The Last Time I Lied_A Novel

by Riley Sager

  The only thing inside is a pair of glasses, twisted like a wrung-out washcloth, one of the lenses spiderwebbed with cracks.

  Flynn uses a handkerchief to lift it from the canoe. “Does anyone recognize these?”

  I stare at the red frames, somehow still standing, even though the sight of them should have sent me tumbling again into unconsciousness. I even manage to nod.

  “Sasha,” I say, my voice weak. “They belong to Sasha.”

  31

  Back in Dogwood, I lay in the bottom bunk, trying to keep it together. So far, I’m doing a shitty job. After the canoe was found, I went to the latrine and threw up. I then spent a half hour crying in the shower before changing into dry clothes. Now I hold Krystal’s matted-fur teddy bear as Detective Flynn graces me with another disbelieving stare.

  “That’s an interesting thing you did back there,” he says. “Swimming out to the canoe like that.”

  “You would have preferred I let it float away?”

  Flynn remains standing in the center of the room. Some kind of power play, I assume. Letting me know that he’s fully in charge here.

  “I would have preferred for you to leave it alone and let the police retrieve it. It’s evidence. Now it’s been tainted by three additional people.”

  “Sorry,” I say, only because it’s what he obviously wants to hear.

  “Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t. Or maybe you did it on purpose. Covering up fingerprints or trace evidence you’d previously left behind.”

  Flynn pauses, waiting for I don’t know what. A confession? A vehement denial? Instead, I say, “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it? Then please explain this.”

  He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a clear plastic bag. Inside is a curl of silver chain on which hang three pewter birds.

  My charm bracelet.

  “I know it’s yours,” Flynn says. “Three people confirmed they saw you wearing it.”

  “Where did you find it?”

  “In the canoe.”

  I tighten my grip on Krystal’s teddy bear to stave off a sudden onslaught of nausea. The cabin spins. I feel like I’m going to throw up again. I tell myself for the fiftieth time today that this isn’t really happening.

  But it is.

  It has.

  “Would you like to explain how it got there?” Flynn asks. “I know it wasn’t on your wrist when you swam out to that canoe.”

  “I-I lost it.” Shock makes it a struggle to utter even the simplest words. “Yesterday.”

  “Lost it,” Flynn says. “That’s convenient.”

  “The clasp broke.” I pause, take a breath, try to think of a way to not sound insane. “I fixed it. With string. But it fell off at some point.”

  “You don’t remember when?”

  “I didn’t notice. Not until later.”

  I stop talking. Nothing I say will make sense to him. It certainly doesn’t make sense to me. The bracelet was there. Until it wasn’t. I don’t know when or where it went from being on my wrist to being lost.

  “So how do you think it got into the canoe?” Flynn says.

  “Maybe one of the girls found it and picked it up, intending to return it to me later.”

  It’s a stretch. Even I can see that. But it’s the most logical chain of events. Miranda saw me twisting the bracelet during yesterday’s painting lesson. I can easily picture her spotting it on the ground, scooping it up, dropping it into her pocket. The only other possible explanation is that it was found by the same person responsible for the girls’ disappearance.

  “What if I’m being framed?”

  It’s less a fully formed thought than a desperate attempt to get Flynn on my side. Yet the more I think about it, the more it starts to make sense.

  “That bracelet fell off yesterday, before the girls vanished. And now it’s in the same canoe as Sasha’s broken glasses. Talk about convenient. What if whoever took the girls put it there on purpose to make me look guilty?”

  “I think you’re doing a pretty good job of that all by yourself.”

  “I didn’t touch those girls! How many times do I have to say it before you believe me?”

  “I’d love to believe you,” Detective Flynn says. “But it turns out you’re a difficult woman to believe, Miss Davis. Not with all that talk about seeing people who weren’t really there. Or your conspiracy theories. This morning, you told me Francesca Harris-White had something to do with it. But less than an hour ago, you were certain it was the groundskeeper.”

