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“I’m on a deadline.”
—Annette Packard
Camp Montague Appalachian Mountains
They waited until late to go out. The campfire had ended more than an hour ago, and they had passed the time playing Texas Hold’em in his cabin until they were sure the camp was sound asleep and the counselors were no longer on their nightly prowl to catch kids out past curfew. After five summers at Montague, he and his friends knew their way around. His first time at camp was the summer after eighth grade, when he was thirteen—the earliest Montague allowed kids to register. Now he had just finished his senior year in high school and would soon be off to college. This was his last summer at Montague. The finality of things allowed him, and the rest of the fifth-years, to take more chances. There could be no real penalty for breaking the rules. The normal course of action each summer was for the counselors to add up each camper’s merits, subtract any strikes, and then adjust their ranking for the following summer. Since neither he nor his friends were coming back to Camp Montague, this was the first summer that earning merits and accumulating strikes was meaningless. All the fifth-years were aware of the loophole, and it explained why each summer this select group of campers ran by their own rules.
He opened his cabin door and took a cautious look around. When he saw that the camp was quiet, he nodded, and the group of four hurried out of the cabin and disappeared into the woods, clicking on flashlights to find the path. After fifteen minutes, the sound of the falls made its way faintly through the trees, and they picked up their pace. When they made it to the clearing, the moonlight reflected off the waterfall and colored the pond a tranquil shade of silver.
“Hey,” came a whisper from the other side of the pond.
He smiled and waved when he saw the girls. He and his friends hustled over. There were eight of them: four guys and four girls. One of them had snuck a case of beer from camp. They preferred fruity seltzers but took whatever they managed to steal from the main lodge. Tonight it was Budweiser, which went down badly. No one complained. They were a bunch of eighteen-year-olds on their last summer excursion to Montague, a place that had defined their adolescent experience. None saw each other outside of camp each summer. They lived in different towns and different states. But this summer they ruled Montague and would wring every ounce of adventure out of their last summer here.
After they’d all had a couple of beers, the guys threw their shirts onto the rocks and dove into the pond. The girls stripped off their cutoff shorts to reveal bathing suits underneath and followed the guys. Together they swam toward the falls and for twenty minutes braved the water that poured down from the mountain. When it was time to head back, they entered the woods and found the trail. When they got back to camp and split off in different directions, they tried to stay in the shadows.
He cut around the east side of camp and was about to step out of the woods when he heard one of the camp counselors’ cabin doors squeak open. He took a quick step behind a tree, made sure he was bathed in darkness, and watched. He saw Mr. Lolland—one of Montague’s lead counselors—walk from his cabin. With him was a girl. Mr. Lolland had his hand on her neck as if he were consoling her.
He slunk through the woods and followed them through camp, using the foliage as cover as he watched Mr. Lolland lead the girl back to her cabin and usher her inside. A moment later, he saw Jerry Lolland head back to his own cabin. A sickening feeling came over him. He knew what had happened. During his first summer at Montague, he, too, had been one of Mr. Lolland’s victims.
The campfire was dying. He stayed hidden in the spot he had staked out after dinner—a small clearing in the woods behind the trunk of a sturdy oak. The location provided a perfect view of Mr. Lolland’s cabin. Off in the distance he saw the campsite begin to thin as his fellow campers concluded the night with the Montague Pledge and headed to their cabins. It was forty minutes later, after cabin lights blinked off, that he saw Mr. Lolland’s door open.
He pressed himself against the trunk of the oak and waited until Mr. Lolland was a good way into camp before he crept from the shadow of the oak and started his silent march through the forest as he followed. He watched through the foliage as Mr. Lolland passed through the area of camp reserved for second-year campers. Stepping through a stream, he crept closer to the edge of the forest to get a better view as Mr. Lolland entered the area where first-year recruits were housed and approached a cabin.
A minute later, Mr. Lolland emerged from the cabin with a girl by his side. He retraced his steps as he followed them through camp, eventually returning to the small clearing behind the sturdy oak. It was there that his life changed. It was there that he watched Jerry Lolland lead the girl into his cabin. It was there that he hesitated. He should have done so many things. He should have run from the woods and stopped Mr. Lolland from taking the girl into his cabin. He should have run to the main lodge and found the other counselors and told them what was happening. But to do that would mean to admit that the same thing had happened to him, and the shame he harbored from his time in Jerry Lolland’s cabin was greater than the guilt he felt for allowing it to happen to someone else.
He didn’t stop Mr. Lolland that night. But as he stood in the dark shadows of the forest, he came up with a plan to make sure Jerry Lolland never hurt anyone again.
