The Last Time I Lied_A Novel

by Riley Sager

  I do. Maybe.

  “Has anyone talked to the kitchen staff?” I say. “The other day, I caught one of them staring at the campers on the beach. Not a good stare, either. It was creepy.”

  “Creepy?”

  “Like he didn’t think it was wrong to ogle a sixteen-year-old girl.”

  “So it was a male?”

  I give a firm nod. “The tag on his apron said his name was Marvin. Two other kitchen workers were there. Women. They saw the whole thing.”

  “I’ll be sure to ask around,” Flynn says, writing down everything.

  Seeing his pen scurry over the paper pleases me. It means I’m helping. Energized, I grab the coffee and take another bitter gulp.

  “Let’s talk about fifteen years ago,” Flynn says. “I’ve been informed you were here when three other girls went missing. Is that correct?”

  I stare at him, slightly uneasy. “I assume you already know that it is.”

  “You were staying in the same cabin, were you not?”

  I detect more suspicion in his voice. Less subtle this time around.

  “Yes,” I say, buzzing with defensiveness. “None of them, by the way, were among the vast majority you claim to have been located and returned home.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “Then why are you asking me about it?”

  Flynn pretends not to hear the question and plows ahead. “Back then, a fellow camper said she heard you and one of the girls who vanished fighting earlier that night.”

  Becca. Of course she told the police about what she’d heard. But I can’t be too mad at her for that. I would have done the same thing if the roles had been reversed.

  “It was an argument,” I say weakly. “Not a fight.”

  “What was this argument about?”

  “I honestly can’t remember,” I say, when of course I can. Me screaming at Vivian about Theo. Just a stupid girl fighting over a stupid boy.

  “As you mentioned, none of those girls were seen or heard from again,” Flynn says. “Why do you think that is?”

  “I’m not an expert on disappearances.”

  “Yet you’re hesitant to think this current set of missing girls ran away.”

  “Because I know them,” I say. “They wouldn’t do something like that.”

  “And what about the girls who went missing fifteen years ago? You knew them, too.”

  “I did.”

  “You knew them well enough to get angry at them.”

  “One of them.”

  I reach for the coffee and take another gulp, this time to steel myself.

  “Maybe even violently angry.”

  Flynn catches me mid-sip. The coffee stops halfway down my throat, choking me. I let out a series of short, rough coughs. Coffee and spittle fling from my mouth.

  “What are you implying?” I say between coughs.

  “I’m just being thorough, Miss Davis.”

  “Maybe you should start searching for Miranda, Krystal, and Sasha instead. Be thorough with that.”

  I take another look out the window. The troopers are still there, milling outside the mess hall. It’s as if they’re guarding the place. Trying to keep someone out.

  Or someone in.

  A grim understanding settles over me. I now know the reason no one seems to be searching for the girls. Why Detective Flynn keeps focusing on my relationships with all of them. I should have seen it coming. I should have realized it the moment I woke up and Miranda, Sasha, and Krystal were gone.

  I’m a suspect.

  The only suspect.

  “I didn’t touch those girls. Then or now.”

  “You have to admit, it’s an awfully big coincidence,” Flynn says. “Fifteen years ago, all the girls from your cabin vanished in the night. All of them but you. Now here we are, with all the girls from your cabin once again vanishing in the night. All of them but you.”

  “I was thirteen the first time it happened. What kind of violence do you think a thirteen-year-old girl is capable of?”

  “I have a daughter that age,” Flynn says. “You’d be surprised.”

  “And what about now?” I say, wincing at both the hysterical pitch of my voice and the headache that accompanies it. “I’m an artist. I’m here to teach girls how to paint. I have absolutely no reason to hurt anyone.”

  In my head, a much cooler voice speaks to me. Keep calm, Emma. Think clearly. Go over what you know.

  “I’m not the only one who was here back then,” I say. “There are plenty of others.”

  Casey, for example, although I doubt she could swat a mosquito let alone hurt two sets of girls for no apparent reason. Then there’s Becca, who definitely had a reason to hate Vivian, Natalie, and Allison.

  I think about Theo. About seeing him with Vivian in the shower. About me pounding his chest. Where are they? What did you do to them?

  But Theo had a sound alibi fifteen years ago. Franny is a different story entirely. Vivian’s diary slides into my thoughts.

  I’m close to finding out her dirty little secret.

  I know the truth.

  I’m scared.

  “I think you should talk to Franny,” I say.

  “Why?”

  “Vivian—she’s one of the girls who vanished fifteen years ago—was poking around camp. Investigating.”

  “Investigating what?” Flynn asks, his impatience more pronounced.

  God, I wish I knew. Although Vivian had left behind plenty of clues, there’s nothing to pinpoint what, exactly, Franny might be hiding.

  “Something Franny might have wanted to keep secret.”

  “Wait, are you saying you think Mrs. Harris-White did something to the girls in your cabin? Not just now, but also fifteen years ago?”

