“How did you find out?” she asked numbly.
“I was out doing walking meditation this morning,” he said. “Two police cars and an ambulance went by, going toward the lake. So I ran in that direction. I tried to go in, but one of the cops stopped me on the path. I ran home and got a drone to have a look and a listen. I got some footage, but I couldn’t get that close . . .”
Stevie turned in disgust, but found she had nothing to say. The shock was still too strong and her head was fuzzy.
“They’re closing off the main entrances,” Carson said, continuing past the police cars. “But we can get in through the woods.”
Her phone buzzed. A text from David appeared:
Come over when you can.
David was here for five days. All their time for the summer. What was going to happen now? She couldn’t think about it. Her head was swirling. She texted back.
Is there anything weird going on there this morning?
No, he replied. Why?
That made some sense. The lake was big, and Arrowhead
Point was at the far end. David was more near the middle, by Point 23.
Carson slid the Tesla to a stop on the side of the road.
“Here,” he said, handing her a tiny microphone. “Better audio for your phone. You go in through here and see if you can record any witnesses. I’m going to try to sneak in closer near Arrowhead Point and get video footage.”
Stevie didn’t actually care about what Carson was doing. She needed to get into the woods and see and hear for herself what had happened to Allison. She took the microphone and hopped out of the car, sprinting across the quiet country lane. Once she was actually in the woods, her phone lost all sense of where she was located. It put her position as either in the road or in the middle of the lake. So she picked her way through the trees until she could see the glint of the water, and then she found one of the paths that wound around the lake. She walked in the direction of Arrowhead Point, trying to keep out of sight of any police or emergency personnel that might be around. But she saw no one except a woman walking her dog, who seemed to have no idea that anything was going on. Strange how someone could die in these woods and everything would be normal and peaceful. These woods ate people up and were quiet about it.
Stevie felt cold despite the heat. She pressed on, in a haze, finding her way on the slatted-wood bridges over the hollows and the silent wood chips, always keeping the lake on her left-hand side, watching it out of one eye, scanning for activity.
Finally, she heard the sound of people talking up ahead.
She left the path and wove through the trees until she could see a small group of older women gathered on a bit of sandy beach, speaking in a huddle. From here, she could see the rise of Arrowhead Point, and maybe some people walking around on top, but not much else. She slipped out of the trees, making a bit of noise so she didn’t just pop out of nowhere and scare these strangers. After fitting the microphone into the jack of her phone and tucking it as far into her pocket as she could, she tried to act like she was out taking a casual walk.
“Did something happen?” she said, approaching them and squinting up at the point.
“Woman fell,” said one of the swimmers. “From up there.” She nodded toward Arrowhead Point.
“She just . . . fell?”
“We heard a scream and she kind of tumbled off . . .”
“Like she tripped,” said another swimmer.
“Yeah, she must have tripped.”
This was why you weren’t supposed to let witnesses talk to one another before you spoke to them—when people all see something together and discuss it, details will start to merge. All that seemed to be known was that Allison had screamed and fallen, but the story had already become that she had tripped.