True Lies: A Lying Game Novella

by Sara Shepard

  “Don’t worry,” I say, pulling back and looking him in the eyes. “This won’t take long.”

  It’s time to show Baby Sis who the real star of the show was, is, and always will be.

  11

  PARKS AND RECREATION

  An hour later, I stand at the edge of the amusement park. The sweet, fried scent of funnel cake wafts through the air. Lights from arcade games flash wildly, and there’s a loud shriek from the fun house. I glance right and left, wondering where the others are. To my right is the open part of the park with all the rides. To the left, blocked off by a big gate, is the rest of the park, which is closed for construction.

  This is it, Sutton, I tell myself. Game on.

  I exhale, nervous, and run my fingers through my hair. I’ve changed into a “borrowed” pair of Mads’s J Brand skinnies and tossed on one of her fleece hoodies, figuring she owes me, seeing as how she and Char are the ones who took my stuff in the first place. But even swathed in several layers, the evening feels cool and I shiver. More than that, I’ve always found amusement parks a little eerie.

  I hear a rustle and whirl around, but I don’t see anyone. The rustling sounds again, and suddenly someone taps my shoulder. I turn around and scream. I’m looking straight at a dead ringer for Bozo. He wears chalky whiteface, a giant red smile lined in greasy black pencil, and tufts of orange “hair” spike out over each ear. No wonder I find amusement parks creepy.

  “Sutton Mercer?” the clown asks, his grin spreading into a wide rictus. His accordion collar bobs as he talks. The pom-pom buttons on the front of his suit are as large as saucers.

  “Yeah,” I say, wary.

  “This is for you.” He plucks a horn from a pocket on the front of his traffic-cone orange jumper and tweaks its rubber honker. A shower of confetti sprays over me as the horn coughs out a little square of folded paper. A note.

  I sidle into the shaft of acid-yellow light cast by an overhead fluorescent lamp and eagerly unfold the missive. It’s a full-color map of the park along with a note, again in Charlotte’s calligraphy script and that expensive dove-gray ink: Complete the hunt, and you’ll get back the item you treasure most.

  The item I treasure most? Easy: my locket. My neckline feels naked without it. And . . . a treasure hunt. For whatever reason, I’ve always been freakishly good at treasure hunts. I have this challenge in the bag.

  And I do have it in the bag—for a while, anyway. Mads and Char first send me to crash a wedding performed by Elvis in the Little White Chapel, which I do with panache. Elvis hands me the next clue, which sends me to the Adélie penguin exhibit, where I have to reach into the tank to grab my next mission. I catch sight of Laurel creeping into the penguin habitat just as I am leaving, and I resist the urge to gloat. Good luck, I think. You’ll need it.

  Then I look at the next clue. Boo! it says. That’s it. I unfold the map again. Huh. Maybe they mean the haunted house.

  I follow the map to the Mansion of the Macabre. It’s in the under-construction part of the park at the absolute farthest corner of the compound, lit only by a single flickering fluorescent lamp that buzzes like an active hornet’s nest.

  The steps to the mansion are covered in soot and old, discarded ride tickets. Its arched windows are cracked, cloudy, and in some places, completely boarded over. This particular attraction doesn’t look closed for renovations so much as it looks like it’s been full-on condemned. Okaay.

  I take a deep breath. This is your reputation at stake, Sutton. This is the Lying Game. I can’t let Laurel take this from me.

  I grit my teeth and make my way up the steps. The heavy oak double doors of the mansion are splintering, and when I rap on them softly, they swing open. I step inside through fine, sticky threads of cobwebs.

  “Gross,” I whisper, dusting off my shoulders, where they’ve lodged themselves.

  The house smells dank and oily, like must and wet soil. The doors swing shut behind me. With so many of the windows covered up, it’s pitch-black in here. I can’t tell how big the place is . . . or what lurks behind the corners. Something skitters above, and I flinch. Then I hear a creak. A rattle. A dry cough of something—or someone—lingering close.

  Calm down, Sutton, I chide myself. It’s only a game. But when I reach to test the doorknob I’ve just closed, it doesn’t budge.

  “Hello?” I call out, pulling at it. It doesn’t turn. “Hello?” I scream louder. But my voice just echoes uselessly. Something flaps above me. Something else creaks. I swallow hard, realizing what’s going on.