  “Maybe it was.”

  Flynn shakes his head. “We talked to his wife. She confirmed he was in the kitchen at five a.m., right where he said he was. And then there’s all those things you said fifteen years ago about Theo Harris-White. Didn’t you accuse him of hurting your friends back then?”

  A sharp heat burns my cheeks.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “I’m assuming you don’t believe it now.”

  I look at the floor. “No.”

  “It would be interesting to know when you stopped believing he was guilty and started thinking he was innocent,” Flynn says. “Because you never retracted that accusation. Officially, Mr. Harris-White is still a suspect in that disappearance. I guess you two now have something in common.”

  My face gets hotter with anger. Some of it’s directed at Detective Flynn. The rest is reserved for me and how horribly I acted back then. Either way, I know I can’t listen to Flynn rehash my bad behavior for a minute longer.

  “Are you going to charge with me something?”

  “Not yet,” Flynn replies. “The girls haven’t been found, dead or alive. And a bracelet isn’t enough to charge you. At least not unless a lab analysis finds some of their DNA on it.”

  “Then get the hell out of this cabin until you do.”

  I don’t regret saying it, even though I know it makes me look even guiltier. It occurs to me that some cops would even take it as an admission of guilt. Flynn, however, merely raises his hands in a don’t-blame-me gesture and moves to the door.

  “We’re done, for now,” he says. “But I’ll be watching you, Miss Davis.”

  He won’t be the only one. Between the camera outside the cabin and Vivian at my window, I’ve gotten used to being watched.

  When Detective Flynn leaves, his exit lets in the sound of police boats out on the lake. They arrived shortly after the discovery of the canoe. Meanwhile, the helicopter is still going, rattling the cabin with each pass.

  I can’t remember if the helicopter fifteen years ago showed up the first day or the second. The boats and volunteer search party were the first. That I definitely remember. All those people wearing flimsy orange vests and grim expressions as they marched into the woods. All those boats crisscrossing the lake, giving up once Vivian’s sweatshirt was found in the forest. That’s when the dogs were brought in, on the second day. Each allowed to sniff a piece of clothing plucked from the girls’ trunks to absorb their scents. By then, Franny had already decided to close the camp. So as the dogs were barking their way around the lake, hysterical campers were hustled onto buses or pulled into SUVs with dazed parents behind the wheels.

  I wasn’t so lucky. I had to spend another day here, for investigative purposes, I was told. Another twenty-four hours spent huddled in this very bunk, feeling pretty much the same way I do now.

  The helicopter has just passed once again when I hear a knock on the cabin door.

  “Come in,” I say, too spent with worry to open it myself.

  A second later, Becca pokes her head into the cabin. A surprise, considering the tone of last night’s conversation. At first, I think she’s here to offer condolences. I turn away when she enters, just so I can avoid the half-pity, half-sorry look I’m certain she’ll give me. My gaze drifts instead to the camera in her hands.
r />   “If you’re here to take more pictures, you can leave right now,” I say.

  “Listen, I know you’re pissed I told that cop we got drunk last night. I’m sorry. I got freaked out by the whole situation and told the truth, not thinking it would make you look suspicious. If it’s any consolation, it makes me look suspicious, too.”

  “As far as I know, all the girls in your cabin are present and accounted for.”

  “I’m trying to help you, Emma.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  “I think you do,” Becca says. “You should hear what they’re saying about you out there. Everyone thinks you did it. That you snapped and made those girls disappear the same way Viv, Natalie, and Allison vanished.”

  “Even you?”

  Becca gives me a pointed nod. “Even me. No use lying at this point, right? But then I started examining some of the photos I took around camp this morning. Looking to see if I accidentally captured any clues about what might have happened.”

  “I don’t need you playing detective for me,” I say.

  “It’s better than the job you’ve been doing,” she remarks. “Which, by the way, everyone also knows about. You haven’t exactly been subtle with your sneaking around camp and asking questions. Casey even told me she saw you slip into the Lodge yesterday.”

