The Box in the Woods (Truly Devious #4)(91)
that while working the crafts with the counselors, Sabrina ordered a ceramic cookie jar in the shape of a turtle to paint. She made it to hide her diary. She also made the lid nice and tight so that the campers wouldn’t be able to get into it. Allison realized that the ceramic turtle she had in her house was a jar, not a figurine. She must have been so excited. She went home and tried to pry it open, but the lid was stuck. She had to figure out how to get it open without damaging it. Allison would never have damaged something of Sabrina’s. Did she call you, her friend, to tell you she thought she might know where the diary was? Your whole life—everything you’d built, everything you were—would be over. You’d be the daughter of a notorious murderer, not the daughter of a war hero. And maybe people would start to look into what happened with Greg a little more carefully. No. None of that could happen. You’d already let five of your friends die. Now one more had to go to keep your secret.”
Susan Marks turned and fixed Patty with a devastating gaze.
“What was the one thing you could count on with Allison? Her schedule. She ran every morning and she stopped on Arrowhead Point. That was perfect. Easiest thing in the world to fall off a place like that, and that there would likely be people nearby who would see the entire thing go down and be able to swear—absolutely swear—that no one else was up there. Honestly? I’m kind of worried that I gave you the idea. When we came into your shop on the first morning we were here and we were looking at your cakes, Janelle asked how
you decorated them. You said that your trick was working from the outside in. I said, ‘Like a crime scene.’ No one ever listens to me when I say stuff like that, but I think you did. If Allison fell, the area would be roped off and investigated from the outside in. That means time. Time for something to vanish. And what vanishes on a hot rock in the sun?”
There was a pause as the assembled worked out whether or not this was a rhetorical question. Finally someone broke the silence with a tentative “Ice?”
“Ice,” Stevie said, forcing her inner confidence out into her voice. “There was no time for anything elaborate—no molds or anything like that. What you could do was make some sheets of ice. Put them on the point so that when Allison stepped on them, she slid right off. The evidence either melted away as the sun came up or some of it fell off with her. When the police examined the rock, there was nothing there. You had everything you needed—large sheet pans, a professional-sized freezer, large capacity containers like the kind used to transport elaborate food items—and one more thing, the only thing that left a trace.”
Stevie dug into her bag one more time and pulled out the remains of the Camp Sunny Pines shirt.
“I went up to Arrowhead Point when it reopened,” she said. “I poured out some water from my bottle to see how steep the surface was, then I got on the ground. I didn’t know it then, but I rehydrated something that was dried on the rock, and it won’t come off. That’s because it’s dye—food dye. You made some large, flat pieces of ice, tinted with dye to
darken them. No one would notice it, and in time, it would all wash away with the rain. It was good I was there when I was, before the storm. Because this”—she held the shirt higher for emphasis—“this can be examined. It can be identified, right down to brand and type.”
Patty opened her mouth and closed it several times, like a fish gasping on the shore.
“This is absurd. . . .”
“Here’s the thing,” Stevie said. “Sabrina is a witness now. She’s speaking from the dead. And everyone here”—she motioned, indicating everyone in the room—“they heard it. And everyone who hears this podcast—”
“Oh, it’s a television show now,” Carson cut in. “For sure.”
“. . . or watches this show . . . they’re going to study you as you are right now, in this moment. This is your chance to tell your side. Because if you don’t, other people will tell it for you. Everyone will judge you. You won’t be able to escape it. You have a chance, right now, to say whatever you want to say. . . .”
“A piece of advice,” David said, folding his arms casually across his chest. “I’d tell her what she wants to know. The last person in your position tried to deny it too, and it didn’t work out well for them.”
“My father was a good man,” Patty said. “He did everything for me. He lived for me.”
There was a tremor in her voice, one that reflected the seismic activity that must have been going on inside of her—the rush and tumble of decades of psychological weight
coming down—all the blocks and boulders she’d stacked to keep the truth as separate as possible.
“Your dad was a Nazi,” David corrected her. “And he murdered five of your friends.”
Patty stiffened and fell silent.
“Something you’re probably asking yourself right now,” Stevie went on. “How do I have this diary? You chased us. You saw us jump into the lake. You heard me scream that it was gone. I bet you checked. Were you there all night? I bet you checked the path, to make sure I hadn’t dropped it by accident. I bet you looked everywhere, to be really, really sure. Did you come back at dawn to check the lake to see if it was floating on the surface? Did you get in the water to look for it?”