Chapter 360 - Hitchhiking Annie

Annie gave a brilliant smile, her eyes curving into crescent moons. “That would be fantastic.”

As they chatted, the car reached the campsite. Luke was pleased to discover that the place had the necessary facilities.

There was a small supermarket, a diner, an inn and a gas station.

The officer who had been waiting for Luke at the hotel gave him the key and let the lady innkeeper know about the room transfer. He then hopped into his car and was about to drive off, itching to get home. It might be fun to live in the wild for a day or two, but if one stayed too long, it was boring as hell.

Amused, Luke stopped the officer and asked him about the campsite that Annie was headed for.

“It’s kind of remote, and no cars go that way.” The officer pointed in one direction and said, “There’s a side road several hundred meters down that way. Take that smaller road, and after driving for about forty minutes, you’ll get there. However, the road conditions are really bad, so drive slowly.”

Luke thanked him with a smile and said to Annie, “Looks like I’ll have to take you there.”

Annie nodded quickly.

If Luke didn’t drive her, she would have to either ask someone from the campsite to pick her up, or walk thirty or so kilometers on a country road with a backpack that weighed dozens of kilograms.

Luke and Annie got back into the car and followed the officer’s directions.

Road conditions were indeed bad. There were a lot of cliffs and woody depressions around them, and if Luke wasn’t careful, the car might not make it.

Thanks to Elementary Driving, it wasn’t too dangerous for Luke, but it still took him twenty minutes to get Annie to the campsite.

At the camp entrance, a man who was bare to the waist was cutting down a tree. Noticing the car, he stopped and looked at the strangers.

He smiled when he saw Annie. “Annie Lester?”

Annie asked, “Stephen Christie?”

The middle-aged bearded man smiled and said, “Yes. You can call me uncle or Stephen.”

Annie said, “Okay, Stephen. Oh, this is Luke. I don’t know how long it would’ve taken me to get here, if it wasn’t for him.”

Stephen patted the dust off his hands and shook Luke’s hand. “Thanks, Luke. I was so busy that I forgot. Do you want anything to drink?”

Since it was only slightly past four, Luke wasn’t in a hurry to go back.

“Thank you, Stephen. The view here is nice,” he said politely as he entered the campsite.

This place was close to a lake, and next to a gentle slope. There was grass, trees, and a sandy shore.

When the weather was good and the lake was clear, it was indeed a perfect place for a holiday.

It was just that the road here was in bad condition, and might take a while to be fixed.

A row of plain-looking log cabins had been set up on level ground not far from the lake, and would become the lodging for visitors.

Stephen soon returned with a shirt on. He said with a smile, “Annie says that she’ll make drinks. What would you like?”

Luke replied, “Coffee is fine.”

Stephen hollered at a cabin on the end, which was the kitchen.

Annie replied from inside.

Luke spent half an hour at the camp. He didn’t talk with Stephen for very long, since he was clearly busy as the camp manager. When Annie delivered the coffee, Stephen simply smiled and told them to have a chat, before he went back to business.

Luke soon left the campsite with an additional number saved into his phone.

Well… It wasn’t on a slip of paper.

When he left the campsite, he noticed its name on the way out.

CAMP CRYS***?

Fine. Stephen hadn’t replaced the old and ragged sign.

Annie had told him earlier that it would be another ten days before the camp was officially up and running. Obviously, a lot of things weren’t finished yet.

Actually, the twenty kids wouldn’t arrive until the summer holiday at the end of May. Stephen had secured this “big” business himself.

It was only the end of March right now, and there were still two more months to go.

Luke shook his head with a smile.

It would be a while before the camp started making money; who knew for how long that chirpy Annie could endure here.

But that wasn’t his concern.

He sped up on his way back, and returned to the campsite just as the middle schoolers were let out for a break.

The kids were all in the ninth grade. Most of them were fifteen or sixteen.

Selina’s “outrageous notion” was really too much.

Practically everybody here were minors; even if Luke was only two years older, it was a discernible gap.

Fortunately, nobody saw Luke as a classmate.

However, a lot of the young girls huddled together to stare at him and whisper to each other.

Luke looked young, but he was clearly far more mature than a regular middle school student; it wasn’t unusual that he would catch the attention of the girls who preferred that sort of thing.

After questioning two of the girls who were sneaking peeks at him, Luke finally found the person in charge of No. 37’s camp activities.

She was a middle-aged woman named Juliet Norton, and she was… pretty fit.

She was 1.75 meters tall and had dark brown hair and a square, plain face.

She was wearing a tight T-shirt, which highlighted her muscles. Luke knew that she must work out a lot.

They exchanged greetings, and Luke showed her his badge and explained that he would be replacing his colleague for the rest of the safety training Juliet was a little surprised. After sizing him up, however, and even feeling his arm up and down, she said with a smile, “This physique… You’ve undergone special training, haven’t you?”

Luke smiled but didn’t say anything; he didn’t want to deal this lady a blow.

Juliet recalled how his ID said that he was a level two detective in the Major Crimes Division, and her faint resentment disappeared.

Generally speaking, those who worked out and kept fit the way Luke did couldn’t touch drugs or anything, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to maintain a proper body fat ratio.

As a level two detective from the Major Crimes Division, he would be under a lot of internal supervision.

That was enough to prove Luke’s integrity and professionalism.

It wasn’t a big deal that Luke was younger. Actually, it was easier for a bigger boy of around the same age to restrain the other teenage boys.

He could intimidate any of the boys here with sheer strength alone.

For youngsters, strength and their fists were the simplest and most straightforward form of authority.