“I’ll take that as a sign,” Nate said, standing and stretching. “I’m going to go write.”
The other three turned to look at him.
“What?” he said.
“You know what,” Stevie replied.
“I had some ideas, that’s all. Since that kid has been following me around, telling me I don’t know my own book. Anyway. Do your thing.”
He walked off back toward the camp.
“That kid was right,” Stevie said. “The kid told me he was going to make Nate get back to work on the book, and he did it. He . . . annoyed him into it.”
“And I . . .” Janelle also stood. “。 . . am going to go talk to Vi. I’ll see you back at the cabin.”
This left David and Stevie.
“So,” David said after a long moment.
“So,” she replied, looking down at her legs.
It was time to talk, which she was bad at. This kind of talking, anyway. The feeling, apologizing, heartfelt kind of talking. Breaking-down-murder talking was one thing—this kind was actually scary.
“I’m sorry,” she said. She spat it out—flung the sentence away from her.
“I knew what I signed up for with you. We aren’t like the other children.”
Stevie scratched at the exposed skin at the top of the cast, near her elbow.
“Yeah, well . . .” Words had not failed her when she was talking about crime. Crime was easy—this was the hard stuff.
“What are you going to do? About this England thing.”
“Well, you’ll be at Ellingham,” he said. “Busy. Too busy for me.”
“Stop it.”
“No,” he said. “I mean it. You just got famous again. You solved the Box in the Woods murders.”
“Yeah, but . . .”
“I’m just saying. You’ll be at school anyway. And I’m not going to lie, the idea of someone my dad can’t stand sending me to college is pretty tempting. It would feel good . . .”
A but hung somewhere between the moon and the lake.
“。 . . for a day or two. But that’s the part of me that’s like him. The part that thinks everything is a competition, everything is about winning, and having enemies. And in the end all I’d be doing is taking money from another person who wanted to buy me. The guy isn’t asking for anything—he’s nice—but he’s also sticking it to his enemy. I don’t want my life to be about that anymore. So . . . I’m not taking his offer or his money.”
Stevie’s head shot up and she looked at him eagerly.
“I have a little in savings,” he said, “and I can get a loan. I don’t have enough for a year, but I can do a semester. There’s a program I’ve already applied to. Not super long. Maybe you can come to England for the break. They have crimes there. Lots of them. Everybody’s getting murdered all the time. Jack the Ripper—did they solve that one?”
“No,” Stevie said. “There are a few suspects, but part of
the problem is that Jack the Ripper is more of a media creation than a . . .”
He moved closer, leaning his body into hers, careful not to put pressure on her broken arm.
“This is why I love you,” he said, “you murder-obsessed freak.”
Love?
“Yeah,” he said in response to the unvoiced question. “I just confessed, and I’m ready to do the time.”