The Last Time I Lied_A Novel

by Riley Sager

  While she talks, I stare at the third monitor. The live feed from outside the cabin. Currently, the area is empty. No campers. No Mindy or Casey. Just the front door of Dogwood at that Hitchcockian angle.

  “We discovered this during a background check,” Franny continues. “Against the advice of our attorneys, we invited her here for the summer. We didn’t think she was a threat to herself or the campers. Nonetheless, precautions were taken.”

  Flynn, proving himself to be nobody’s fool, says, “Hence the camera.”

  “Yes,” Franny says. “I just thought you should know. To show we’re doing everything we can to help in your search. I don’t mean to imply in any way whatsoever that I think Emma had something to do with this disappearance.”

  Yet that’s exactly what she’s doing. I keep my gaze fixed on the monitor, unwilling to look away because it would mean facing Franny again. And I’m not sure I can do that.

  On the screen, a girl edges into view, her back straight, her steps precise. She knows the camera is there. At first, I think it’s a camper, maybe sneaking out of a neighboring cabin to get another peek of the state troopers milling around the mess hall.

  Then I see the blond hair, the white dress, the locket around her neck.

  It’s Vivian.

  Right there on the monitor.

  I gasp in shock—a ragged, watery sound.

  Chet’s the first to notice and says, “Emma? What’s wrong?”

  My hand trembles as I point to the monitor. Vivian is still there. She looks directly into the camera and gives a coy smile. As if she knows I’m watching. She even waves to me.

  “You see that, right?”

  “See what?” It’s Theo this time, his brow creasing with doctor-like concern.

  “Her,” I say. “In front of Dogwood.”

  All of them turn to the monitor, crowding around it, blocking my view.

  “There’s nothing there,” Theo says.

  “Did you see one of the missing girls?” Flynn says.

  “Vivian. I saw Vivian.”

  I push between them, regaining my view of the live feed. On the monitor, all I see is that same angled view of Dogwood. Vivian’s no longer there. Nor is anyone else.

  I tell myself, This isn’t happening.

  I tell myself, I’m not going crazy.

  It’s no use. Panic and fear have already overtaken me, turning my body numb. A fuzzy blackness encroaches on the edge of my vision, pulsing across my eyes until I see nothing at all. My arm jabs forward, reaching for something to grab on to. Someone catches it. Theo. Or maybe Detective Flynn.

  But it’s too late.

  My arm slips from their grasp, and I fall, crashing onto the cellar floor and fainting dead away.

  FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

  The sweatshirt sat on a table in the arts and crafts building, sleeves spread wide. It was the same way my mother laid out clothes she wanted me to wear. The whole ensemble revealed, enticing me to put it on. Only this shirt was different. Rather than wear it, the police wanted me to identify it.

  “Do you recognize it?” asked a female state trooper with a warm smile and a matronly bosom.

  I stared at the sweatshirt—white with Princeton spelled across the front in proud Tiger Orange—and nodded. “It’s Vivian’s.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  She had worn it to one of the campfires. I remembered because I had joked that it made her look like a marshmallow. She said it kept the mosquitoes away, fashion be damned.

  The trooper shot a glance at a colleague on the other side of the table. He nodded and quickly folded the sweatshirt. Latex gloves covered his hands. I had no idea why.

  “Did you take that out of Dogwood?” I said.

  The female trooper ignored the question. “Was Vivian wearing that sweatshirt when you saw her leave the cabin?”

  “No.”

  “Give it some more thought. Take your time.”

  “I don’t need more time. She wasn’t wearing it.”

  If I seemed irritable, it was justified. The girls had been missing for more than a day, and everyone was running out of hope. I felt it all throughout camp. It was like a leak in a tub of water, the optimism draining away drop by precious drop. During that time, the arts and crafts building had been taken over by the police, who used it to organize search parties, sign in volunteers, and, in my case, informally interrogate thirteen-year-old girls.

  I had spent an hour there the night before, being grilled by a pair of detectives who took turns asking me questions. An exhausting back-and-forth, my neck sore from swiveling between them. I answered most of their questions. When the girls had left. What they were wearing. What Vivian said before departing the cabin. As for what I’d told her as she slipped outside and how I prevented them from getting back in, well, that remained unspoken.

  The shame was too great. The guilt was even worse.

  Now I was being asked a new round of questions, although the female trooper displayed far more patience than the detectives. In fact, she looked like she wanted to hug me to her oversize chest and tell me that everything would be okay.

  “I believe you,” she said.

  “Where did you find that sweatshirt?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  I looked to the other side of the room, where the folded sweatshirt was being passed to yet another trooper. He also wore gloves. The skin of his hands shone white beneath the latex as he placed the sweatshirt into a cardboard evidence box. Dread flooded my heart.

  “Did any of the girls have secrets they might have shared with you but not with others?” the trooper said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “But they did have secrets?”

  “It’s kind of hard to call something a secret if I don’t know who else they told.”