  They’ve locked me inside.

  12

  FEAR, ITSELF

  “Hello?” I call out again into the abyss that is the haunted house. I fumble around, but it’s so dark I can’t see my fingers in front of my face. No surprise, no one answers. I take a step into the room, and the floor seems to buckle under me. I scream and jump back, my heart pounding hard.

  The world goes silent again. I run my fingers down my face, willing my heart to slow down. “Nice work, guys,” I call out, knowing they must be listening. “The door’s locked. Ooh, scary.” My voice echoes. “Is this the best you could do?”

  There’s silence, followed by a muffled giggle and footsteps. Thankfully, they’re too loud to be mice. A person, then.

  “Char? Mads?” My voice is thin and high-pitched.

  They don’t answer. A horrible thought strikes me: What if it isn’t them?

  Of course it is, I tell myself. Who else could it be?

  I fish my cell phone out of my hoodie pocket and flip the flashlight app on.

  It’s weak, but better than nothing. Slowly, my eyes adjust to the dim glow. I run the narrow spotlight over the room. There’s a wall, then a window, and then . . . an eye? I try not to scream, letting the flashlight linger there. It’s only a fake eye, a costume. And there’s an arm, a tattered black cape. This is what haunted houses are all about, after all: immobile, animatronic ghouls and monsters on motorized tracks. Nothing more.

  Outside, a loose shutter bangs against the house’s wooden frame, and I jump.

  The giggling comes from behind me again. I sense movement in the corner of the room, and suddenly something sways past me, brushing against my shoulder. I swing the flashlight around and see a bat descending into darkness. It’s fake, the rational part of me whispers. But I shriek anyway, unnerved by the darkness. The bat twists crookedly on its trip wire at the end of the room.

  “Focus,” I whisper to myself, getting back to the task at hand. I need to look for my locket. That’s why I’m here.

  I run my flashlight over the room once more, but I don’t see that familiar gold glint. I steel myself and begin to move forward. I grope past a shattered mirror framed in chipping gold gilt that’s propped up against a fog machine covered in a thick layer of dust. The hallway yawning before me is narrow, and the end feels farther away the closer to it I walk. I reach out one arm to steady myself, cringing as my fingers skate along the stained shreds of crumbling wallpaper.

  Then I hear a thump behind me and freeze. Is that Laurel? Has she caught up?

  I stumble on a loose floorboard and find myself in a small room furnished with a bare bed frame and a rickety folding table. A filthy teddy bear lies discarded in the corner, clouds of stuffing pouring from a tear in the seams of his stomach.

  “Ew.” I move backward, brushing against the table and knocking something from its surface. It hits the floor with a metallic-sounding clang. I run my flashlight over the space, and gold glints up at me. But it’s not my locket: it’s Laurel’s charm bracelet, the one Thayer gave her. This was the prized possession they took from her.

  I gasp and snatch it, feeling a flurry of triumph. And that’s the game! Now I have Laurel’s prize; there is no way she can win this challenge. Mission complete.

  But I don’t stop there—those bitches took my locket from me, and I want it back. Besides, if I don’t find it, they’d probably call the game a draw. So I move down the hallway with rene
wed energy. What I hope are fake bloodstains streak the walls, but they no longer seem so sinister. And when I hear another thump, I just shrug. Even if it is Laurel, she’s not going to win.

  I enter the next room and wait for my eyes to adjust. Moth-eaten ghosts sway from the ceiling. I wave the flashlight here and there, and yet another piece of gold glints at me. My heart lifts. I run forward and grab the locket from one of the ghosts at the back. “Thanks, Casper!” I trill, clasping it. I can’t believe it. I’ve done it! I’ve won!

  I fasten the locket around my neck, give the ghost a friendly pat, then back out of the room. An EXIT sign looms bright red in the distance, and I fumble toward it. But inches away from the emergency exit, I hear yet another thud. I stop, listening. Then comes a wail. I cock my head, recognizing the voice. Laurel?

  “My ankle!” she cries out. I hear her breathing, shallow and quick.

  I freeze, my fingers brushing against the door.

  Laurel sniffles again, more desperately this time. Is she really hurt?