  It sounds ridiculous. It is ridiculous. But it’s the only reason I can think of to explain a situation that defies easy explanation. Everything I’ve learned since coming back to camp points to such a conclusion. Vivian was looking for something, possibly related to Peaceful Valley Asylum. She found it and enlisted the help of Natalie and Allison. All three promptly vanished. That can’t be a coincidence. Now I’m back, looking for what Vivian was after, and Miranda, Krystal, and Sasha also go missing. Again, too strange to be a coincidence.

  It’s possible Vivian stumbled upon something Franny was desperate to keep hidden. Perhaps something worth killing over. Now maybe I’m on the verge of finding it out, too, and this is another warning from Franny.

  Her story about the falcons shoots into my brain, breaking through all my other cluttered thoughts. Is that why she told it? To make me frightened enough to stop searching? Did she tell Vivian the same story after she’d been caught in the Lodge?

  “It makes more sense than thinking I did it,” I say.

  “This is a good person you’re talking about.” Flynn puts down his notebook, pulls out a handkerchief, mops his brow. “Hell, she’s the biggest taxpayer in this county. All this land? That’s a lot of property taxes she pays each year. Yet she’s never complained. Never tried to pay less. In fact, she gives just as much to charity. The main hospital in the county? Guess whose name is on the damn building?”

  “All I know is that it wasn’t me,” I say. “It was never me.”

  “So you say. But no one knows what happened. We only have your word, which, if you’ll excuse me, seems kind of suspect.”

  “Something strange is going on here.”

  The detective shoves the handkerchief back in his pocket and gives me an expectant look. “Would you care to elaborate?”

  I’d been hoping it wouldn’t reach this point. That Detective Flynn would accept my word as fact and start trying to find out what really happened to Miranda, Krystal, and Sasha. But now there’s no choice. I have to tell him everything. Because maybe
everything that happened—the shower, the birds, the person at the window—wasn’t directed at me. Maybe it was meant for one of the girls.

  “Someone’s been watching me all week,” I say. “I was spied on in the shower. Someone put birds in the cabin.”

  “Birds?” Flynn says, once again reaching for his notebook.

  “Crows. Three of them. One morning, I woke up and saw someone standing at the window. They’d vandalized the outside of the cabin.”

  “When was this?”

  “Two days ago.”

  “What was the vandalism?”

  “Someone had painted the door.” I hesitate before saying the rest. “They wrote the word liar.”

  Flynn’s brows arch. Exactly the reaction I’m expecting. “Interesting word choice. Any reason behind it?”

  “Yes,” I say, annoyed. “Maybe to preemptively make sure no one believes me.”

  “Or maybe you did it to deflect suspicion from yourself.”

  “You think I planned to abduct those girls?”

  “That makes about as much sense as everything else you’ve told me,” Flynn says.

  My headache flares—a fire at my temples.

  This isn’t happening.

  I’m not going crazy.

  “Someone was watching us,” I say. “Someone was there.”

  “It’s hard to believe you without any proof,” Flynn says. “And right now, there’s nothing to back up your story.”

  Another realization swerves into my head. One I was too upset to conjure until just now. One that will prove to Flynn he’s wrong about me.

  “There is,” I say. “A camera. Pointed right at the cabin door.”

  28

  The cabin glows green on the monitor, thanks to its night-vision feature. It’s an ugly green. A queasy shade made worse by the camera’s position. Instead of a straight shot from the back of one cabin to the front of Dogwood, it’s been angled downward into a bird’s-eye view that induces vertigo.

  “The camera is motion sensitive,” Chet explains. “It starts recording only when movement is detected. It stops when whatever it’s recording also stops moving. Each time the camera records something, a digital file is automatically saved. For instance, this is a paused shot from the night it was installed.”

  On-screen, the cabin door is ajar. The motion that triggered the camera. In that sliver of darkness, I can make out a foot and a green-tinted glimpse of leg.

  Chet moves to a second monitor—one of three that sit side by side in the Lodge’s basement. While most of the space is filled with tidily stacked boxes and cobwebbed furniture, just as Mindy had predicted on my arrival-day tour, one corner has been outfitted with unpainted drywall and a floor of white linoleum. This is where the monitors reside, sitting on a metal desk with two PC towers slid together like books on a shelf.

  Chet occupies a creaky office chair in front of the desk. The rest of us—Theo, Franny, Detective Flynn, and myself—stand behind him.

  “This all seems pretty elaborate for one camera at one cabin,” Flynn says.

  “It’s just a test camera,” Chet replies. “We’re going to install more throughout the camp. For security reasons. At least, that was the plan.”

  Behind him, Franny flinches. Like the rest of us, she knows there won’t be a camp left unless Krystal, Sasha, and Miranda are found by the end of the day. This could very well end her dream of one last glorious summer.

  “The camera can also be set to a constant live feed. That’s what this is.” Chet points to the third monitor, a daytime view of Dogwood. “Usually the live feed is turned off because there’s no one to constantly monitor it. I turned it on while we’re all down here, just in case the girls return.”

  I stare at the screen, hoping against hope I’ll see Sasha, Krystal, or Miranda come into view, returning from an extended hike, oblivious to all the worry they’ve caused. Instead, I see Casey pass by, leading a group of crying girls to their cabins. Mindy appears next, bringing up the rear. She gives the camera a fleeting glance as she passes.

