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Which was total bullshit, but whatever.

Then I found the ad for a camp in Nova Scotia looking for counselors.

A Pride Camp.

Even without an interview secured, I drove there. I showed up with a résumé and, what the director later confided was a desperateappearance. She’d given me the job on the spot. At only twenty-three, I was barely older than most of the campers.

Six years ago.

I shut off the shower, shook off, then stepped onto the bathmat. I grabbed a towel and set about drying myself.

Going down memory lane isn’t helping.

What if Gary did this? What if he heard about me coming back and…?

How would he have heard? What would he get out of this?

Too many questions and too few answers.

Once I was dry, I donned my pajamas and then dried my hair with the blow dryer. Then I brushed my teeth.

Just as I was about to turn off light, I looked into the mirror.

Why me?

I flipped off the light.

Whether I was asking why I enjoyed things that others found perverted or whether I was asking why I was being targeted, I wasn’t certain.

I opened the safe and removed the laptop.

After putting it on the counter, I grabbed a soda from the fridge. I cracked the can and sat at the dining room table with the laptop. Although I didn’t have mad computer skills, I’d studied enough programing in university to be able to start the machine in safe mode and to review the access logs.

Nothing looked amiss. No attempts since I’d last been on.

Just to be safe, I ran the machine through the virus detector. While it worked, I wandered into the kitchen. I wasn’t hungry, but decided I really needed a snack as dinner had been a number of hours ago.

The sound of laughter carried through the open windows as the campers gathered around the firepit.

Might as well eat something sizable. No way will I be able to sleep with that noise.

Or with my mind going a million miles an hour.

I set about making a grilled cheese sandwich.

By the time that task was complete, my mind was a little more settled, and the laptop was ready to go. No malicious software found.

That brought a modicum of relief.

So I settled in to eat my snack and to review the schedule for the rest of camp—even though I’d already done it daily for two months since taking the job.

Anything to forget the treats and toy at the bottom of my messenger bag.

And how I might be on the precipice of losing this amazing life I’d built for myself.

Chapter Ten

Demetrius