CHAPTER 33
Washington, D.C. Saturday, April 22, 2023 11:45 p.m.
BYRON ZELL SAT AT HIS DESK AND TAPPED AWAY AT HIS NEW COMPUTER—A small MacBook he had purchased to replace his desktop after authorities confiscated it. In just a few short weeks his life had gone to hell. In addition to the financial crimes his company had accused him of, he now had the bigger issue of several felony counts of possession of child pornography to deal with. Garrett Lancaster had cut all ties with him, and although Byron couldn’t yet prove it, he was certain someone had either been in his apartment or, more likely, hacked into his computer. It was the only explanation for how his private financial documents, in which he kept his stash of pornography from the dark web, had been sent to Lancaster & Jordan.
He’d reached out to three different criminal defense firms until he finally found a taker. But the firm was a far cry from the powerhouse that was Lancaster & Jordan. Still, his best approach was to attack the method by which the authorities had obtained his personal information, which was through a fraudulent e-mail sent to Garrett Lancaster. Byron possessed a receipt from the convenience store where he had purchased two Red Bulls and a bag of chips. On the receipt was the date and time of the purchase, which coincided with the time the e-mail was sent. Byron’s new attorney was in the process of pulling surveillance footage from the convenience store to prove Byron’s whereabouts. If Byron could prove that he was away from his apartment and his computer at the time the e-mail was sent, then the evidence—two gigs’ worth of child pornography from the dark web—would not be admissible and the charges against him would be dropped.
It should be enough, but even then there would be fallout. He’d likely still have to register as a sex offender and would never hold a meaningful job again. And once this latest disaster was behind him, Byron would begin anew his fight against embezzlement charges. It was, he dwelled as he pecked away at his new laptop, a shit life he was leading.
He tried not to dwell on what would happen if his attorney could not get the child pornography charges dismissed. If convicted of the financial crimes he was accused of, they would send him to a country club prison for a few months. He had friends who’d done time in such establishments and made it through unscathed. But his infatuation with children was another story. That carried a harsher penalty, and going to a real prison would be a death sentence, especially if the caged animals learned why he was there.
Still, with all the dread and worry on his mind, he felt a familiar urge bubble up inside of him as he sat in front of his computer. It was an urge he had never been able to quell. A few minutes on the dark web wouldn’t hurt anyone. This time, he would resist the temptation to download the images that particularly aroused him. He tapped the keyboard and turned on the private browsing feature so that his search history would not be logged. Then, he went through a series of webpages and logins. This seldom-explored corner of the Internet was a familiar place, somewhere he visited to break free from social norms that constrained his life and his urges. He planned to spend just a few minutes there that night. Half hour, at most. In this shadowed corner of the Internet there was no judgment or shame. He was allowed to like what he liked. And no matter what that might be, it could be found there at the darkened edge of humanity. For Byron Zell, his vice was children.
He spent a little longer than intended browsing the sites. He convinced himself that if he somehow managed to escape the shit-storm he was in, tonight would be his last time on the dark web. That final perusing of underage children would be a way to get it out of his system, once and for all. Some part of his psyche believed it. Deeper down, though, he knew it was a lie. He suffered an addiction that could never be cured.
After an hour, he closed his computer, turned off the desk lamp, and left his office. The lights of the city were visible through the living room windows of the high-rise apartment. The night was clear, and the moon a waxing crescent that lighted the hardwood floor just enough for Byron to navigate to the kitchen, where he opened the refrigerator and reached for the milk carton.
The glow from the open refrigerator cast his shadow across the kitchen island. Out of the corner of his eye he caught the image of another shadow that did not belong to him. Byron turned and the carton of milk fell from his hand when he saw the figure in black standing on the other side of the kitchen, the barrel of a gun reflecting the light from the refrigerator.
Instinctively, he raised his hands. “I have money.”
The figure in black held up photos of child pornography. Byron tried to protest, to deny it, but the words caught in his throat and he was unable to breathe. Two suppressed hisses came from the gun in rapid succession. The noise registered, but that was all. He waited for the pain but it did not come. He was aware of his surroundings one moment, and dead the next.
Byron Zell fell in a heap to the kitchen floor. He did not fall forward and was not propelled backward by the bullets that entered his body—one to the face, the other to the chest; he simply collapsed. His knees buckled and his legs folded underneath him like a blowup toy that had been deflated.
The shooter walked over to the heap, threw the photos of child pornography onto his dead body, and then hurried out of the apartment.
CHAPTER 34
Manhattan, NY Tuesday, April 25, 2023 8:02 a.m.
