Never Lie

by Freida McFadden

Liars fidget. The tone of their voice or speech patterns changes.

Liars offer too much information, babbling on with excessive detail to convince themselves or others of what they are saying.

I will know the truth. I always know. Never lie to me.

It’s so amazing sharing my life with him. Except for the one big secret he doesn’t know about yet.

Because as I stare out at this sprawling estate, a sick feeling comes over me.

My mother always said not to leave the house in shoes you can’t walk a mile in.

“Adrienne Hale,” he reads off the back cover. “Isn’t she that shrink who got murdered?”

How are you? The three most useless words in the universe of communication. Nobody who asks that question wants to know the answer. And nobody who answers ever tells the truth.

Isolation is not necessarily dangerous.

The Anatomy of Fear.

I just hope he feels the same way about me after he finds out about my revelation. I feel ill every time I think about it. But I can’t keep it from him much longer.

I refuse to accept any patients with whom I do not feel comfortable. With one exception. But that will resolve itself soon enough.

Human beings don’t deal well with rejection. Back when our ancestors were hunters and gatherers, being ostracized from a tribe was akin to a death sentence. For that reason, rejection is experienced by human beings as being incredibly painful. Studies using functional MRI have shown the same areas of the brain become activated both during rejection and during real physical pain.

narcissistic personality disorder—the

characteristics of this diagnosis include a long-term pattern of exaggerated feelings of self-importance, cravings for admiration, and impaired empathy.

A psychological study demonstrated that cheating or breaking rules results in an unexpectedly good mood afterward. As well as a brief sense of freedom from all rules. So perhaps we should all bend the rules sometimes.

There’s a famous experiment by a Yale psychologist named Stanley Milgram—or should I say, infamous. The experiment measured the willingness of study participants to perform terrible acts when instructed to do so by an authority figure. Subjects were led to believe they were participating in an experiment in which they were a “teacher” administering electric shocks to another subject—the “learner”—every time he got the answer to a question wrong.

In reality, the “learner” was an actor. And the electric shocks were fake.

During the experiment, the learner would ...

The subjects grew increasingly uncomfortable as the experiment proceeded, but here is the amazing part: Every single subject administered shocks of at least 300 V. And more than half of them administered a shock of 450 V—a fatal shock if it had been real.

believe that any human being is capable of terrible things if you push them hard enough.

I didn’t know what to expect when Ethan opened up that compartment. But that was like nothing I’d ever seen before. A rotting corpse, stuffed under the floorboards.

“It’s our only choice.” He slams his palms against the table so hard that all the dishes shake. “I’m not fucking killing anyone, Adrienne, okay?”

“What do you want, Dr. Hale?” “I have a little problem. And I need your help.” “What kind of problem?” “There’s somebody who’s been causing me some trouble. I’d like to take care of it, but I can’t do it myself.” “Well, what do you want me to do?” “Oh, I think you know, Patricia.”

I killed my fiancé, Cody. But he wasn’t a good person.

Like EJ, Patricia has a tell. When she’s going to lie, she crosses her right leg over her left.

Over the last three years, I have informally diagnosed her with antisocial personality disorder, based on her impaired empathy for other people, her aggressive and criminal behavior, as well as her history of lying and deception. Like many other people with antisocial personality disorder, Patricia is charming and attractive, with above-average intelligence. If she didn’t have that going for her, she might not have gotten away with it.

He’ll never know what I’ve done. I’m going to keep it that way.

“Fine,” he says. “I killed her.”

“Ethan?” I whisper. He rips his blue eyes away from the fire and looks straight into mine. “I think that guy Luke is going to be a big problem. He knows way too much.” My heart flutters. “Yes. Yes. I was thinking the same thing.”

“And also…” He is the one who reaches for my hand this time. “I’m glad I’m here to help you. We can take care of this problem the right way. Together.” I squeeze his big, warm hand. “I knew you would know exactly what to do.”

Ethan walks over to the bookcase, and he picks up the carving knife he left there. He grips the handle with his right hand.

I rifle around in the pockets and my fingers make contact with the cassette tape I stashed there. I pull it out, looking at my initials on the side of the tape. I’m a different person now than the girl on the tape. But in other ways, I haven’t changed at all.

For a moment, I stand there and watch it burn. Then I join my husband.

And now that he’s gone, he’s reunited with his precious Adrienne, if you believe in such things.

Both of us will take that secret to our graves. At least, I will.

If somebody came around and started asking questions, I’m not sure how he would hold up.

Hopefully, that won’t ever happen. But if it does, I’m prepared to take care of the situation. After all, my mother always said that the only way two people can keep a secret is if one of them is dead.