Page 76 of The Last Time I Lied

“I don’t know, Emma. I really don’t.”

“You must have some theory. Everyone else does.”

“Theories don’t matter,” Franny says. “It’s no good dwelling on what happened. What’s done is done. Besides, I don’t like being reminded of how much that disappearance cost me in so many ways.”

That’s a sentiment I can understand. Camp Nightingale was forced to close. Franny’s reputation was sullied. The taint of suspicion never entirely left Theo. Then there was the matter of three separate lawsuits filed by Vivian’s, Natalie’s, and Allison’s parents, accusing the camp of negligence. All three were settled immediately, for an undisclosed sum.

“I wanted to have one last summer of things being the way they used to be,” she says. “That’s why I reopened the camp. I thought if I could do that successfully, with a new mission, then it might ease the pain of what happened fifteen years ago. One last glorious summer here. And then I could die a content woman.”

“That’s a nice reason,” I say.

“I think so,” Franny replied. “And it would certainly be a shame if something happened to spoil it.”

The ache in my heart fades to numbness as yet another thing Vivian wrote in her diary commands my thoughts.

She definitely suspects something.

“I’m sure it won’t.” I try to sound chipper when I say it, hopingit hides the sudden unease overcoming me. “Everyone I’ve talked to is having a great time.”

Franny tears her gaze away from the water and looks at me, her green eyes untouched by illness. They’re watchful, probing, as if they can read my thoughts. “And what about you, Emma? Are you enjoying your time here?”

“I am,” I say, unable to stare back. “Very much.”

“Good,” Franny says. “I’m so pleased.”

Her voice contains not a hint of pleasure. It’s as chilly as the slight breeze that gusts across the lake and ripples the water. I pull my robe tight around me, fending off the sudden cold, and look to the Lodge, where Lottie has emerged on the back deck.

“There you are,” she calls down to Franny. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine, Lottie. Emma and I are just chatting about camp.”

“Don’t be too long,” Lottie says. “Your breakfast isn’t getting any warmer.”

“You should go,” I tell Franny. “And I should probably wake the girls in Dogwood.”

“But I haven’t finished my story about Chet and the falcons,” Franny says. “It ends not long after those birds emerged from their eggs. Chet was obsessed with them, as I’ve said. Spent all his free time watching them. I think he truly grew to love those birds. But then something happened that he wasn’t prepared for. Those eyesses got hungry. So the mother falcon did what mother falcons are known to do. She fed them. Chet watched her leave her perch outside our window and fly into the sky, circling, until prey appeared. It was a pigeon. A poor, unsuspecting pigeon probably on its way to Central Park. That mama falcon swooped down and snatched it in midair. She brought it back to the nest by our window, and as Chet watched, she used that sharp, curved beak to tear that pigeon apart and feed it to her babies, piece by piece.”

I shudder as she talks, picturing flapping wings and downy feathers floating in the air like snow.

“You can’t blame that mother falcon,” Franny says matter-of-factly. “She was simply doing what she needed to do. Taking care of her children. That was her job. But it broke Chet’s heart. He watched those squawking little eyesses too closely, and they showed their true natures. Some of his innocence was taken away that day. Not much. Just the tiniest bit. But it was a part of him he would never be able to get back. And although we don’t talk about those falcons, I’m certain that he’d say he regrets watching them closely. I think he’d say that he wished he hadn’t looked so much.”

Franny climbs to her feet, struggling slightly, the effort leaving her body quivering. The blanket slips, and I get a peek at her rail-thin arms. Pulling the blanket around herself, she says, “You have a good morning, Emma.”

She shuffles away, leaving me alone to contemplate the story of Chet and the falcons. While it didn’t sound like a lie, it also didn’t quite have the ring of truth.

It might have been, I realize with another robe-tightening chill, a threat.

24

The morning painting class is spent in a state of distraction. The girls arrange their easels in a circle around the usual still-life fodder. Table. Vase. Flowers. I monitor their progress with disinterest, more concerned with the bracelet that’s once again around my wrist. I’d managed to fix the clasp with some colored string from Casey’s craft station—a stopgap measure I suspect won’t last until the end of the day, let alone the rest of the summer. Not the way I’m constantly twisting it.

I’m made nervous by all the activity drifting through the building like a tide. Becca and her budding photographers marching in from the woods. Casey and her crafters stringing slim leather necklaces with beads. All these girls. All these prying eyes.

And one of them knows what I did fifteen years ago. A fact I’m sure I’ll be reminded of sooner rather than later.

I give the bracelet another tug as I stand next to Miranda, examining her work in progress. When her gaze lingers on my wrist, I pull my hand away from the bracelet and look out the window.

From the arts and crafts building, I have an angled view of the Lodge, where various members of the Harris-White family come and go. I see Mindy and Chet bickering about something as they head to the mess hall, followed by Theo trotting past on a morningjog. A minute later I spot Lottie gingerly guiding Franny toward the lake.

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