The Last Time I Lied_A Novel

by Riley Sager

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Well, Helmut was a German immigrant who spent ten years out west. When he returned to New York, he sought out his sister, Anya.”

  That name is familiar to me. There was a photograph of someone named Anya tucked into the box I found in the Lodge. I even remember her hair color. Flaxen.

  “Helmut described her as ‘often confused and prone to nervous exasperation,’” Marc says. “We both know what that means.”

  All too well. Anya suffered from a mental ailment that probably didn’t even have a name at the time.

  “It appears that while Helmut was gone, Anya’s condition worsened until she was committed to Blackwell’s Island. He looked for her there and was told she had been put into the care of Dr. Cutler and taken to—”

  “Peaceful Valley,” I say.

  “Bingo. Which is why Helmut Schmidt then traveled upstate to Peaceful Valley to retrieve his sister. Only he couldn’t find it, which is why he spoke to the press about it.”

  “Are you saying it didn’t exist?”

  “No,” Marc says. “I’m saying it vanished.”

  That word again. Vanished. I’ve grown to hate the sound of it.

  “How does an insane asylum just disappear?”

  “No one knew. Or, more likely, no one cared,” Marc says. “Especially because the place was in the middle of nowhere. And those who lived even remotely nearby wanted nothing to do with it. All they knew was that it was run by a doctor and his wife and that the land had been sold a year earlier.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “I guess so. Billy couldn’t find any follow-up articles about Helmut Schmidt and his sister.” I hear the clatter of keys, followed by a single, sharp click. “I just emailed the files.”

  My phone vibrates in my hand. An email alert.

  “Got them,” I say.

  “I hope it helps.” Darkness creeps into Marc’s voice. The telltale sound of concern. “I’m worried about you, Em. Promise me you’ll be careful.”

  “I will.”

  “Pinkie swear?”

  “Yes,” I say, smiling in spite of all my fear, exhaustion, and worry. “Pinkie swear.”

  I end the call and check my email. The first item Marc sent is scans of two pages from the same book I found in the library. One contains the paragraphs mentioning Peaceful Valley, minus Vivian’s pencil mark. The other is the photograph of Charles Cutler cockily standing in front of his asylum.

  The next few files are all text—pages from psychology books, psychiatric journals, a master’s thesis that makes a cursory mention of Peaceful Valley in a section about the history of asylums and progressive treatments. I assume they all served as sources for one another, because the information is almost identical.

  The final file Marc sent holds an assortment of images scanned from various archives. The first picture is the now-familiar one of Charles Cutler outside his domain, although the caption accompanying the photo identifies it only as Peaceful Valley, as if it had been a spa and not an asylum. The second photo is a shot of just the asylum itself—that Gothic main building with turret and weathervane, the utilitarian wing jutting out from its side.

  But it’s the third picture that makes my heart thrum like I’ve just chugged a pot of black coffee. Identified merely as the entrance to Peaceful Valley, it shows a low stone wall broken by a wrought-iron gate and ornate archway.

  They’re the same gate and arch I passed through the other day in Theo’s truck.

  The very same ones that now grace Camp Nightingale.

  The blood freezes in my veins.

  Peaceful Valley Asylum was here. Right on this very piece of land. Which explains why Helmut Schmidt couldn’t find it. By the time he came looking for his sister, Buchanan Harris had already turned the area into Lake Midnight.

  That, I realize, is the information Vivian was looking for. It’s why she snuck into the Lodge and went to the library. It’s why she was so worried about her diary getting into the wrong hands that she rowed across the lake to hide it.

  And it’s why she was so scared.

  Because she learned that there’s a ring of truth to the stories surrounding Lake Midnight. Only it wasn’t a deaf village or a leper colony that got buried beneath the water.

  It was an insane asylum.

  34

  Despite the late hour, Camp Nightingale still crawls with cops. They linger in the arts and crafts building, visible through the lit windows. More stand outside, chatting as they sip coffee, smoke cigarettes, wait for bad news to arrive. One trooper has a sleepy bloodhound at his feet. Both man and dog lift their heads as I hurry to the Lodge.

  “You need something, sweetheart?” the trooper asks.

  “Not from you,” I say, tacking on a sarcastic “sweetheart.”

  At the Lodge, I pound on the red front door, not even trying to be discreet about my arrival. I want the whole fucking place to know I’m here. The pounding continues for a full minute before the door swings away from my fist, revealing Chet. A lock of hair droops over his bloodshot eyes. He pushes it away and says, “You shouldn’t be out of your cabin, Emma.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Where’s Mindy?”

  “Asleep. Where’s your mother?”

  Franny’s voice drifts to the door. “In here, dear. Do you need something?”

  I push past Chet into the entrance hall and then the living room. Franny is there, cocooned in her Navajo blanket. The antique weapons on the wall behind her take on new, sinister meaning. The rifles, the knives, the lone spear.

  “This is certainly a pleasant surprise,” Franny says with faked hospitality. “I suppose you can’t sleep, either. Not with all this unpleasantness.”

  “We need to talk,” I say.

  Chet joins us in the living room. He touches my shoulder, trying to steer me back to the door. Franny gestures for him to stop.

