Page 99 of The Last Time I Lied

I opened my mouth. My heart thundered so hard I felt it in my teeth.

“It’s Theo,” I said. “Theodore Harris-White.”

I didn’t believe it, not even as I said it. Yet I wanted to. I wanted to think Theo had something to do with the girls’ disappearance,that he was capable of hurting them. Because he alreadyhadhurt someone.

Me.

He shattered my heart without even realizing it.

This was my chance to hurt him back.

“Are you sure?” the trooper said.

I tried to convince myself it wasn’t bitter jealousy making me do this. That it made sense Theo would be involved. Once Vivian, Natalie, and Allison returned to the locked cabin, the first thing they would have done was find a counselor. They didn’t because they had been out after hours, not to mention drinking. Both offenses would have gotten them kicked out of camp. So they had gone to the one person of authority they could trust—Theo. Now they were missing, likely presumed dead. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

At least that’s the lie I told myself.

“I’m certain,” I said.

A few minutes later, I was allowed to return to Dogwood. The area outside the arts and crafts building hummed with activity as I left. There were cops and reporters and the bray of bloodhounds in the distance. Troopers had already started searching the camp pickup. I spotted them as I passed, peering into the open cab doors and rifling through the glove compartment.

When I turned away, I saw a search party just returning from a trek through the woods. Most of them were townies, come to help any way they could. But I spotted a few familiar faces in the crowd. The kitchen worker who had piled my plate with pancakes on the Fourth of July, which suddenly felt like weeks ago. The handyman who always seemed to be fixing something around camp.

Then there was Theo, looking haggard in jeans and a T-shirt darkened by sweat. His hair was a shambles. A smudge of dirt stained his cheek.

I flung myself toward him, not quite knowing what I intended to do until I was right there in front of him. I was both mad atVivian and terrified for her, furious at Theo and in love with him. So my hands curled into fists. I pounded his chest.

“Where are they?” I cried. “What did you do to them?”

Theo didn’t move, didn’t flinch.

Further proof in my confused mind that he had already steeled himself for a beating from my tiny hands.

That, deep down, he knew he deserved it.

29

This isn’t happening.

I’m not going crazy.

The words crash into my brain the moment I regain consciousness, making me sit up with a start. My head slams into something hard above me. Pain pulses along my hairline, joining another, previously unnoticed pain at the back of my head.

“Whoa,” someone says. “Easy.”

A moment of pure confusion passes before I realize where I am. Camp Nightingale. Dogwood. Ensconced in a bunk bed, the top of which I just introduced to my forehead. The person who spoke is Theo. He sits on my hickory trunk with Sasha’s copy ofNational Geographic, passing the time until I wake up.

I rub my head, my palm alternating between the two points of pain. The one in the front is already fading. The one in the back is the opposite. It grows in intensity.

“You took quite a tumble in the cellar,” Theo says. “I broke some of your fall, but you still banged your head pretty bad.”

I slide out of bed and stand, gripping Miranda’s bunk in case I need support. My legs are rubbery but strong enough to keep me upright. Small traces of the dark fuzziness that engulfed me in the Lodge remain. I blink until they’re gone.

“You need to rest,” Theo says.

That’s impossible at the moment. Not with him here. Not whenmy limbs tingle with anxiety, aching and restless. I look around the cabin and see everything is the same as it was this morning. Sasha’s bed is still meticulously made. Krystal’s teddy bear remains a lump beneath the blankets.

“They’re still missing, aren’t they?”

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