The Box in the Woods (Truly Devious #4)(57)

This was a good plan. It took a long time to go around the lake, but going over the lake was quick and easy, and there were plenty of places to dock the kayak or whatever it was you did with them. Stevie had a vague sense that maybe this was not allowed, but a vague sense is not a clear, definite sense.

A purple twilight fell over the lake as Stevie sat alone, on the far side of the lake house. She could hear kids singing in the distance, and fireflies floated and twinkled all around her. There was a magical quality to the night already, when David came gliding along the dark waters in a yellow plastic kayak, beaching it (maybe that was the verb) next to her on the rocky sand.

“Pretty good entrance,” he said. “Right?”

Stevie could see at once that he had make an extra effort that night. His hair was tousled, but in a very artful way. He wore a fitted black T-shirt that she had never seen before, and she was immediately certain that he’d bought it just because





it fit him in exactly the right ways. He was wearing long swim trunks and flip-flops, but even these seemed to be part of an ensemble. He bent down and whispered low in her ear, “Do you live around here?”

Stevie actually shivered. Her body went loose, like the screws all fell out at once. She grabbed his hand and took him around behind the bunks, weaving out of the way of any lights or people, until they reached her cabin. For one extremely fleeting second, she thought about Sabrina and the others slipping into the woods way back when, the thrill of getting away with something at this dark, warm place alongside the lake. She felt herself understand something about them, and the understanding was deep and profound, and also gone a few seconds later. They had reached the cabin and shut the door. In the next minute, they were on the camp bed. The next thing she knew, there was a firm pounding on the door, and her eyes ached from the light when she opened them. She sprang up, straightening out her clothes. There was nowhere to hide David; the cabin had no closets. So she had no choice but to open the door and take whatever was coming.

Nicole stood on the step, looking grim. She glanced inside and sighed deeply.

“Who are you?” she asked David, who was sitting on the edge of the bed and maybe looking a little too amused.

“I’m . . .” He looked at Stevie, as if she held the secret to his true identity, the one he had never been able to share with the world. “. . . David?”

“David who? How did you get here?”





“Kayak?”


“You need to go, now.”

Nicole waited for him to get up and straighten his shirt.

“I’ll walk you back to your kayak,” she said. “You shouldn’t be out on the lake after dark. Do you have a flashlight?”

“I, um . . .”

“Stevie, give him a flashlight.”

Stevie did so, and David took it with a nervous smile. The two of them were about to leave, when Nicole drew her head back and looked above the door.

“Is that a camera?”

“I’m recording birds,” Stevie said.

She had no idea why she said that. It’s just what came out.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes. We need to talk.”

She was back a short time later, alone. Stevie had tidied the cabin in her absence, as if the situation might improve if her shower caddy was in better order.

“I want to be very clear about something,” Nicole said. “I know you are here as Carson’s guest, but if I catch you bringing people into the camp at any time unauthorized, you will be gone, Carson or no Carson. This is a camp. For children. Which means we have a duty of care. I’m responsible for every single person on these grounds. No strangers around the kids. No people kayaking at night on the lake. That lake can be dangerous. This is the one and only time I am going to say this.”

This was all delivered in such a tone of serious, grinding





finality that Stevie was humiliated to her bone marrow.

“Yep,” she said. “Got it. Yep.”

As Nicole left, Janelle came in. Stevie could tell that Janelle had heard everything that had gone down, and she looked at Stevie wide-eyed as she shut the door.

“Fun night?” she asked.

“Kind of got busted with David.”

“I know,” she said, sounding maybe a little irritated. “I came back before. You didn’t even hear me. I shut the door and backed out. I saw Nicole coming, but she was ahead of me and I couldn’t get to the door in time. I texted you, but . . .”

Stevie looked over and saw that there were seven texts from Janelle waiting to be read. “Sorry.”

“Can you . . . ask next time? Or tell me? Except, I don’t think there will be a next time, because she just handed you your ass. But you know what I mean. If it were me and Vi, I’d tell you.”

“Sorry,” Stevie said again, and she was.

“It’s okay.” Janelle went to her bureau and started going through her various creams and washes to get ready for the night. Her tone indicated that it wasn’t entirely okay yet, but it would be. After a few minutes, she turned to Stevie.

“Vietnam is far,” Janelle said. “We don’t all have people to sneak into our cabins at night.”

Stevie nodded sympathetically.

“Any chance you have two thousand dollars I can borrow for a plane ticket?” Janelle asked.