  “About what?” she says.

  “Peaceful Valley Asylum. I know it was on this land. Vivian knew it, too.”

  It’s easy to see why she went looking for it. She’d heard the story about Lake Midnight, possibly from Casey. Like me, she probably considered it nothing more than a campfire tale. But then she found that old box by the water’s edge, filled with scissors that rattled like glass. She did some digging. Searching the Lodge. Sneaking off to the library. Eventually she realized the campfire tale was partially true.

  And she needed to expose it. I suspect she felt a kinship with those women from the asylum, all of them likely drowned, just like her sister.

  Keeping that secret must have made Vivian so lonely and scared. She hinted at it in her diary when referring to Natalie and Allison.

  The less they know the better.

  Vivian wasn’t able to save them. Just like her, they had learned too much after finding her diary. But she had managed to keep me safe. I understand that now. Her mistreatment of me wasn’t an act of cruelty but one of mercy. It was her way of trying to protect me from any danger her discovery created. To save me, she forced me to hate her.

  It worked.

  “The only people she told were Natalie and Allison,” I say. “Then all three of them disappeared. I doubt that was a coincidence.”

  A dainty china cup and saucer sit in front of Franny, the tea inside steaming. When she reaches for them, the cup rattles against the saucer so violently that she sets it down without taking a sip. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  “You can tell me what happened to that asylum. Something bad, right? And all those poor girls there, they suffered, too.”

  Franny tries to pull the blanket tighter around her, the noticeable tremor still in her hands. Veins pulse under her paper-white skin. She loses her grip, and the blanket drifts to her sides. Chet rushes in and pulls it back over her shoulde
rs.

  “That’s enough, Emma,” he barks. “You need to go back to your cabin.”

  I ignore him. “I know those women existed. I saw their pictures.”

  I march to the study, heading straight for the desk and its bottom drawer. I yank it open and see the familiar wooden box right where I had left it. I carry it into the living room and slam it down on the coffee table.

  “These girls right here.” I open the box and grab a handful of photos, holding them up so Franny and Chet see their haunted faces. “Charles Cutler made them grow their hair. Then he chopped it off and sold it. And then they vanished.”

  Franny’s expression softens, turning from fear to something that resembles pity. “Oh, Emma. You poor thing. Now I know why you’ve been so distressed.”

  “Just tell me what happened to them!”

  “Nothing,” Franny says. “Nothing at all.”

  I study her face, looking for hints that she’s lying. I can’t find any.

  “I don’t understand,” I say.

  “I think perhaps I should explain.”

  It’s Lottie who says it. She emerges from the kitchen wearing a silk robe over a nightgown. A mug of coffee rests in her hands.

  “I think that might be best,” Franny says.

  Lottie sits down next to her and reaches for the wooden box. “It just occurred to me, Emma, that you might not know my given name.”

  “It’s not Lottie?”

  “Dear me, no,” Lottie says. “That’s just a nickname Franny gave me when I was a little girl. My real name is Charlotte. I was named after my great-grandfather. Charles Cutler.”

  I falter a moment, buzzing with confusion.

  “His mother was insane,” Lottie says. “My great-great-grandmother. Charles saw what madness did to her and decided to devote his life to helping others who suffered the same way. First at an asylum in New York City. A terrible place. The women forced to endure horrible conditions. They didn’t get better. They only suffered more. So he got the idea to create Peaceful Valley on a large parcel of land owned by my great-grandmother’s family. A small private retreat for a dozen women. For his patients, Charles chose the worst cases he observed in that filthy, overcrowded asylum. Madwomen too poor to afford proper care. Alone. No friends. No families. He took them in.”

  Lottie rifles through the open box, smiling at the photographs as if they were pictures of old friends. She pulls one out and looks at it. On the back, I see the words Juliet Irish Red.

  “From the very beginning, it was a struggle. Even though he and my great-grandmother were the only employees, the asylum required so much money. The patients needed food, clothing, medicine. To make ends meet, he came up with the idea to sell the patients’ hair—with their permission, of course. That kept things afloat for another year or so, but Charles knew Peaceful Valley would eventually have to close. His noble experiment had failed.”

  She pulls out two more photos. Lucille Tawny and Henrietta Golden.

  “But he was a smart man, Emma,” Lottie says. “In that failure, he saw opportunity. He knew an old friend was looking to buy a large parcel of land for a private retreat. A wealthy lumberman named Buchanan Harris. My great-grandfather offered the land at a discounted price if he was given a position in Mr. Harris’s company. That was the start of a relationship between our families that continues today.”

  “But what happened to Peaceful Valley?”

  “It stayed open while my grandfather went about building the dam that would create Lake Midnight,” Franny says.

  “During that time, Charles Cutler found new situations for the women in his care,” Lottie adds. “None of them returned to those brutal asylums in the city. My great-grandfather made sure of it. He was a good man, Emma. He cared deeply about those women. Which is why I still have their photographs. They’re my family’s most prized possession.”

  I sway slightly, shocked my legs are still able to support me. They’ve gone numb, just like the rest of me. I had been so focused on learning Franny’s dark secret that I never stopped to consider that Vivian was wrong.

