Never Lie

by Freida McFadden

As I said, everybody lies.

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

So I follow my new husband to the kitchen. But the whole time, I can’t shake the horrible feeling that those green eyes in the portrait over the mantel are watching me.

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.

It’s a cup right by the sink. Half filled with water. The outside dripping with condensation. “Ethan?” My voice sounds shaky. “Yeah?” “I…” I swallow as my eyes stay on the glass. “I think there’s somebody else in this house.”

If he mentions Judy again, I’m going to punch him in the face. “It’s

What the…? I glance over my shoulder. Ethan is nowhere in sight. He’s probably still fiddling with the heat. I peer around the side of the bookcase—it’s shifted away from the wall. I tug on the side of it, and a concealed door swings out towards me. I blink a few times, unable to believe what I’m seeing. It’s a secret room.

But then my heart drops into my stomach. The painting of Dr. Adrienne Hale. The one that Ethan took down and placed facing away from us. It’s back on the wall. And Dr. Hale’s green eyes are boring into me.

Hi, Doc. I have a little video I took of you from a parking lot in the Bronx. I thought you might enjoy watching it!

His reply comes almost instantly: I’m outside your front door.

“No. We’re not going to do that.” “Why not?” “Because I want you.”

Oh!

That video. EJ. That asshole. No. Don’t think about it. Not now.

There’s only one conclusion I can draw. Somebody was using the sleeping bag very recently.

EJ is unconscious.

And when I see what’s inside, my heart drops.

WHATS INSIDE

A second message appears on the screen: I’m going to kill you.

A rotting corpse, stuffed under the floorboards. I don’t know how long it takes for a human to turn into nothing but bones after death, but this body hadn’t reached that stage yet. There was still dried-out black skin clinging to the bones.

It’s a crash. Coming from Dr. Hale’s office. Ethan hears it too. He sits up, his whole body rigid. He’s been denying it the whole time we’ve been here, saying that I’m crazy, but now he knows I’m right. There’s somebody else in this house. There is somebody in Dr. Hale’s office. That or the corpse has come back to life.

But there’s something about his voice. Something strangely familiar.

“You’re Luke,” I say. “You’re Adrienne Hale’s boyfriend.”

“Yeah, that’s the thing.” Luke leans back against the couch. “I don’t think… I mean, I’m pretty sure that isn’t Adrienne under the floorboards.” I freeze. “What?”

I’m not a murderer. Okay, technically I am. But when I imagine somebody being a murderer, I imagine something different. I imagine somebody evil, who goes around killing good people for no reason. I killed my fiancé, Cody. But he wasn’t a good person.

NO WAY

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

And now I am going to pay the price. Please forgive me, Luke…

Adrienne Hale is hardly the first person I have killed. Not even close.

I wouldn’t put a dead body in my own home, for God’s sake. Right below the floorboards. How stupid could you possibly be?

GW was a patient of Dr. Hale’s for several years. She nursed paranoid delusions that somebody was trying to kill her, including her own son. GW. Gail Wiley. Ethan’s mother. “I just…” Beads of sweat break out on Ethan’s forehead as he tries to come up with a lie. “I just think some of those tapes…”

He doesn’t know that I know. That I’ve always known.

“Fine,” he says. “I killed her.”

I told Ethan that after a dead body is buried in the ground, plant growth is suppressed for about a year, but then it comes back even better than before. And it’s not like somebody was going to look at that patch of soil

where nothing could grow and know that Luke Strauss’s body was buried underneath.

NO

As will the body of Edward Jamison, buried a few feet away.

After all, my mother always said that the only way two people can keep a secret is if one of them is dead.