Two Truths and a Lie: A Lying Game Novel

Quinlan yanked the paper from the bag. “Don’t play dumb, kid. There’s your name, right there.”

He slammed the plastic bag on the table and pointed to the piece of paper. Emma leaned forward. It was a bus ticket with a Greyhound logo in the corner. The point of departure was Seattle, WA, and the destination was Tucson, AZ. The date was August thirty-first. And there, printed in small, neat letters at the bottom, was the passenger’s name: THAYER VEGA.

I drew in a breath the same time Emma did. So Thayer was in my car the night I died.

Quinlan eyed Thayer. A blue vein at his temple pulsed. “You were back in Tucson in August? Do you know what you put your parents through? What you put this community through? I spent a lot of time and money searching for you, and it turns out you were right here, under our noses!”

“That’s not quite true,” Thayer said in a quiet, steady, discomfiting voice.

Quinlan crossed his arms over his chest. “Then how about you tell me what is true?” When Thayer didn’t answer, he sighed. “Is there anything you can tell us about the blood on the hood of Ms. Mercer’s car? Or how your ticket ended up in her car?”

Thayer limped over to where Emma sat. He put both palms on the table, glancing from Emma to Quinlan. He opened his mouth like he was about to give a long speech, but then just shrugged. “Sorry,” he said, his voice creaking as though he hadn’t spoken for days. “But no. There’s nothing I can tell you.”

Quinlan shook his head. “So much for being cooperative,” he grumbled, then shot to his feet, grabbed Thayer by his muscular forearm, and dragged him from the room. Just before Thayer slipped out the door, he turned his head and gave Emma a long, eerie look. Emma stared back, her lips slightly parted. Her gaze fell from Thayer’s face to his shackled hands, and then to the rope bracelet around his wrist.

I looked at the bracelet, too, and was overcome with a strange snapping feeling. I’d seen that bracelet somewhere. All of a sudden, the pieces fell into place. I saw the bracelet, and then Thayer’s arm, and then his face . . . and then a setting. More and more dominoes fell over, more and more images flashed into my mind. And before I knew it, I was falling headlong into a full-blown memory . . .

CHAPTER 7

NIGHT HIKING

I pull up to the Greyhound station in Tucson just as a silver bus chugs into the parking lot. I roll down my window and the pungent smells of a hot-dog vendor’s cart waft into my British racing-green 1965 Volvo 122. Earlier this afternoon I rescued my car, my baby, from the impound. The paperwork flutters on the dash, my signature prominent at the bottom, a big, red-stamped AUGUST 31 at the top. It had taken me weeks to save up the money to pay cash to get the car off the impound lot—there was no way I was going to charge it on a credit card, since my parents always saw the statement.

The bus door sighs open, and I crane my neck to scan the exiting passengers. An overweight man with a fanny pack, a teenage girl bopping her head to an iPod, a family who looks shell-shocked from the long journey, all of them holding pillows. Finally, a boy tumbles down the stairs, black hair disheveled, shoelaces untied. My heart leaps. Thayer looks different, slightly scruffier and skinnier. There’s a tear in the knee of the Tsubi jeans I bought him before he left, and his face looks more angular, maybe even wiser. I watch as he scans the parking lot, looking for me. As soon as he spots my car he breaks into his trademark, soccer-star sprint.