“Sure,” Stevie said. “Definitely.”

“I live on the far side of the lake. You can walk the path around, which takes awhile, or if you take a bike, it’s about fifteen minutes. Here . . .”

She wrote her address on a napkin from one of the dispensers.

“Come at six thirty,” she said. “We’ll have breakfast. I leave for my run at seven thirty. You’re welcome to run with me as well.”

Stevie had not been expecting a six thirty in the morning meeting time, but she nodded confidently as if that was how she always started her mornings. Allison gave Stevie the address and left. Nicole watched this from the other end of the dining pavilion.

“Everything all right?” she asked as Stevie passed. Her tone suggested that there was no way she thought that was the case.

“Fine, actually,” Stevie said, herself surprised.

Nicole seemed a touch disappointed.

When Stevie returned to the art pavilion, she saw that Janelle had made a display of paint jars on the shelves. She had been joined by a sweaty and defeated Nate, grass stains on his shorts, his hair sticking up on top and slicked around his face with perspiration. He was resting on the smooth concrete floor and staring up at the ceiling.

“What was that about?” Janelle said.

“Allison Abbott came to apologize. She wants me to come to her house in the morning to see some things. Are you alive?”

“No,” Nate said. “And I heard your creepy message situation is now a creepy doll situation. Have you worked it out yet?”

“Not yet,” she replied. “I will. It’ll come to me.”

It did not come to her. It didn’t come to her that afternoon, or over hamburgers around the campfire. Instead of socializing, she watched the feed from the cameras and picked at the problem in her head, finally going back to the cabin early. She approached with care, finding that she was unnerved by the shadows. She opened the door quickly, to surprise anyone who may have been inside, but there was no one, as the cameras told her. She sat in the middle of the floor and looked up at the message, three-quarters of the way up the wall, with its neatly wiped paint. She stared at it until her eyes went blurry, then she groaned out a loud sigh and called David.

He picked up immediately.

“I’ve been waiting for you to call,” he said. “Everything okay?”

“Basically,” she replied, rolling onto her stomach. “Still no idea who left the message, but whoever it was also left a box of creepy murder dolls outside of Carson’s house, so I have that going for me.”

David was quiet for a moment.

“You there?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I know this is what happens to you, but I really don’t like this. Are you okay?”

“I’m annoyed,” she said. “I can’t figure out how it was done. It’s not possible.”

“I was going to wait to take my time off,” he said, “but how about I do it now? I’ll ask for the week and then I’ll go there. I could be there in a few days. There’s a public camping side. I’m going to stay over there and camp. Do some swimming. Get in touch with nature.”