Page 95 of Lady and the Camp
“Do you know who I am?” Kristoff ground out as his face pressed against, well, the ground.
The F.B.I. guy stood, hauling Kristoff up with him. He recited the Miranda rights and got out honest-to-goodness zip ties to secure the billionaire’s hands.
“I’m totally recording this,” Twila announced excitedly. “How’s this for viral!”
Kristoff twisted in Fed Guy’s grip. “What, you’re going to arrest me for walking through camp grounds?”
The sound of his voice triggered a shock wave of emotions. I couldn’t believe Kristoff was here. Standing in front of me. In my camp. In my home state. And he was atotalmess. “What are youdoinghere?” I blurted.
He flashed me a deadly look. “Finishing what others failed to do.”
“You know that’s going to be held against you in the court of law,” Bianca helpfully stated.
“All on tape,” Twila added. “We used to call it tape,” she told Bianca.
Kristoff muttered to himself before focusing on me. “If you’d answered my calls, my texts, none of this would be necessary.”
What texts? “I blocked your number.”
“Like she’d keep your dumb butt in her phone!” Twila continued filming. “That’s like breakup 1o1 for the digital age.Delete the ex from all devices.Huh. I should write a book.”
“Can you shut her up?” Kristoff said in a near growl. His gaze darted in panic, desperate for a way out. “Let me go and my lawyers will handle this. I’m not doing anything illegal.”
Our federal hero, a plain man with pale skin and regular brown hair, gripped Kristoff tighter. “Trespassing, breaking and entering—”
“It’s a cabin,” Kristoff exclaimed. “In the woods!”
Fed Guy wasn’t having it. “It’s a children’s camp, and you are neither a child nor camp staff. You’ve got bigger problems than this. Starting with violating the order to not leave the state of California during the open investigation.” He put space between himself and Kristoff while continuing to hold him. “What’s this white stuff?”
“Flour!” a camper yelled. “From one of our traps!”
A deep sound of dread emitted from Lucas. He loosened his embrace but didn’t let me go. “What are you girls doing here? You’re supposed to be at the other camp.”
Twila scoffed. “And miss this hot action?”
“You.” He pointed at her. “Are complicit. You drove them here in the bus.”
She lifted her chin. “Call it complicit. I call it camp spirit. Am I right, girls?”
Cheers erupted from the campers. Bianca broke from the crowd, bringing two other pink-haireds with her.
She assessed Kristoff, not wavering in confidence. “He set off our flour trap. Pocket Pete hooked us up. We greased the floor with the camp’s butter flavored liquid—gross—and look, he must have tipped over the bucket of burrs we planted by the grease.”
Sure enough, little round plant burrs clustered against his dress shirt and pants. Those were a beast to pick off. His shoes, expensive Italian leather, coated in mud. That mud pit by my cabin’s porch…it hadn’t rained all week. It was almost as if the pit had been artificially created.
By protective campers.
“I told you girls not to involve yourselves.” What if Kristoff had stumbled upon the girls mid-trap planning? What if he kidnapped someone and used them for leverage?
The horror was too much. I was responsible for this.
“The pink hair was a decoy maneuver,” Bianca continued, unfazed. “In case Krom’s bros were looking for your pink hair, they’d get confused becausetwelveof us have pink hair.”
My mouth hung open. I figured they’d wanted to copy my look because it was cute. “And that’s why you said we should do salon night last night. You tricked me into coloring my hair a new shade so you could set up the decoy.”
Bianca shrugged. She looked so proud of herself.
Too many thoughts crowded my mind. I still didn’t know what Kristoff was after.