  My teenage bitchiness was intentional. An attempt to wipe that pitying look off the trooper’s face. I didn’t deserve her pity. Instead, it only made her lean in closer, acting like the cool guidance counselor at school who was always telling us to think of her as a friend and not as an authority figure.

  “Most times teenage girls run away, they do so because they’re meeting someone,” she said. “A boyfriend. Or a lover. It’s usually someone others don’t approve of. A forbidden romance. Did any of the girls mention anything like that?”

  I wasn’t sure how much I should say, mostly because I didn’t know what was going on.

  “The girls ran away? Is that what you think?”

  “We don’t know, honey. Maybe. That’s why we need your help. Because sometimes girls run away to meet a boy who ends up hurting them. We don’t want your friends to get hurt. We just want to find them. So if you know anything—anything at all—I’d really appreciate it if you told me.”

  I thought of The Lovely Bones. The teenager found dead in a field. The creepy neighbor who killed her.

  “Vivian was seeing someone,” I said.

  The trooper’s eyes momentarily brightened before she settled back down, forcing herself to keep playing it cool.

  “Did she happen to tell you who it was?”

  “Do you think he might have done something to her?”

  “We won’t know until we talk to him.”

  I took that as a yes. Which meant they thought Vivian, Natalie, and Allison were more than lost. They thought they were dead. Murdered. Just three sets of lovely bones on the forest floor.

  “Emma,” the trooper said. “If you know his name, you need to tell us.”

  I opened my mouth. My heart thundered so hard I felt it in my teeth.

  “It’s Theo,” I said. “Theodore Harris-White.”

  I didn’t believe it, not even as I said it. Yet I wanted to. I wanted to think Theo had something to do with the girls’ dis
appearance, that he was capable of hurting them. Because he already had hurt someone.

  Me.

  He shattered my heart without even realizing it.

  This was my chance to hurt him back.

  “Are you sure?” the trooper said.

  I tried to convince myself it wasn’t bitter jealousy making me do this. That it made sense Theo would be involved. Once Vivian, Natalie, and Allison returned to the locked cabin, the first thing they would have done was find a counselor. They didn’t because they had been out after hours, not to mention drinking. Both offenses would have gotten them kicked out of camp. So they had gone to the one person of authority they could trust—Theo. Now they were missing, likely presumed dead. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

  At least that’s the lie I told myself.

  “I’m certain,” I said.

  A few minutes later, I was allowed to return to Dogwood. The area outside the arts and crafts building hummed with activity as I left. There were cops and reporters and the bray of bloodhounds in the distance. Troopers had already started searching the camp pickup. I spotted them as I passed, peering into the open cab doors and rifling through the glove compartment.

  When I turned away, I saw a search party just returning from a trek through the woods. Most of them were townies, come to help any way they could. But I spotted a few familiar faces in the crowd. The kitchen worker who had piled my plate with pancakes on the Fourth of July, which suddenly felt like weeks ago. The handyman who always seemed to be fixing something around camp.

  Then there was Theo, looking haggard in jeans and a T-shirt darkened by sweat. His hair was a shambles. A smudge of dirt stained his cheek.

  I flung myself toward him, not quite knowing what I intended to do until I was right there in front of him. I was both mad at Vivian and terrified for her, furious at Theo and in love with him. So my hands curled into fists. I pounded his chest.

  “Where are they?” I cried. “What did you do to them?”

  Theo didn’t move, didn’t flinch.

  Further proof in my confused mind that he had already steeled himself for a beating from my tiny hands.

  That, deep down, he knew he deserved it.

  29

  This isn’t happening.

  I’m not going crazy.

  The words crash into my brain the moment I regain consciousness, making me sit up with a start. My head slams into something hard above me. Pain pulses along my hairline, joining another, previously unnoticed pain at the back of my head.

  “Whoa,” someone says. “Easy.”

  A moment of pure confusion passes before I realize where I am. Camp Nightingale. Dogwood. Ensconced in a bunk bed, the top of which I just introduced to my forehead. The person who spoke is Theo. He sits on my hickory trunk with Sasha’s copy of National Geographic, passing the time until I wake up.

  I rub my head, my palm alternating between the two points of pain. The one in the front is already fading. The one in the back is the opposite. It grows in intensity.

  “You took quite a tumble in the cellar,” Theo says. “I broke some of your fall, but you still banged your head pretty bad.”

  I slide out of bed and stand, gripping Miranda’s bunk in case I need support. My legs are rubbery but strong enough to keep me upright. Small traces of the dark fuzziness that engulfed me in the Lodge remain. I blink until they’re gone.

  “You need to rest,” Theo says.

  That’s impossible at the moment. Not with him here. Not when my limbs tingle with anxiety, aching and restless. I look around the cabin and see everything is the same as it was this morning. Sasha’s bed is still meticulously made. Krystal’s teddy bear remains a lump beneath the blankets.

  “They’re still missing, aren’t they?”

  Theo confirms it with a solemn nod. My legs start to quiver, begging me to lie down again. I tighten my grip on the edge of Miranda’s bunk and remain standing.

