Page 102 of The Last Time I Lied

“There was no me and Vivian.”

“You don’t need to lie about it. Not anymore.”

“I’m not lying. What are you talking about?”

“I saw you, Theo. You and Vivian. In the shower. I saw, and it broke my heart.”

“When was this?” Theo says.

“The night they vanished.”

I don’t need to say anything else. Theo understands the rest. Why I accused him. How that accusation has followed him since. He sits up and rubs his jaw, his fingers cutting through the salt-and-pepper stubble.

I had always thought having the truth exposed would make me feel better. That relief would flood my body from my head to the tips of my toes. Instead, I only feel guilty. And petty. And unbearably sad.

“I’m so, so sorry,” I say. “I was young and stupid and worried about the girls and heartbroken because of you. So when that state trooper asked me if any of them had a boyfriend no one knew about, I told her that you were secretly seeing Vivian.”

“But I wasn’t,” he replies.

“Theo, Isawyou.”

“You sawsomeone. Just not me. Yes, Vivian flirted and made it clear she’d be up for it. But I was never interested.”

I replay that moment in my mind. Hearing the moans muffled by the rush of the shower. Peering through the space between the planks. Seeing Vivian shoved against the wall, her hair running down her neck in wet tendrils, twisting like snakes. Theo behind her. Pushing into her. Face buried against her neck.

His face.

I never actually saw it.

I had just assumed it was Theo because I had seen him in the shower before.

“It had to be you,” I say. “There’s no one else it could be. You were the only man in the entire camp.”

Even as the words emerge, I know I’m wrong. There was someone else here close to Theo’s age. Someone who went unnoticed, simply doing his job, hiding in plain sight.

“The groundskeeper,” I say.

“Ben,” Theo says with a huff of disgust. “And if he did something like that back then, who knows what he’s been up to now.”

30

“Tell me about the girls,” Detective Flynn says. “The ones who are missing. Did you have any interactions with them?”

“I might have seen them. Don’t remember if I did or not, but probably.”

“Did you have any interactions withanyof the girls in camp?”

“Not on purpose. Maybe if I needed to get somewhere and they were in my way, I’d say excuse me. Other than that, I keep to myself.”

He looks up at us from a chair built for someone half his age, his gaze resting a moment on each of our faces. First me. Then Theo. And finally Detective Flynn.

We’re all in the arts and crafts building, the mess hall having been taken over by the remaining campers and instructors for dinner. I spotted them glumly filing inside as Theo and I headed next door. A few of the girls still wept. Most wore stunned, blank expressions that were occasionally punctuated by disbelief. I saw it in their eyes when they lifted their faces to the sky as the search helicopter made another deafening pass over camp.

So we ended up here, in a former horse stable painted to resemble a storybook forest, lit by fluorescent bulbs that buzz overhead. I stand next to Theo, keeping several feet of space between us. I still don’t entirely trust him. I’m sure he feels the same wayabout me. But for now, we’re uncomfortable allies, united in our suspicion of a man whose full name I’ve only recently learned.

Ben Schumacher.

The groundskeeper. The man who had sex with Vivian. The same man who might know where Miranda, Krystal, and Sasha are. I let Flynn do the talking, choosing to stay silent even though all I want is to pummel Ben Schumacher until he tells me where they are and what he’s done to them.

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