  Of course Camp Nightingale is just as gossipy now as it was fifteen years ago. Maybe even more so. God knows what the counselors and campers have been saying about me. Probably that I’m obsessive and crazy and make bad choices. Guilty as charged.

  “I wasn’t sneaking,” I say. “And I’m assuming you found something interesting or you wouldn’t be here.”

  Becca sits on the floor next to my bunk and holds up the camera so I can see it. On the display screen is an image of me standing dumbly in Lake Midnight and Franny wading in after me. Once again, I’m reminded of how great a photographer Becca is. She captured the moment in all its awful clarity, right down to the water seeping into the hem of Franny’s nightgown.

  Theo’s in the middle of the photo, standing in his boxers between the lake and the Lodge. The pale patchwork of scars on his chest pop in the morning light, visible to all. Yet I had missed them completely. I had other things on my mind.

  Beyond Theo is the Lodge itself, its back deck occupied by Chet and Mindy. He’s in track shorts and a T-shirt. She’s in a surprisingly sensible cotton nightgown.

  “Now here’s one from the reverse angle,” Becca says.

  The next photo shows the full crowd of campers drawn to the water’s edge by my screams. The girls clutch one another, fear still etching itself onto their sleep-pinkened faces.

  “I counted them,” Becca says. “Seventy-five campers, counselors, and instructors. Out of a potential eighty.”

  I do the math. Three of the five people absent from the photo are Sasha, Miranda, and Krystal, for obvious reasons. I’m another, because at that moment I was being led by Franny from the chilly water of Lake Midnight. The fifth missing person is Becca, the person taking the photo.

  “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

  “Only one person in the entire camp didn’t come to see what was going on,” Becca replies. “Don’t you think that’s strange?”

  I snatch the camera from her hands and bring the display screen closer to my face, trying to identify who might be missing. I recognize nearly all the girls, either from the painting lessons or just roaming around camp. I spot Roberta and Paige, caught in the middle of exchanging worried looks. I see Kim, Danica, and the other three counselors. Each of them huddle with the girls from their respective cabins. Behind them is Casey, identifiable by her red hair.

  I click to the previous photo, seeing me and Franny in the lake, Theo on the grass, Chet and Mindy up at the Lodge.

  The only person missing is Lottie.

  “Now you see it?” Becca says.

  “Are you sure she’s not there?” I scan the photo again, looking in vain for any sign of Lottie behind Chet and Mindy. There isn’t one.

  “Positive. Which begs this question: Why?”

  Nothing I can think of makes sense. My screams were loud enough to bring the entire camp to the lakeshore, which makes it impossible for Lottie not to have heard them. Yes, there’s a chance her absence is completely innocuous. Maybe she’s a heavy sleeper. Or she was in the shower, its spray drowning out the sound of my screams.

  But then I think about my bracelet. It feels like it’s still wrapped around my left wrist. A phantom sensation. The last time I remember being aware of its presence was when I was in the Lodge, searching the study.

  With Lottie.

  Maybe it fell off. Or maybe she took it while I was engrossed by all those old photographs of Camp Nightingale.

  I consider Vivian’s diary, which by this point has become a kind of Rosetta Stone for trying to decipher what was happening fifteen years ago. Vivian mentioned Lottie, but only in passing. Just that one sentence about how Lottie caught her in the Lodge study and then told Franny about it. I didn’t give it much attention, mostly because I had Franny’s dirty little secret distracting me.

  But now I wonder if that brief mention has greater meaning, especially in light of my own encounter with Lottie in the study. She spoke at length about her family’s decades of service with the Harris-White clan. That suggests an unusual amount of devotion, passed down through generations. Just how devoted of an employee could Lottie be?

  Enough to take action if she knew Vivian was close to learning what Franny’s dark secret could be? Then do it again after realizing I’m on the verge of doing the same thing, only this time as some twisted kind of warning?

