The Box in the Woods (Truly Devious #4)(23)

“Just so we’re clear . . . ,” she began. “This is a camp. It’s for kids to have fun over the summer. It’s also part of a community. Sunny Pines is not about what happened in 1978. That’s in the past. Terrible things have happened at a lot of places. You move on. It’s not a murder mystery thing.”

She stared at Stevie for a long moment. Stevie wanted to politely reply that it was kind of a murder mystery thing, what with the murder, and the mystery. But Stevie did not say





this, because she did not want to eat a whistle.

“So when you’re at this camp, you work for the camp,” Nicole said. “That means you do your job and take care of the campers. A few basic rules that you’ll hear again in the main orientation, but hear them now as you’ll be here for a few days. No swimming on this side without a lifeguard present. No night swimming. No jumping off the rocks, ever. No open fires that aren’t a part of authorized camp activities. No smoking or vaping. No alcohol, and no use of marijuana products. Violations of these policies will result in your dismissal, even if you are here with Carson.”

Carson was fingering a set of meditation beads and staring at the ripples on the lake.

After that, there were forms to sign, conduct policies to read. They were all given welcome packs, sets of information, maps, and a list of emergency numbers to put into their phones.

“I’ll give them the tour,” Carson said. “I know you’re busy.”

Nicole gave him a long look and returned to whatever she had been doing. They left their bags at the pavilion and followed Carson out into the grassy fields that surrounded it.

“She’s the head of the good times committee, huh?” Nate asked.

“I liked her,” Janelle said. “She’s a strong woman.”

“I’m afraid of everyone,” Nate reminded her, and Janelle nodded in acknowledgment.

“You have your tree,” she said.





A blissful smile crossed Nate’s face once again.


Camp Sunny Pines was a collection of brown-timbered buildings around a lake, interspersed with large pavilion structures. At the center of it all was Lake Wonder Falls, which seemed like a weird name now that she looked at it. There were no falls in sight, and very little wonder. It seemed like a nice and ordinary lake, the water a brownish color, and still enough to reflect the clouds and sky above. Little docks jutted out all around it, and there was a floating dock in the middle for swimmers and divers.

“The lake is sort of shaped like an hourglass,” Carson said. “This part down here is smaller, flatter, and shallower. Then it gets really skinny—the road goes over that part. The other side is open to the public. It’s higher, with the big rocks, and it’s a lot deeper. It’s really like two separate lakes with a little channel between them. This is the child-friendly side.”

On this side of the camp, the lake was about a hundred feet across, surrounded by a narrow edge of beach, with some swampy, reedy areas (snaketown) cutting into it. There was a swimming pool, tennis court, fields, and a large assembly area with a firepit in the middle. Carson showed them all around, pointing out the racks of canoes, the rows of communal bikes, and a yoga and dance pavilion. They worked their way around to the tidy wooden bunkhouses that butted up against the woods. They were built on raised concrete platforms, probably to protect them if the lake flooded its banks. Stevie noticed that while all the windows had screens in them, they also had metal latticework. She suspected this





was installed in the wake of the murders, to ensure no one could get in from the outside.

“This”—Carson pointed at a cabin with the word PUMAS painted over the door—“is the cabin Brandy Clark was in the morning the bodies were discovered. As you can see, it’s close to the tree line. The first body was found this way.”

He led them down a wide grassy opening in the trees, which narrowed to a path about eight feet wide, surfaced in cedar wood chips.

“Eric Wilde was found right about here,” he said, taking his tablet out of his messenger bag and pulling up the black-and-white photo he had shown them the night before. “You can see that he was lined up more or less with that tree there with the double trunk.”

Stevie took the tablet and compared the spot. Eric had been found facedown, with his head pointed in the direction of the camp.

“It looks like he was heading back,” she said.

“It was a dirt path then, so they had a footprint trail for at least part of it. What seems to have happened is that he was attacked and injured probably at the primary site, and he ran through the woods to escape. He must have largely stayed off the path to keep away from his attacker. He was almost back to the camp when the killer caught up with him. He almost made it.”

The landscape and the path looked very much the same. Standing here, she could see that the path veered around the





performance area, meaning there was no clear line of sight to the camp. Eric had been close, but not close enough.

“Now,” he said, “ready to go to where the main event took place? We’ll need the car for that one.”

Nate mouthed the words main event.

They got back into the car and drove over the short bridge that spanned the narrow of the lake. This route continued back past the camp buildings and into the woods. It was startling how quickly things went from manicured and inhabited to entirely forested and overgrown. The canopy of trees was so dense that the woods were dark in the bold light of day. The road bent gently to the left and merged with the dirt track they had seen earlier. It was a narrow, bumpy trail, more holes than solid ground. The Tesla handled it but was clearly used to more refined surfaces, and the group bounced up and down in their seats like popping corn. After a few minutes, Carson pulled over and stopped the car on the side of the road.