  I wait for Mads and Char to emerge from the shadows and help her, but they don’t. I glance at the EXIT sign, then back into the darkness, everyone’s words and the guilt and anger and frustration I’ve felt in the past two days forming a thick stew in my head. Maybe I don’t want Laurel sharing my friends, but I don’t hate her. I definitely can’t leave her hurt, stranded, in a creepy, broken-down haunted house.

  “Laurel?” I call out.

  She answers with another cry. I pivot and backtrack, making my way toward the increasingly loud sobs. A few rooms later, I find Laurel splayed next to an open closet door, a deadfall of plastic skeleton bones spilling out beside her. She’s leaning over her ankle, massaging it vigorously.

  She glances up as I approach. “What are you doing here?” she snaps.

  I kneel down next to her, swallowing down all my nastiness when I notice how pale she is in the dim light. “Are you okay?”

  Laurel licks her lips, wincing in pain. Then she notices the locket around my neck. A split second later, she spies her own charm bracelet on my wrist. Her face falls. “Looks like you won, huh?” she says woodenly.

  “Seriously,” I say, not really caring about that right now. “What happened? Can you walk?”

  “Probably,” Laurel mumbles. She sighs and shifts, trying to get to her feet. But her face pinches in pain, and she slumps back again, her shoulders shaking.

  “Hey,” I say softly, gingerly placing my hand on her back. “It’s okay. If anything, it’s probably a sprained ankle or something. We’ll get you out of here. No biggie.”

  Laurel looks up at me. I can’t really see her expression, but I can tell by the tear-clogged sniff that she’s really crying hard. “I don’t care about my stupid ankle!” she exclaims suddenly. “Don’t you realize, Sutton? I have no friends. The boy I love is missing, maybe dead in a ditch somewhere, and now I can’t even be in the Lying Game.” She chokes back a sob, leaning against the dusty, cracked plaster of the wall. “Everything in my life is terrible right now. So excuse me if I cry about it for a few minutes. Excuse me if I’m human.”

  I shut my eyes, not wanting to see her in such pain. Once again, I hate that I’ve kept Thayer’s calls a secret. I wish I could tell Laurel what I know. Right then, watching her shoulders rack with sobs, I wish I could tell her anything that would make her feel better.

  I smooth her hair back from her forehead. Then I hug her, breathing in the smell of her lilac body wash. It’s mine, actually; she pinched it from my toiletries case. “I’ve been a bitch,” I hear myself say, surprising myself.

  She looks away from me, tears still shining in her eyes. “I don’t blame you,” she says hoarsely. “I’ve been a bitch, too—and a lame one at that. No wonder everyone likes you better . . . the kids at school, Mads and Char . . . Thayer.”

  I flinch with surprise, wondering exactly what she’s saying. “Laurel, that’s not true,” I protest. Not anymore at least.

  “Yes, it is!” Laurel cries. She scoots away from me, burying her head in her hands and crying harder. She tightens herself into a ball, arms wrapped around her legs and forehead resting on her knees. “Sometimes I don’t know why I bother at all. Everyone would probably be happier if I just disappeared, too.”

  Tears prick at the corners of my eyes. I never realized Laurel was taking things this hard. I never knew she felt this lonely. Would I rather leave her out of the Lying Game? Yes. But how guilty would I feel for weeks—months—years—if I did? Was it worth it?

  A memory washes over me: Laurel and I are in my bedroom, making up a dance we were going to put on for our parents. I can’t remember all the steps, but I remember both of us laughing hysterically at a move where we pretended we were cowgirls twirling invisible lassos. That night, like almost every night when we were that age, Laurel had curled up in my bed beside me, her hand tucked in mine.

  And suddenly, I realize that I miss Laurel, too. What changed? Where did it go wrong? Why did it all far apart? In that moment, sitting in the dark with my crying sister, I feel as though I’ve lost something huge, something way more important than my locket. And I don’t even know how to get it back.

  Then, just like that, I decide. I reach down, slipping her charm bracelet off my wrist. I unwind her arms from her legs and drop the bracelet into her outstretched hand. “Take it. It’s yours. Pretend you found it first.”

  Laurel gazes at me. With her free hand, she wipes her eyes again. “What? Are you serious?”