  “Maybe,” I say, “Lottie wasn’t there because she already knew what was happening.”

  FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

  After lashing out at Theo, I spent the rest of the day weeping in my bottom bunk. I cried so hard that by the time night fell, my pillow was soaked with tears. The pillowcase, salty and damp, stuck to my cheek when I looked up as the cabin door opened. It was Lottie, solemnly bearing a tray of food from the mess hall. Pizza. Side salad. Bottle of Snapple.

  “You need to eat something, honey,” she said.

  “I’m not hungry,” I told her, when in truth I was famished. Pain gnawed at my gut, reminding me that I’d barely eaten since the girls left the cabin.

  “Starving yourself won’t help anyone,” Lottie said as she placed the tray on my hickory trunk. “You need a good meal to be ready for when your friends return.”

  “Do you really think they’re coming back?”

  “Of course they will.”

  “Then I won’t eat until they do.”

  Lottie gave me a patient smile. “I’ll leave the tray here in case you change your mind.”

  Once she was gone, I approached the tray, sniffing at the food like a feral cat. Ignoring the salad, I went straight for the pizza. I managed two bites before the pain in my gut worsened. It was sharper than hunger, shooting from my stomach into my heart.

  Guilt.

  That I’d said that horrible thing to Vivian right before she left.

  That I’d locked the door before they returned.

  That all day I’d told myself I simply provided an answer to that state trooper’s innocent question. But deep down I knew the score. By saying Theo’s name, I had accused him of harming Vivian, Natalie, and Allison. All because he picked Vivian over me.

  Not that such an outcome had ever really been in doubt. I was a scrawny, flat-chested nothing. Of course Theo chose her. And now I assumed he and everyone else in camp hated me. I couldn’t blame them. I hated myself more.

  Which is why I was surprised when Franny came to Dogwood later in the night.

  She had spent the previous night there. Not wanting me to be alone, she crept in with a sleeping bag, some snacks, and a
pile of board games. When it was time to sleep, Franny unrolled the sleeping bag on the floor next to my bunk. That’s where she slept, lulling me to sleep by singing Beatles songs in a soft, gentle voice.

  Now she was back, the bag of snacks and games in one hand and her rolled-up sleeping bag in the other.

  “I just got off the phone with your parents,” she announced. “They’ll be here tomorrow morning to take you home. So let’s make your last night here a restful one.”

  I stared at her from my tear-stained pillow, confused. “You’re staying here tonight, too?”

  “Of course, my dear. It’s not good to be here all by yourself.”

  She dropped the sleeping bag onto the floor and began to unroll it.

  “You don’t have to sleep on the floor again.”

  “Oh, but I do,” Franny said. “We must keep the beds free for when your friends return any minute now.”

  I imagined Vivian, Natalie, and Allison flinging open the door and tramping inside, dirty and exhausted but very much alive. We got lost, Vivian would say. Because Allison here doesn’t know how to read a compass. It was such a comforting thought that I glanced at the door, expecting them to do just that. When they didn’t, I started to cry again, adding a few more drops to the pillowcase.

  “Hush now,” Franny said, swooping to my side. “No more tears for today, Emma.”

  “They’ve been gone so long.”

  “I know, but we mustn’t lose hope. Ever.”

  She rubbed my back until I settled down, her gliding palm tender and soothing. I tried to recall if my own mother had ever done such a thing when I was sick or upset. I couldn’t think of a single instance, which made me savor Franny’s gentle touch all the more.

  “Emma, I need to know something,” she said, her voice on the edge of a whisper. “You don’t really think Theo hurt your friends, do you?”

  I said nothing in return. Fear kept me silent. I couldn’t take back what I’d told the police. Not then. Yes, Theo was in a lot of trouble. But I also knew I’d be in trouble, too, if I admitted my accusation was a lie.

  And that I’d locked Vivian, Natalie, and Allison out of the cabin.