She took a moment as the cat climbed into her lap and immediately coiled up and began purring loudly.

“So that was around seven forty-five in the morning. We had a serious situation on our hands. At that point, of course, we had no idea the extent of it. We knew Eric had been killed, and we had to get all the kids and counselors in order and make sure everyone was safe, and then get them away from the area. Patty Horne came running up and asked about the others—that’s when we found out there were more missing kids. When I heard the names—Todd and Diane, that made sense to me. But the third was Sabrina Abbott, and that didn’t. I suppose Patty would have been with them, but she was in trouble and had to stay in the infirmary. We’d caught her and her boyfriend up to some—romantic business. Kids could have seen them. Magda had terrible insomnia. It came in very handy. Whenever we had a staff member who broke the rules, we would have them sleep on one of the infirmary cots and Magda would keep an eye on them. Because there were two of them, I made Greg spend the nights at home. That punishment also worked well because it put a burden on the other counselors. People were less likely to break the rules if it made things hard for all their friends as well. There was social pressure not to do that. Anyway, once we found out there were three more missing, the police went out in the woods to search. You know the rest about what they found.”

She inhaled through her nose, as if it was all happening again in front of her.

“Obviously, camp didn’t continue that year. We had to make a few hundred calls, get everyone home. I don’t think I slept much that week. As I said, I didn’t have a great deal of faith in our local sheriff. As soon as they saw there was pot there, he assumed that it was a drug-related case. Then the FBI came in some time that week, I think, when the talk of the Woodsman started. I mean, it was complete chaos. Everyone was terrified that the woods were full of murderous drug dealers or serial killers.”

Susan wrinkled her nose in a way that indicated she had not shared those feelings.

“It didn’t end there,” she went on. “Patty’s boyfriend, Greg, the one I said she’d been caught with? You know he died that week as well. All the kids had gathered on the playing field behind the school the night the town had a gathering. I was driving over in that direction. I remember Patty was standing at the end of the school driveway, crying and waving a flashlight around, really upset and beside herself. I was about to pull in and stop to check on her, and there was a kind of lightning flash up ahead as Greg crashed. I didn’t know what it was at the time. That’s how that week was, horror upon horror.”