  I grit my teeth, not believing it myself. “Apparently, yes.” I throw my hands up in the air. “Whatever. You can be part of the Lying Game. Okay?”

  Laurel sniffs again, a devilish smile spreading across her face. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out her cell phone. “I recorded you saying that, you know?”

  “Fine, whatever.” I roll my eyes. “Don’t make a huge thing about it.”

  “So no take-backs. I have my proof,” Laurel says, starting to get up and shaking out her ankle. I quickly put my shoulder under her arm to take some of her weight.

  “Right, I get it. Now let’s get this ankle looked at, okay?”

  “Oh, I’ll be fine,” Laurel says as she limps toward the exit of the haunted house. “No pain, no gain, right?”

  “I have to admit—recording me was smart.” I glance at her sideways, her bracelet jangling in the silence. “You might be an asset to the group after all.”

  “Of course I will be,” she says as we reach the door underneath the neon EXIT sign. “I did learn from the best.”

  “Good point,” I say with a smile and, giggling, we push the door open together, the cool night air rushing toward us.

  13

  SEEING DOUBLE

  Even though it’s getting late and we need to start our long drive home soon, we head to Le Cirque for a celebratory dinner. The walls are adorned with vibrant murals, and the ceiling is tented in a soft, elegant approximation of a circus big top. Bright yellow roses sit at the center of every table, casting a buttery glow over the white linen tablecloths, and dangling chandeliers in rich blue Murano glass light the space warmly. Conversation is low over the clatter of silverware, and our server places a silver ice bucket beside our table with a promise to come by with a bottle of Veuve momentarily.

  “The perks of being a ‘celebrity,’” I joke, adjusting the strap of my one-shouldered minidress—Mads and Char returned all my luggage to me after the game ended. “The champagne never stops flowing.”

  “Oh, Sutton. The first prank. Seems like just yesterday.” Charlotte tilts her head to the side and softens her eyes in a fake-nostalgic gaze. The braids she’s wound into her hair catch the overhead light, glinting copper.

  “It was just yesterday,” Madeline says with a snort. She straightens in her seat, pulling her faux-fur shrug over her shoulders. “And now, I think it’s time for the official initiation to begin.”

  Charlotte clears her throat and taps her fork against her champagne flut
e lightly. “Hear ye, hear ye.”

  I roll my eyes. “Oh my God. Come on.” I love Char, but leave it to her to dork out over this whole moment.

  “Hear ye,” she insists. “The official Lying Game initiation of Laurel Mercer shall now commence.” She reaches into her embossed Lauren Merkin clutch and pulls out a white laminated card.

  Mads giggles, winding a lock of hair around her finger. “We made that at a booth on the strip before you guys got to the amusement park.”

  I whip my head up. “You made her a card before she even got in?”

  Mads shrugs. “We wouldn’t have given it to her if she didn’t win the challenge, but we wanted to have it ready just in case.”

  Char slides the card to Laurel. “I dub thee: Head Sneaky Bitch and Director of Velvet Rope-Hopping. Welcome to the Lying Game.”

  Laurel skims the writing on the card and squeals. We all clink glasses, and it’s done.

  A new member. It’ll take some getting used to, but maybe it’ll be okay after all. Four is a rounder number—we’ve been shorthanded for our pranks sometimes. And Laurel has gazed at me appreciatively all night, randomly giving me hugs. It’s a little bit annoying, but a little bit sweet, too.

  Afterward, we head to The Bank, the club at the Bellagio, where Garrett, Tucker, and Marcus are waiting for us. The club is loud and crowded, but the lights onstage are dim while stagehands set up for a live performance that’s coming on later. Garrett got a tip that there’s going to be a surprise appearance happening, and given who we saw outside Saucy the other night, we have our fingers crossed for a Rihanna drive-by.

  Dance music kicks up over the sound system, and a smoke machine rolls a sweet-smelling haze over the room. Laurel, Madeline, and the boys weave toward the dance floor, and when my sister reaches an arm back to beckon to me, I follow.

  Before I reach the dance floor, a hand circles my wrist. It’s Charlotte, her face so close to mine when I turn that I can make out each individual fleck of glitter in her MAC eye shadow. She cups a hand around her mouth and leans even closer.