“How long?”
“I don’t know. A few days, maybe.”
By Wednesday afternoon, she was driving north on Interstate 5, her car packed with file boxes she had kept since 1983, newspaper clippings, police reports obtained through public-records requests, and maps she had marked and remarked over the years. The fire was 50% contained now, according to the radio. Evacuations had been lifted in some areas.
She reached the small town of Millidge by early evening. The air tasted like smoke and a haze hung over the mountains. Vanessa checked into the same motel she always stayed at when she made those pilgrimages, a roadside place called the Timberline Inn. The owner, an elderly woman named Ruth, recognized her immediately.
“Vanessa. I saw the news about the fire.” Ruth’s expression was sympathetic. “Terrible thing.”
“Yes.” Vanessa signed the register with hands that had started to shake somewhere around mile marker 142. “Has anyone been up to the old camp property since the fire?”
Ruth shook her head.
“Roads are still closed. Forest Service won’t let anyone through until they’re sure it’s safe.”
Vanessa took her room key and carried her overnight bag up the exterior stairs to Room 214, the same room she always requested. Through the window, she could see the mountain ridge where Camp Whispering Pines had once stood.
She did not sleep that night. Instead, she sat at the small desk reviewing files she had memorized years earlier, studying photographs of 7 smiling children who had never come home.
Owen Kellerman, 9 years old. Her brother.
Amy Winters, 8, blonde pigtails, gap-toothed smile.
Jacob Morse, 10, freckles across his nose, baseball cap worn backward.
Lily Torres, 9, dark eyes, serious expression even in the camp photo.
Marcus Webb, 8, the smallest of the group, shy.
Hannah Driscoll, 10, confident, athletic, the kind of girl who climbed trees.
Sophie Blake, 9, red hair, glasses, a book always in her hands.
7 children. 41 years.
Her phone rang at 6:00 in the morning. Unknown number.
“Ms. Kellerman?” A woman’s voice, professional. “This is Detective Rita Hullbrook with the Washington State Police. I understand you’ve been researching the 1983 Camp Whispering Pines disappearances.”
Vanessa’s pulse quickened.
“Yes. For 41 years.”
“The forest fire exposed some structures on the old camp property. I think you should come up here.”
“What kind of structures?”
There was a pause.
“Ma’am, I’d prefer to show you in person. How soon can you get to the access road checkpoint?”
20 minutes later, Vanessa was following a police cruiser up a fire-damaged logging road. The forest was a graveyard of blackened trunks and ash-covered ground. Detective Hullbrook was a tall woman in her 40s with gray-streaked hair pulled into a practical ponytail. She met Vanessa at a newly established perimeter, yellow tape strung between scorched trees.
