“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.
“I’ve got a punch card for a free coffee that’s almost full.”
Janelle let out a long sigh.
“Only a little while until we’re back at school,” Stevie said.
“Now I know how Nate feels,” Janelle replied. “Nothing is longer than a little while.”
The next morning at breakfast, Stevie averted her eyes as they passed Nicole on the way in. Nate was already there when they arrived, avoiding his bunk’s table and skulking in the corner with a tray of pancakes and bacon.
“I thought you’d never get here,” he said, sitting down with them.
“Don’t you have to be over there?” Janelle asked.
Lucas peered up when he saw Nate. Nate slouched over his tray.
“All night,” he said. “All. Night. He talked about my book. Mostly, what he thought was wrong with it. And where is the second one? He knows more about that book than I do. He is a sentient internet comment.”
“He is eight years old,” Janelle pointed out again.
“You don’t understand,” Nate said, shaking his head. “Where is this other counselor? Why isn’t he better? It was supposed to be, like, one day.”
“Nicole said a few days,” Janelle said, belying her understanding of the night before.
“I did not sign up for this.”
Stevie ate bacon and watched her friends squabble. She had missed them so much when they were all apart.
“Your friend is here,” Nate said. “Captain Big Box. Box Bag. Bag Boss.”
Stevie turned to look in the direction Nate was facing. Sure enough, Carson was speed-walking through the patch of grass bordering the dining pavilion, weaving his way through the clumps of children, heading toward their table. He looked like he was on a mission, his brow furrowed.
“Oh god,” Stevie said. “What does he want? Nicole’s going to yell at me again for bringing weirdos to the camp, even if that one does own it.”
Nate looked like he wanted an explanation about that, immediately, but Carson was upon them. He squatted down at the end of their table.
“I need to talk to you,” he said to Stevie in a low, breathless voice.
Stevie looked at her rapidly cooling pancakes. “Could I finish . . .”
He shook his head. “No time.”
“Podcasts sleep for no one,” Nate said.
Stevie sawed into the pancake stack in a desperate attempt to get them into her mouth.
“Listen,” he said, “Allison Abbott is dead.”
19
STEVIE FROZE, A FORKFUL OF COLD PANCAKE INCHES FROM HER mouth.
“What?” she asked.
“Arrowhead Point,” Carson said. “She fell during her morning run.”
Stevie felt everything slowly spin away from her. She’d just seen Allison, just gone on that morning run with her, seen that spot on Arrowhead Point, where all of Lake Wonder Falls spread out below in a glorious display.
“We have to go now,” Carson said.
“To do what?” Nate asked.
Stevie did not need an explanation. She had to go, to try to see, to understand. She set her fork and knife down automatically and grabbed her phone and bag. They were halfway across the dining area when Nicole stopped them.
“What’s up?” she said to Carson. “What are you doing?”
“I need Stevie.”
“She’s got a job here.”
“Not today,” he said.
He and Stevie continued on before Nicole could make any reply and were soon in the Tesla. A minute later, they were tearing (or at least going at a moderate speed in a more or less responsible manner in a nearly silent electric car) out of camp. They drove out of the main entrance and turned toward the public side of the lake. Up ahead, Stevie could see a police car blocking the entrance road by the ranger check-in cabin.
“How did you find out?” she asked numbly.
“I was out doing walking meditation this morning,” he said. “Two police cars and an ambulance went by, going toward the lake. So I ran in that direction. I tried to go in, but one of the cops stopped me on the path. I ran home and got a drone to have a look and a listen. I got some footage, but I couldn’t get that close . . .”
Stevie turned in disgust, but found she had nothing to say. The shock was still too strong and her head was fuzzy.
“They’re closing off the main entrances,” Carson said, continuing past the police cars. “But we can get in through the woods.”
Her phone buzzed. A text from David appeared:
Come over when you can.
David was here for five days. All their time for the summer. What was going to happen now? She couldn’t think about it. Her head was swirling. She texted back.
Is there anything weird going on there this morning?
No, he replied. Why?
That made some sense. The lake was big, and Arrowhead Point was at the far end. David was more near the middle, by Point 23.
Carson slid the Tesla to a stop on the side of the road.
“Here,” he said, handing her a tiny microphone. “Better audio for your phone. You go in through here and see if you can record any witnesses. I’m going to try to sneak in closer near Arrowhead Point and get video footage.”
Stevie didn’t actually care about what Carson was doing. She needed to get into the woods and see and hear for herself what had happened to Allison. She took the microphone and hopped out of the car, sprinting across the quiet country lane. Once she was actually in the woods, her phone lost all sense of where she was located. It put her position as either in the road or in the middle of the lake. So she picked her way through the trees until she could see the glint of the water, and then she found one of the paths that wound around the lake. She walked in the direction of Arrowhead Point, trying to keep out of sight of any police or emergency personnel that might be around. But she saw no one except a woman walking her dog, who seemed to have no idea that anything was going on. Strange how someone could die in these woods and everything would be normal and peaceful. These woods ate people up and were quiet about it.
Stevie felt cold despite the heat. She pressed on, in a haze, finding her way on the slatted-wood bridges over the hollows and the silent wood chips, always keeping the lake on her left-hand side, watching it out of one eye, scanning for activity.
Finally, she heard the sound of people talking up ahead. She left the path and wove through the trees until she could see a small group of older women gathered on a bit of sandy beach, speaking in a huddle. From here, she could see the rise of Arrowhead Point, and maybe some people walking around on top, but not much else. She slipped out of the trees, making a bit of noise so she didn’t just pop out of nowhere and scare these strangers. After fitting the microphone into the jack of her phone and tucking it as far into her pocket as she could, she tried to act like she was out taking a casual walk.