The Box in the Woods (Truly Devious #4)(45)

had set up all the necessary supplies around them like a fancy store display.

“There was chalkboard paint,” Janelle said, hopping down from the chair. “I got permission to spray the back door and use that as a bulletin board. I’m doing that this afternoon. This morning I was organizing the back office. There was a ton of crap in there.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Stevie said. “You know you have a problem, right?”

“I can quit anytime I want. How was it?”

“Weird,” Stevie said, sitting down in one of the child-size chairs. “But informative. But weird. Allison has a kind of museum of her sister’s things. She kept everything of Sabrina’s. Everything. Brushes. Little slips of paper. But I get now why she wants the diary so much. So I’ve decided to focus on getting the diary for her. I’m not sure it gets the case anywhere, and it’s a long shot. But I guess finding diaries is kind of my thing.”

This was true. At Ellingham, Stevie had located the diary of a student from the 1930s, which was hidden in a space in the wall.

Something that Stevie said made Janelle lift her chin in interest. She turned on her heel and walked into the room in the back. Stevie could hear her shifting boxes along the concrete floor. She emerged a minute later holding one, which she set on one of the tables.

“This one has loads of old paperwork in it,” she said,





removing the lid and pulling out handfuls of loose, dog-eared paper in a variety of colors and conditions. “Just order forms and things like that, but I feel like I saw . . .”

Janelle shuffled through the box until she found what she was looking for and passed it to Stevie. It was an old pink piece of paper.

“It caught my eye because of the name,” she said. “But I put it back because it’s nothing.”

Stevie took the paper and examined it.

EXTRA SUPPLY ORDER FORM





REQUESTSED BY SABRINA ABBOTT


JUNE 20, 1978

Paints: waterculors, acycilcs ($60)



Pencils and brshes: ($50)

Ceramics: ring boxes, earring stands, cats, dogs, cookie jars; trash cann, turtle, teddy bear, roller skate ($ 28)

String: leather, cloth ($18)

TOTAL: $156



“So much crafting, so cheap,” Janelle said wistfully. “I mean, adjusted for inflation it’s more, but I want to imagine it is this cheap for a second.”

Stevie examined the piece of paper in her hand. It was





nothing special—a faded old supply list from a box of useless paperwork.

“How did they do anything with typewriters?” Janelle went on. “When they made a mistake, it was like, I guess that’s just how it’s going to be. Everything must have taken forever. Anyway, do you think Allison would want it?”

“Yeah,” Stevie said. “I do.”

“What about our problem?” Janelle said. “Any brain waves on that?”

“No.” Stevie shook her head. “But whoever it was has been leaving our cabin alone, which is good.”

Leaving our cabin alone . . .

The cabins were empty right now. Everyone was out. Stevie took out her phone and pulled up the digital files that Carson had sent to her.

“Map of the camp in 1978,” she said. “It’s in here somewhere.”

She flicked through the folders and documents before finding what she wanted.

“Carson, you magnificent weirdo,” she said. “You scanned everything. Where’s the camp map, map, map . . .”

They had been given printed copies the day before in their welcome bags. She had folded hers up and shoved it in her bag. She pulled it out and compared the two.

“Sabrina was in the Sparrow bunk,” Stevie said, glancing between the documents. “Sparrow bunk was . . . fourteen. What is it now? Here . . . Pandas.”





If there was ever a good time to have a look in another bunk, this was probably it. She knew where all the counselors were, and there were no kids around yet. Everything was quiet.


“I’ll meet you over at lunch,” she said to Janelle.

The cabins were all identical, and there were over twenty of them, so even with the map things got a little confusing. She soon found herself at the Panda bunkhouse. She bounced up the four concrete steps to the doorway. The heavier door was open, and the screen door was unlocked. She could see there was no one inside and no one around. She entered the cool cabin, which was considerably larger than where Janelle and Stevie were staying. Eight camp beds were all lined up and ready to go, with colorful cubbies and hooks for the campers’ supplies. An overhead fan beat the afternoon heat away without much enthusiasm, but this cabin was under tree cover and cool enough without it. Like Stevie and Janelle’s cabin, the screened windows here were high and covered by the same metal grates, attached from the inside. At the back of the room, there was a plywood wall; there was a doorway in the middle marked by a green privacy curtain. Stevie stepped into this area, which was darker and smaller. The counselor who would be staying here had dropped off a red suitcase and a large gym bag, along with several shopping bags’ worth of supplies. Stevie maneuvered around these, careful not to touch them. She felt the thin partition wall. It was a single layer of wood. She ran her hands along the outer walls, felt around the cubbies. Nothing.