The Box in the Woods (Truly Devious #4)(7)

I am making a true-crime podcast/documentary about the Box in the Woods murders. I read about what you did at Ellingham Academy. I like to think outside the box (which is ironic, I know, because I run Box Box) . . .

(Stevie frowned at the screen.)

. . . and I thought of you right away. How would you like to come and work here this summer and look into the case with me? You could be a counselor at the camp, but mostly you could do what you need to do to look into the case. I can provide you with travel funds and pay you for your time. You can bring friends, if that sweetens the deal. It’s a camp—there’s plenty of room.





If you’re interested, get back in touch with me. I hope to hear from you.


Carson Buchwald

CEO and founder, Box Box

“It’s what’s inside that counts!”

Well. This was a development.





July 7, 1978

7:30 a.m.



THE MORNING’S PA BLAST RATTLED THROUGH THE TREES, STIRRING the birds.

“Good morning, Camp Wonder Falls! Welcome to another beautiful day!”

Brandy Clark shoved her face into her pillow and pressed it against her ears, trying to block out the announcement, the light, the birds, the sound of ten kids waking and laughing. Too soon. Too much morning.

Just a little more sleep. Please.

Brandy had been up five times during the night with Claire Parsons. Claire was eight and scared of going to the bathroom by herself. The bathroom was outside, about thirty feet away from the cabin, and Claire had to pee more than any child alive. Brandy had tried everything—cutting off Claire’s supply of bug juice after dinner, taking Claire to the bathroom three times before lights out, offering to give Claire something to pee into on the cabin porch so she wouldn’t have to go out to the toilets. If you told Claire to go by herself, she would stand by your cot and poke you with a wet finger





until you took her. (Why was it always wet? From what?)

Usually, Brandy split this duty with her fellow counselor, Diane McClure, but Diane had never come back from her midnight rendezvous with her boyfriend.

“We’re going to have a beer and a smoke,” Diane had said the evening before. “I’ll be back by two. Promise.”

Sure.

“This morning we have pancakes in the dining pavilion, and it’s softball day, so everyone let’s get up and at ’em!”

“Shut up shut up shut up shut up . . . ,” Brandy mumbled into the pillow. “Shut up and die. Shut up and die.”

“What?”

Brandy turned and looked up to see Bridget Lorde, another one of her campers, standing right next to her. The campers slept in the main part of the cabin; the counselors had a little privacy in the form of a plywood half-wall. The campers weren’t supposed to cross this boundary unless they needed something. Most of them followed this rule, but not Bridget. Bridget was a natural narc with a nose for trouble, and she would quite literally get in your face to find out what was going on.

“Where’s Diane?” Bridget asked.

“I don’t know,” Brandy said, rubbing her eyes.

“Did she stay out all night?”

As much as Brandy was annoyed at Diane right now, there was still a code around here: you didn’t rat on the other counselors. If you wanted to go to the woods for private time, or skip out on a bunk inspection, or cut a few corners with





any of the rules, everyone else would look out for you.

“No,” Brandy replied, pushing herself out of her cot. “She probably went to get an early shower.”

“Why?”

“More hot water. I don’t know.”

“I didn’t hear her get up,” Bridget said.

“So? Do you hear everything?”

“Kind of. One time I heard my sister smoking. In the garage. And I was in my room.”

Brandy believed it. Bridget was terrifying.

“Well, you didn’t hear her. Get your stuff. Come on. Shower time.”

Bridget narrowed her eyes. She could smell Brandy’s coverup, but there was nothing she could do about it because she was eight and being eight sucks. You have no power. Someday, Bridget would have her revenge. The world would know her rage.

Brandy abandoned hope of a blissful five or ten extra minutes and shuffled into the main part of the cabin, not bothering to put on her flip-flops. The campers were all crawling out of bed. She made sure they had their bath caddies and towels and that they were all moving in the direction of the bathrooms.

“Where’s Diane?” Bridget asked again, tagging along beside Brandy as they all got in line.

“I told you. She got up early.”

“And went where? She’s not in the showers. I looked for her stuff.”





“Bridget, can you stop?”


She was going to kill Diane and Todd. Those idiots were going to ruin it for everyone.

Little Claire was the first one into the bathroom. She may have been a midnight pee-er, but she was mercifully quick in the shower. (There was no way she washed. She just turned the water on and off. Brandy knew this but did not actually care. Little kids were filthy. You accepted it and you moved on.) She ran out merrily in her little terry-cloth robe. In daylight, Claire was all butterflies and rainbows. She sang to herself and spun and skipped toward the edge of the woods. She reappeared seconds later and hurried back to Brandy.