  “The recordings are stored here,” Chet says, using a mouse to open a file folder located on the center monitor. Inside are dozens of digital files identified only by a series of numbers. “The file names correspond to the day, hour, minute, and second each recording was made. So this file—0630044833—means it was recorded on June thirtieth, thirty-three seconds after four forty-eight a.m.”

  He clicks once, and the image frozen on the first monitor jerks to life. The door opens wider, and I see myself slip out of the cabin and walk awkwardly out of the camera’s view. I recall that moment well. Heading to the latrine at the break of dawn armed with a full bladder and a swarm of memories.

  “What were you doing up at that hour?” Flynn asks.

  “I was going to the bathroom,” I say, bristling. “I assume that’s still legal.”

  “Are there files from last night?” Flynn asks Chet, who uses the mouse to scroll down and check the folders.

  “Several.”

  Flynn turns to me. “You said you realized the girls were gone at about five, right?”

  “Yes,” I say. “And they were there when I went to sleep last night.”

  “What time was this?”

  I shake my head, unable to remember. I was too dazed—by whiskey, by memories—to keep track of the time.

  “There’s one file from between midnight and four,” Chet announces. “Then there are three between four thirty and five thirty this morning.”

  “Let’s see them,” Flynn says.

  “This is from a little after one.”

  Chet clicks the first file, and Dogwood appears. At first, there’s no movement at all, making me wonder what triggered the camera. But then something appears—a green-white blur just on the edge of the screen. A mother deer and two fawns step into frame, their eyes giving off a chartreuse glow as they carefully cross in front of Dogwood. Twenty seconds tick by as they make their way past the cabin. Once the second fawn exits the frame, its white tail flicking, the camera shuts off.

  “That’s it for those hours,” Chet says. “This one is about five minutes before five.”

  He clicks, and the first monitor lights up again. It’s the same view as before, minus the deer but with the addition of the cabin door slowly opening.

  Miranda is the first to emerge. She pokes her head outside, looking in both directions, making sure the coast is clear. Then she tiptoes out of the cabin, wearing her camp polo and cargo shorts. A pale rectangle is clenched in her hand. Her phone.

  She’s soon followed by Sasha and Krystal, sticking close together. Krystal carries a flashlight and a rolled-up comic book stuffed into the back pocket of her cargo shorts. I can make out the edge of Captain America’s shield emblazoned on the cover. Sasha carries a water bottle, which she drops when closing the cabin door. It rolls along the ground, out of frame. Sasha runs after it, disappearing for a second. When she returns, the three of them confer in front of the cabin door, oblivious to the camera’s presence. Eventually they go right, heading toward the heart of camp, vanishing one by one.

  First Miranda, then Krystal, and finally Sasha.

  I make a note of the order in which they depart, just in case I’ll need to paint them one day. I hate myself for thinking this way.

  “This is five minutes later,” Chet says once the screen goes dark and he opens the next file.

  I don’t need to look at the monitor to know what it shows. Me emerging from the cabin in bare feet and the T-shirt and boxer shorts I wore to bed the night before. I pause outside the door, rubbing my arms to ward off the chill. Then I walk away in the opposite direction of the girls, toward the latrine. Even though I know what to expect, the footage is a gut punch.

  Five minutes. That’s how little time had passed between the girls leaving the cabin and my rea
lizing they were gone.

  Five fucking minutes.

  I question every thought I had and every move I made this morning. If only I had awakened earlier. If only I hadn’t wasted so much time thinking of reasons for why they’d be gone. If only I had gone to the mess hall instead of the latrine.

  In any of those scenarios, I might have spotted the girls retreating to wherever it was they went to. I might have been able to stop them.

  Even worse is how guilty it makes me look. Stepping outside mere minutes after the girls departed. While it was a complete coincidence, it doesn’t appear that way. It looks intentional, like I was waiting to follow them at a discreet distance. It doesn’t matter that I went in the opposite direction. Because the next video—the final one from that highly trafficked predawn hour—shows me walking past Dogwood during my wander around the cabins. I stare at my image on the monitor, noticing the hard set of my jaw and the blankness in my eyes. I know it’s worry, but to others it might look like anger as I unwittingly followed the same path the girls had taken.

  “I was looking for them,” I say, preempting any questions from the others. “It was right after I woke up and realized they were gone. I searched the latrine first, then looked around the cabins before heading to the other side of camp.”

  “You’ve already mentioned that,” Detective Flynn says. “But, again, there’s no way to prove that. All this video does is confirm that you left the cabin not long after the girls did. And now no one can find them.”

  “I didn’t do anything to those girls!”

  I look to Chet, to Theo, to Franny, silently begging them to back me up, even though there’s no reason they should. I’m not surprised when, instead of coming to my defense, Franny says, “Normally, I wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing this. Everyone has a right to privacy, especially regarding incidents in their past. But under these circumstances, I feel I must. Emma, please forgive me.”

  She offers a look that’s half-apology, half-pity. I don’t want either. So I look away as Franny says, “Years ago, Miss Davis was under psychiatric care for an undisclosed mental illness.”