“Sounds like it’s just for a day or two,” Janelle consoled him.
“A lot can happen in a day or two,” Nate replied.
Considering how the morning had gone, Stevie was inclined to agree.
11
STEVIE SPENT THE MORNING NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO THE RULES and safety walk and talk. She did not learn what to do in the case of a fire emergency at the campfire pit area. She did not learn where the lifeguard stations were along the lake. She paid no attention to where the first aid boxes were. As she walked, she mentally turned their cabin every which way, trying to work out how the message could be there and also not be visible. By the time the group headed to the dining pavilion for lunch, Stevie somehow managed to know less than she had when she’d started out that morning.
“You didn’t hear any of that, did you?” Janelle asked her as they headed for lunch.
Stevie shook her head.
“Me either. Have you worked it out? I haven’t.”
She shook her head again.
Carson texted as they entered the dining pavilion, so Stevie peeled off and went to meet him in the parking lot. He was standing by the Tesla, shifting nervously from foot to foot.
“You weren’t the only one who got something,” he said. “Look at this.”
He popped the trunk, which opened slowly. Inside, there was a plain cardboard box, about the size of a shoebox, with the words OPEN ME, CARSON written in black Sharpie. He opened the lid, revealing three dolls—one raven-haired girl, one plasticky boy, and one girl with red hair. They were bound in red string and had red slashes of paint all over them, and they were positioned exactly as Sabrina, Todd, and Diane had been found. They were all dressed in approximations of the clothes they’d been found in. The word SURPRISE was written inside the lid.
“I found this on my morning run,” he said, rubbing his hands together nervously. “It was in the middle of the path. It was on my property, but out of the range of the cameras.”
“Someone’s done their homework,” Stevie said. “I got a message on my wall, like I got at Ellingham. And someone knows where you run and where the cameras are.”
“Yeah. And I’m the Box Box guy who owns the camp where the Box in the Woods murders were, so they sent me a box.”
By the last box, the word had lost all meaning for Stevie.
She reached into her backpack and pulled out a nitrile glove. She had always been in the habit of carrying a few. It was probably a mockable trait until the Ellingham case, when they had come in handy on several occasions. She had actually brought them to camp in case she had to touch something gross. She snapped on a pair and carefully lifted the Sabrina doll out of the box. The shirt had the old Camp Wonder Falls logo painted on, and the hair had even been cut to resemble Sabrina’s shoulder-length style. It wasn’t a close match, but it was a good effort.
“Someone’s trying to stop us from making this show,” Carson said.
“Or someone’s being an asshole,” Stevie replied. “Still.”
“I don’t think we go to the police with this,” he said. “I don’t know if these things are crimes, or if they are, they aren’t serious ones. Criminal mischief or something. Is criminal mischief a thing? It sounds like a thing. Anyway, I don’t think it’s the kind of thing anyone is going to take very seriously. I think I pissed someone off last night. Here.”
He handed Stevie a reusable bag in a very realistic fish-scale pattern. Inside, there were half a dozen doorbell-size cameras.
“Put them somewhere that Nicole can’t see them,” he said. “Otherwise she’ll start asking questions.”
“Can I keep this?” she said, indicating the box of dolls. “I want Janelle to look at it. She’s the craft expert.”
“Sure,” he said. “But be careful about . . . what am I saying? The police aren’t going to dust this for prints.”
“Probably not,” Stevie said. “Unless one of us dies, I guess.”
Carson’s eyes grew wide.
“Kidding,” she said.
He went into the back seat of his car and produced a box full of reusable bags in dozens of different patterns and colors, all bundled into tidy little pockets.
“Take one to carry it,” he said. “Or take as many as you want. I have a lot of bags.”
Back at the dining pavilion, Janelle was being social and chatting with a group of people at one of the tables. Stevie headed for her.
“Taking lunch to go,” she said to Janelle. “Cameras to put up and something to show you.”
Stevie went to the food line and grabbed a hot dog and a soda. Ellingham had an ever-changing menu of organic, often vegan meals, with seltzer water on tap and maple syrup in every possible form. Sunny Pines did not have this kind of elegant variety. The menu appeared to consist of boiled hot dogs, boiled veggie dogs, hamburgers, veggie burgers, chicken nuggets, and a sad and lonely salad bar. As the former caretaker of a salad bar, Stevie felt for it, though it was not as complete as at the grocery store. This was some iceberg and salad mix, shredded carrots, and ranch dressing. There was milk, water, soda, and sugary red bug juice to wash it all down. This was actually fine with Stevie. She would happily eat a hot dog every night for the entire summer, and she would guzzle bug juice and soda until all her teeth fell out of her head. Nate looked over anxiously as she passed by, like a drowning man. He was seated with Dylan, the other counselor, and a group of other new people. Stevie held up a hand of greeting and pointed, indicating that they were going back to their cabin.
“Bag of cameras,” she said, handing it over to Janelle when they got back to their cabin. “How quickly can we get these up?”
Janelle examined the packages.
“Give me twenty minutes,” she said.
“There’s more,” Stevie said, presenting the other bag to Janelle. “Carson found this when he went out for a run this morning.”
“Oh god,” Janelle said. “What? Stevie . . . this is messed up.”
“It’s crafty, though. Anything you notice about them?”
Janelle grimaced but peered inside the box, then removed the Sabrina doll and examined the clothing.
“Well,” she said, pinching the material and looking at the stitching, “looks like a pretty well-made doll outfit.”
She examined each doll in turn, checking cuffs and seams, looking inside and out.
“No labels,” she said. “I think these are custom-made.”
“So someone would have to know how to sew.”
“You can buy them,” Janelle said. “Off Etsy or other places. People sell doll clothes. It would be easy enough to ask for a few outfits. The logo looks like it was painted on the shirt with fabric paint, and not very well. You could probably source all this stuff pretty easily. But why would you do this to us, and also to Carson? Has to be the podcast.”
There was a tinge of anger in her voice now.
“You seem mad,” Stevie said.
“I am mad! We need to find the freak who did this.”
“Cameras,” Stevie said, taking the box of dolls and closing it up. “And you have to hide them as best you can so Nicole doesn’t see them.”