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“This place is amazing,” I said on the wings of an exhale, still taking stock of the luxury camper and all its amenities. One of the walls sported an enormous TV, which was tuned in to the nature channel.

“Oh, this? It’s Chester’s world. I’m just lucky to live in it,” Sharon prattled on.

I reached out to let the cat sniff my hand, and he instantly began to purr. Wow, she even had the luxury cat model. Octo-Cat never treated me with such kindness, not even when he was at his happiest.

“I do mean that literally by the way,” Sharon confided. When she shook her head, her pink cheeks jiggled. “Chester has all kinds of fe-fans on the social media. That’s feline fans for the uninitiated. Now, when I started posting photos of our camping adventures, one of those Hollywood types reached out to us via private message. One thing led to another, and now Chessy and I are going to be on reality TV. Filming starts this summer. They sent us this new house on wheels so we had time to get used to it before the show starts.”

Wow, there was a lot to unpack there.

First off, why hadn’t she led with this information? I’d have found her a lot more interesting if she had. After all, she was the first person I’d met—other than me—whose cat paid all the bills.

“Chester is such a talented kitty boy. Aren’t you?” she continued to coo as she fawned over her feline life partner.

Pringle was going to die when he found out he’d been this close to a future reality TV star without ever actually meeting her. I couldn’t wait to tell him.

“Angie?” Sharon stared at me with wide eyes and a concerned expression. I must have missed something.

“Have the police talked to you yet?” she said for what I guessed wasn’t the first time.

“Yeah,” I admitted, casting my eyes to the floor and discovering a luxe white marble with little glints of silver.

“Such a shame what happened to Junetta.” She clucked her tongue and set the cat back on the sofa. “Why, she’d seemed entirely normal when I stopped off this morning to bring her my fresh-made and famous lingonberry pie.”

My mind zoomed back to the scene I’d discovered earlier that afternoon. The pink-tinged vomit, the half-eaten pie. Mixed berry, I’d thought. But since I had no idea what a lingonberry was supposed to look like, that could very well have been what I’d seen.

Had Sharon just inadvertently confessed to the camp manager’s murder? Yes, she liked to talk, but enough to accidentally slip up in such a major way?

I didn’t know, and I was terrified of finding out.

Yes, suddenly I was very uncomfortable being alone with her in the RV…

Chapter Fifteen

“I have to go,” I blurted out, but Sharon’s wide body filled the passageway that led toward the door.

Her face turned down in a pout.“But you’ve only just gotten here.”

“I have to find my cat. Remember?” I tried to push past her, but either she didn’t get the hint or she didn’t want to let me get away.

“Oh, look at me, so carried away with introductions that I plum forgot.” She pressed her palm into her forehead and sighed. “Before you go, I have something for you.”

The moment she turned to get whatever it was, I raced through the door and back out into the open where presumably no one would try to kill me while I was in plain sight of the others.

“I’m watching you!” the Airstream lady screamed from several lots away and shook her fist in the air.

I glanced at her briefly, then went running back toward Charles’s and my camper.

At this point, I just wanted to go home and forget this whole day had ever happened, but I doubted the police would allow that while Charles and I were still under suspicion in an open investigation.

“There you are,” Charles said from where he’d taken up in one of the chairs outside our RV. “Angie, you’re bright red. What’s the matter?”

“Angie! Why’d you run off like that?” Sharon called, jogging to catch up.

A few other campers watched us and whispered to themselves.

A little girl with curly pigtails turned and hid her face against her father’s leg. He stared daggers at me. This more than the interaction with the police made me feel very exposed and misunderstood.

Charles stood and wrapped an arm around me while Sharon finished her approach.

“Here,” she said between gasps for air. It wasn’t a long walk from her RV to ours, but I wasn’t one to judge. Before Nan had forced me into morning runs with her and Cujo, I, too, would have been out of breath from the short jaunt.

When I tore my eyes away from Sharon, I looked down and saw a short, flat metal can resting on my palm.

“For your cat. I sure hope you find him.” Sharon bent forward and took another deep breath, then left us to return to her own camper.

Charles took the can from me and read the label.“Albacore tuna. Huh.”

“Tuna?” Pringle repeated from somewhere nearby.

“Pringle, where are you?” I whispered, scanning the area.

“Under here,” the raccoon called quietly.

I got down on my hands and knees and peered into the darkness beneath the camper.

Two little hands reached out in supplication.“Tuna me, baby!”