  “So it had nothing to do with what happened to Vivian and the others?”

  “Not a thing,” Franny says.

  “Then why did you keep it a secret?”

  “We didn’t,” Lottie says. “It’s no secret. Just ancient history, which has been warped over the years.”

  “We know the stories campers tell about Lake Midnight,” Franny adds. “All that hokum about curses, drowned villagers, and ghosts. People always prefer drama over the truth. If Vivian had wanted to know more about it, all she needed to do was ask.”

  I nod, feeling suddenly humiliated. It’s just as bad as when Vivian cut me down right before she disappeared. Almost worse. Once again, I’ve accused someone in the Harris-White family of doing a terrible deed.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, knowing that a simple apology isn’t nearly adequate. “I’m going to go now.”

  “Emma, wait,” Franny says. “Please stay. Have some tea until you feel better.”

  I edge out of the room, unable to accept any more kindness from her. In the entrance hall, I break into a run, fleeing out the front door without closing it behind me. I keep running. Past the cops outside the arts and crafts building. Past the cluster of dark and quiet cabins. All the way to the latrine, where I plan to hop into a shower stall with my clothes still on and pretend I’m not crying tears of shame.

  I stop when I notice a girl standing just outside the latrine. Her stillness catches my attention. That and her white dress aglow in the moonlight.

  Vivian.

  She stands in the woods that encroach upon the camp, just a few feet from the line where the trees end and the grass begins. She says nothing. She only stares.

  I’m not surprised to see her. Not after the day I’ve had. In fact, I’ve been expecting it. I don’t even reach for the bracelet that’s no longer there.

  This meeting was inevitable.

  Rather than speak, Vivian merely turns and walks deeper into the forest, the hem of her white dress scraping the underbrush.

  I start walking, too. Not away from the woods but toward it. Pulled along against my will by Vivian’s reemergence. I cross the threshold separating camp from forest. The point of no return. Under my feet, leaves crunch and sticks snap. A twig from a nearby tree, as slim and gnarled as a witch’s finger, grasps a lock of my hair and gives it a yank. Pain pricks my scalp. Yet I keep walking, telling myself it’s what I need to do. That it’s perfectly normal.

  “I’m not going crazy,” I whisper. “I’m not going crazy.”

  Oh, but I am.

  Of course I am.

  35

  I follow Vivian to the sculpture garden, where she sits in the same chair Franny occupied days earlier. The statues around us watch with their blank eyes.

  “Long time, no see, Em,” Vivian says as I cautiously step between two of the statues. “Miss me?”

  I find my voice. It’s small and meek and skitters like a mouse across the clearing.

  “You’re not real. You have no power over me.”

  Vivian leans back in her chair and crosses her legs, her hands primly folded on her knee. Such a strangely ladylike gesture, especially coming from her. “Then why are you here? I didn’t ask you to follow me. You’re still trailing after me like a lost puppy.”

  “Why did you come back?” I say. “I was doing fine without you. For years.”

  “Oh, you mean painting us then covering us up? Is that the fine you’re talking about? If so, I hate to break it to you, girlfriend, but that’s not fine. I mean, honestly, vanishing once should have been enough for you. But, no, you had to make us do it over and over.”

  “I don’t do that anymore. I’ve stopped.”

  “You’ve paused,” Vivian says. “There’s a difference.�
�

  “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Because I stopped painting you.”

  It’s how I have kept her at bay all these years. Painting her. Covering her up. Doing it again. Then again. Now that I’ve vowed not to do it anymore, she’s returned, demanding my attention.

  “This has nothing to do with me,” Vivian says. “It’s all you, sweetheart.”

  “Then why am I only seeing you and not—”

  “Natalie and Allison?” Vivian lets out a knowing chuckle. “Come on, Em. We both know you don’t really care about them.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “You barely knew them.”

  Vivian stands, and for a quick, heart-halting moment, I think she’s going to reach out and grab me. Instead, she begins to wind her way around the statues, caressing them like lovers. Fingers trickling up arms. Palms gliding across throats.

  “I knew them as well as I knew you,” I tell her.

  “Really? Did you ever have a conversation with either of them? One on one?”

  I did. I know I did. But when I scan my memory, no such recollections appear.

  “Now that I think about it, I’m not sure you even talked to them when I wasn’t around,” Vivian says. “At least not about something other than me.”

  She’s right. It’s true.

  “That’s not my fault,” I say. “You made sure it was that way.”

  Vivian never wasn’t around. She ruled the cabin the same way a queen bee ruled the hive. The rest of us were just drones, buzzing around her, catering to her needs, her whims, her interests.

  “That’s why you’re not seeing Natalie and Allison right now,” Vivian says. “I’m the puzzle you’re still trying to figure out.”

  “Will you go away if I do?”

  Vivian pauses before a sculpture of a woman carrying a jug on her shoulder, her toga slanted across her chest. “That depends. Do you want me to go away?”

  Yes. And I hope you never come back.

  I don’t say it. I can’t. Not that. So I think it. A mental whisper that floats across the clearing, wispy as fog. But Vivian hears it. I know by the way her lips curl upward in cruel amusement.