep the anxiety I was feeling from showing. Michael and Andy expressed their concern. “What’s wrong?” “Is everything all right?” Hans, on the other hand, stayed silent. But his eyes wouldn’t leave me. He just stared at me, pursed lips, and accusations stamped on his face.
I had no answer for them. What could I say? That the police have surrounded the shack where my secret lover had been squatting?
Whatever had happened down at the shack, it couldn’t have been good. The prevailing thought that went through my head was—Something’s happened to Jake. Maybe there’s been a murder. Jake has been murdered.
I knew he’d been hiding something from me. I knew he was mixed up in something. It became suddenly and painfully apparent to me that whatever he’d gotten mixed up in, it was a lot more serious than I’d thought.
When we arrived back at the lodge, I was anxious to see Betty. I didn’t expect our interaction to go well, but at least she might have some news. She might know what had happened to Jake.
“Dinner at the lodge?” I said to Hans.
His expression of animosity didn’t change. He simply nodded.
When we sat down at a table, I said to him, “Hans, we can’t go on like this.”
“Go on like what?”
I sighed. “With you being angry at me. I haven’t done anything to deserve the cold shoulder.”
“I don’t know what you’ve done,” he said, more as an accusation than an admission of ignorance.
“Exactly. So why are you being so cold?”
Before he could answer, Betty came to the table. If I thought Hans was giving me passive-aggressive and hostile stares, they were nothing compared to the look Betty was giving me. “You,” she said, through gritted teeth.
“Yes, that’s right. It’s me. And what of it?”
“The kitchen’s closed,” she said flatly.
I got up and stormed across the dining room to the kitchen door. I didn’t enter but, instead, waited for Betty to join me.
I didn’t have to wait long. She’d followed at my heels, and I thought she was going to grab me and throw me into the kitchen with how much anger I saw in her eyes.
“What is going on?” I said to her, trying to keep myself calm and composed though the anger in my voice betrayed me. If she wanted to show me her anger, I was more than capable of matching hers, and then some.
“The kitchen’s closed, I said.”
Hans was watching us. I lowered my voice. “I mean, what is going on with Jake? I know he didn’t go to North Dakota. Why did you lie to me?” Before she could answer, I continued, “Never mind that now. Where is he? I saw police cars by his workshop. What’s happened to him?”
“You did this!” She shouted at me and jabbed a finger in my chest.
Hans shot up from the table and ran over to us.
“This is all your fault! I tried to warn you.”
“Warn me!? You lied to me.”
“I tried to protect him,” she said, spraying me with spit, “but you wouldn’t listen!”
Hans jumped in between us. “Woah, there, ladies.”
My hands were balled into fists, and I was shaking.
“I don’t know what this is about,” said Hans. “But I’m not going to let you talk to my sister like that.”
She turned to him and, with a crazed look in her eyes, said, “You and your sister, coming here like you own the place. Well, I’ve worked too hard to let you come ‘round and ruin everything for me.” With that, she stormed into the kitchen, leaving the door flapping in her wake.
Hans looked at me. “What was that about?”
I put my hands up defensively. “Hans, I know you’re not going to believe me, but I really don’t know what she’s talking about.”
Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw three men, about our age—mid to late twenties—standing at the threshold to the dining room, looking on with concerned expressions.
“You know more than you’re telling me,” said Hans, his voice rising to rival the tone Betty had used on me.