The Box in the Woods (Truly Devious #4)(62)

Susan Marks lived in the center of town, on one of the side streets off the main road. They parked by the library and the green. Barlow Corners was quiet but not completely still. There were a few people going in and out of the shops. There were people in the Sunshine Bakery with coffee. Stevie





followed the map on her phone, which guided them through the painfully quaint lanes that trailed back behind the main drag. The roads here were one lane only, with tidy little Victorian houses groaning under the weight of flower baskets, decorative flags, and wicker porch furniture. Susan’s was the last one on this particular lane. She had fewer flags, but many more flowers and shrubs.

A woman with sharply cut gray hair was on her knees in a flower bed in front of the house. As Stevie and David turned down her path, she rose and dusted off her knees. Susan Marks was in her midseventies, and despite a little stiffness as she stood, she had the look of someone who did an hour of yoga a day to warm up for the second hour of yoga she did each day.

“Stevie,” she said. She had the firm, commanding tone of someone who was used to doing roll call. “And you are?”

“Her assistant,” David said. “The one that asks the stupid questions.”

“Watson, huh?”

“That’s me,” David replied, smiling.

“It’s going to be a hot one today, so I wanted to finish up some of this weeding early. Come on in.”

She marched inside, and Stevie and David followed. The inside of the house was almost as plant heavy as the outside, with ferns and greenery of all sorts in dozens of pots. Two orange cats sat on a perch in a sunny window, lazily entwined around each other. There was a framed collage of photos of





Susan and another woman. Stevie paused a moment to look at them.

“My wife,” Susan said, noting where Stevie was looking. “Magda. She passed away eight years ago.”

“Oh, I’m . . .”

“It’s all right,” Susan said. “I didn’t say it to make you feel bad. She was the nurse at the camp. That’s where we met. There are good memories of the camp too. She was also an artist. All of these are hers.”

Susan indicated the shelves and surfaces full of pottery. Stevie didn’t know much about whether pottery was good or bad, but these seemed nice enough to her, and the colors were vibrant.

They were led to the kitchen, which was decorated in a surprising pink color. Pink everything—walls, mixer, towels, floor mats.

“Magda liked a pink kitchen,” Susan explained. “Sit down.”

They did as they were told, and Susan put mugs of coffee in front of them.

“I’m sorry about Allison,” Stevie said.

“So am I,” Susan replied. “It’s a damn shame. Horrific. So many terrible things have happened here. She had been through so much and did so well. I used to stop at the same spot on my morning runs. A lot of people do. It’s got the best view. It’s a bad place to fall from. . . .”

“She seemed really careful to me,” Stevie said.





“Yes . . .” Susan’s gaze drifted a bit. “She was. Very careful. Not like her to make a mistake like that. People do, of course. Her head must have been somewhere else.”


Susan sighed deeply and seemed to collect herself somewhere in the bottom of her coffee cup.

“So,” she said, “why is it you—or that person at the event the other night—think you can solve this case when no one else has?”

“I don’t know if I can,” Stevie said. “It’s more that we’re trying to tell the story. . . .”

“People know the story,” Susan replied. “People have been coming here for years, making their shows, writing their books, making money off a tragedy. How are you different?”

“She’s pretty good,” David said, nodding at Stevie. “Never count her out. She succeeds where others fail. And she’s not about money.”

Stevie felt herself flush. This conversation had gotten off to a very weird start and was perhaps slipping out of her control. Susan regarded David with interest.

“And does she pay you to say that?” she joked dryly.

“Me? Oh yeah. I’m really cheap.”

Susan smirked and nodded. “I looked you up,” she said to Stevie. “And I know you were okay with Allison, so I suppose there’s no harm in going over things again. Where do you want me to start?”

Susan Marks was all business, so Stevie would be the same. She confirmed that it was all right to record, which got a terse nod but a slightly disapproving look.





“I guess . . .” She reminded herself to stop saying things like that. She had to sound more like she knew what she was doing. “How did you end up at Camp Wonder Falls?”


“Back in the seventies, I was the head of health and physical education at Liberty High,” Susan said. “I taught during the school year, and then there was an opening to run the camp in the summer and I took it. It suited me—I like to keep busy, and the camp had so many sports and activities to manage. That summer was my fifth one in the job.”

“So you knew all the . . . everyone involved . . . well?”

“Oh, I knew them all,” Susan replied. “Todd, Diane, Eric, Sabrina . . . they were all my students, all grew up in town. This town is a bit like a family, but even families . . .”