Paul and his husband were talking with Patty Horne, from the bakery.

“You met Patty before,” he said. “And Allison. Over there, white T-shirt and white baseball hat . . . that’s Shawn Greenvale, Sabrina’s ex-boyfriend. It took a lot to get him to come. He owns a water sports business—kayaks and canoes and things. I sponsored a bunch of free rentals, so he had to show up. That older woman sitting in that group over by the trees? The one with the striped top and the short hair? That’s Susan Marks, the head of the camp in 1978. And that . . .”

He waved to a woman in a gray linen suit, which was out of place with all the shorts and light dresses.

“Hang on,” he said. “I have an important introduction to make.”

He stood and signed to Allison, who was coming out of the library. She approached the table.

“Allison!” Carson said. “It’s going pretty good, huh?”

“It is,” Allison said, looking out at the festivities. “It’s very . . . My sister would have appreciated this. We already have a crowd of kids in the reading room playing games and picking up books.”

The woman in the linen suit had reached the table.

“Oh, this is Sergeant Graves,” Carson said. “You know each other, right?”

Allison shook her head.

“I know you,” the woman said. “Or of you. I’m a cold case detective, and I’ve been assigned . . .”

The unfinished bit of the sentence indicated that she had been assigned to this case: the Box in the Woods.

“Nice to meet you,” Allison said, shaking the woman’s hand formally. “You know, we get someone new every year or two. It never comes to anything.”

“I’m aware of that. It must be very difficult for you. But I want you to feel free to reach out to me anytime at all. Here.” She reached into her bag and produced a business card. “Anytime. I’m happy to talk, to answer any questions I can, whatever you need. Consider me a resource.”

Allison took the card and looked at it for a long moment.

“That’s kind of you to say,” Allison replied. “I don’t hold out a lot of hope, but there is one thing you could do for me.”

“Name it.”

“My sister had a diary,” Allison said. “It was very important to her. She had it with her at the camp, but when they sent her things home from her bunk, it wasn’t there. I know her things from that night are still in evidence. We’ve asked before if her diary was there—maybe it was in her bag. We’ve always been told it wasn’t. But it has to be somewhere. Could you look through the paperwork or boxes again? Maybe it was misplaced?”

“I’ve never seen anything in the files about a diary,” Sergeant Graves replied. “But I’m not about to pretend that things were handled well back then. I’ll go through everything and look for it. I’ll start tomorrow.”

“I would appreciate that,” Allison said. “It’s the one thing of hers I really, truly wish I had.”

“No problem. Good to meet you. Excuse me—I’m going to get something to drink.”

“I always ask about the diary,” Allison said when she was gone. “They always tell me they’ll look to shut me up. I guess they mean well. I don’t know.”

“I think it’s about time to do the honors,” Carson said to Allison, “if you’re ready.”

Allison nodded, and Carson got up and took his position behind the microphone. The DJ faded out the music, and Carson called out to the crowd to come gather around.

“Thank you for coming out tonight!” he said. “I’m Carson Buchwald, founder of Box Box. We’re here to dedicate the Sabrina Abbott Children’s Reading Room. And to do that, let’s have Allison Abbott come up. . . .”

Allison took the microphone and said some remarks about her sister, which got warm applause. Stevie scanned the tent. Most of the people there wouldn’t have been alive during the murders, or if they were, they had probably been children. It seemed a bit gross to use an occasion like this to gather people associated with the case in one place, but the truth was, it was also very effective.

Allison handed the mic back, and Stevie expected Carson to conclude the remarks, but things did not go that way.

“Now,” he said, “I’d like to tell you about something special I’m working on. Let me bring someone up here I want you to meet. Stevie? Can you come up here?”

“What?” Stevie whispered. “What’s he doing?”

“Stevie!” he said again.

Stevie put her taco back on the plate, wiped her hands on her shorts out of nervousness, and joined him.

“This is Stephanie—Stevie—Bell. You may have read about Stevie recently in connection with the events at Ellingham Academy in Vermont.”

The vast silence punctuated only by someone asking for a hot dog indicated that they either did not know or did not care.

“That case was famously cold until Stevie came along and helped to partially solve it . . .”

(Stevie had, in fact, entirely solved it, but that was not public. She ground her jaw.)

“. . . and I knew she was the person I had to partner with on my new venture. Obviously, you have a cold case here in Barlow Corners. Well, I want you to know, we’re here to make sure it doesn’t stay cold. Stevie and I have teamed up . . .”

Stevie saw Nate rub his hand all the way down his face, trying to block out what was happening. She felt her abdominal muscles tense and flex.

“. . . to make an investigative podcast, taking a fresh look at what happened here, and I’d like to get everyone in Barlow Corners involved . . .”

Total, muffled, deadly silence. Even the lightning bugs seemed to sense that this was a bad scene and flew out of the tent.

“. . . and together, we will get to the bottom of what happened at Camp Wonder Falls.”

He paused and looked around in a way that absolutely indicated that he expected some applause to follow.

It did not follow.

“So,” he went on, “we’re going to be here and working. If anyone wants to contact us at any time, you can reach me on Twitter, or Instagram, or you can message me on Signal. Everything you say will be completely confidential. So thanks, and please enjoy the evening!”

Stevie half wondered if he would blow a kiss and drop the mic. Instead, he gestured to the DJ, who deemed “Single Ladies” to be the correct jam for this particular car crash of a moment.

“Okay,” Carson said to Stevie, smiling. “I think that went great!”

Stevie wobbled a moment in bug-eyed horror, then tried to move back to the table, but Allison Abbot stepped forward, accidentally blocking her egress.

“What is this?” she said.

“A podcast,” Carson said eagerly. “Maybe a limited series. I’ve been talking to some producers—”

“This!” Allison said, gesturing around her.

Carson looked around the tent in confusion. “A picnic?”

“Is this some kind of publicity thing?”

“No, it’s to—”

“Buy our participation,” Allison said.

“No. No! See, I want to help. I want to—”