  “Detective Flynn broke the news to their families. He asked if any of them have been contacted by one of the girls. No one has. Miranda’s grandmother didn’t even know she had a cell phone, so there’s still no word on what carrier she uses.”

  “Did Flynn talk to the kitchen staff?”

  “He did. All of them live in the next town over. They’re all cafeteria staff at the middle school there. Just happy to have a job for the summer. They carpool together every morning before breakfast and every evening after dinner. No one stayed behind last night, and no one came in early this morning. Not even Marvin.”

  All that information I had given Flynn—all my attempts to help—ended up being for nothing. Disappointment swells in my chest, tight against my rib cage.

  Theo sets the magazine aside and says, “Do you want to talk about what happened back at the Lodge?”

  “Not really.”

  “You said you saw Vivian.”

  My mouth goes dry, making it hard to speak. My tongue feels too sticky and heavy to form words. A bottle of water sits next to Theo. He gives it to me, and I swallow all but a few drops.

  “I did,” I say after clearing my throat. “On the live feed of the cabin.”

  “I looked, Emma. No one was there.”

  “Oh, I know. It was . . .”

  I’m unable to adequately describe it. A hallucination? My imagination?

  “Stress,” Theo says. “You’re under a tremendous amount.”

  “But I’ve seen her before. When I was much younger. It’s why I was sent away. I thought she was gone. But she’s not. I keep seeing her. Here. Now.”

  Theo cocks his head, looking at me the same way I’m sure he looks at his patients when he has to give them bad news.

  “I had a conversation with my mother,” he says. “We both agree it was wrong to invite you back here, even if it was with the best intentions. That doesn’t mean we think any of this is your fault. It’s ours. We underestimated the effect being here would have on you.”

  “Are you telling me to leave camp?”

  “Yes,” Theo says. “I think it’s for the best.”

  “But what about the girls?”

  “There’s a search party looking for them right now. They’ve split into two groups. One is taking the woods to the right of camp and another is doing the same thing on the left.”

  “I need to join it,” I say, making a move toward the door on unsteady legs. “I want to help.”

  Theo blocks my path. “You’re in no condition to go trampling through the woods.”

  “But I need to find them.”

  “They’ll be found,” Theo says as he grips my arms, holding me in place. “I promise. The plan is to add more searchers tomorrow, if necessary. Within twenty-four hours, every square foot of this property will have been thoroughly searched.”

  I don’t remind him that a similar search did little good fifteen years ago. Every square foot of land was covered then, too. All it yielded was a sweatshirt.

  “I’m staying,” I insist. “I’m not leaving until they’re found.”

  A rumble sounds in the distance—a deep thudding that echoes across the valley like thunder. A helicopter joining the search. The sound is familiar to me. I heard it a lot fifteen years ago. The cabin rattles as the chopper roars overhead, low in the sky, practically skimming the trees. Theo grimaces as it passes.

  “My mother doesn’t trust you, Em,” he says, raising his voice so it can compete with the helicopter. “I’m not sure I do, either.”

  I get louder, too. “I swear to you, I didn’t hurt those girls.”

  “How can you be so sure? You were so messed up last night that I doubt you’d remember it if you did.”

  The helicopter retreats from the area, zooming out over the lake. Its departure leaves the cabin draped in silence. Lingering in the newfound quiet are Theo’s words—and the accusat
ion coiled within them.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Flynn talked to the other instructors,” Theo says. “All of them. Casey said she saw you by the latrine last night. She said you seemed drunk. When we talked to Becca, she admitted the two of you shared a bottle of whiskey while the rest of us were at the campfire.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, my voice so incredibly meek I’m surprised Theo can even hear it.

  “So you were drinking last night?”

  I nod.

  “Jesus, Emma. One of the campers could have seen you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say again. “It was stupid and wrong and completely unlike me. But it doesn’t mean I did something to those girls. You saw the camera footage. You saw I went looking for them.”

  “Or followed them. There’s no way of knowing with any certainty.”

  “There is,” I tell him. “Because you know me. And you know I wouldn’t hurt those girls.”

  He has no good reason to believe me. Not after all the lies I’ve told. One word from Theo to the police could thrust me into the same situation I had put him in fifteen years earlier. The fact that our roles are reversed isn’t lost on me.

  I tilt my head and stare into his brown eyes, willing him to look back. I want him to see me. Truly see me. If he does, maybe he’ll recognize the girl I used to be. Not the damaged twenty-eight-year-old who is very likely losing her grip on sanity but the thirteen-year-old who adored him.

  “Please believe me,” I whisper.

  A moment passes. A quivering period of time that lasts only a second but feels like minutes. During it, I can almost feel my fate hanging in the balance. Then Theo whispers back.

  “I do.”

  I nod, overwhelmingly grateful. I resist the urge to cry with relief.

  Then I kiss him.

  It’s a surprise to both of us. Just like the last time I kissed him, only more forceful. This time, it’s not boldness that makes me do it. It’s desperation. The girls’ disappearance has me feeling so utterly helpless that I now crave the distraction I avoided the other day. I need something to momentarily take my mind off what’s happening. I ache for it.