The Liar Society (14 page)

Last Fall

I’m going to be sick.” I grabbed my stomach and begged my dad to pull the car to the side of the road. As soon as we stopped rolling, I jumped out and vomited into the grass below. My body heaved with such force that I fell to my knees, pieces of gravel cutting into the thin skin. My mom rubbed my back and held my hair, saying nothing. She didn’t tell me everything was going to be okay; she didn’t tell me not to worry. She couldn’t.

As soon as I’d finished, I climbed back into the car and pushed the Send button on my phone again. Instead of holding the phone to my ear, I watched the call timer tick through the seconds. I knew that when I got to thirty-one, I’d hear Grace’s cheerful voice explaining that she was away from her phone and couldn’t pick up.

As the phone rang, I stared at Grace’s face on the screen. We had programmed pictures into our phones that popped up whenever we called each other. Grace was sticking her tongue out at me.

Twenty-nine. Thirty. Thirty-one

“Hi, this is Grace. I’d love to talk, but I can’t. I’ll call you back!”

I wanted to believe her—that she’d call me back—but a part of me knew she never would. I left another message, each one more desperate than the last, and went through the entire sequence over and over and over.

As soon as we pulled into the garage, I rushed upstairs to my bathroom to get sick again. I thought maybe it had to do with the smell of smoke on my body and in my hair, so I took a shower, violently scouring my scalp and body with soap. I scrubbed and scrubbed, taking a break only to call Grace, beads of water rolling down my arm and onto the screen of my phone.

Twenty-nine. Thirty. Thirty-one.

Twenty-nine. Thirty. Thirty-one.

Twenty-nine. Thirty. Thirty-one.

I must have fallen asleep with the phone in my hand, because in the morning, when I woke up, it was gone.

“Where is it?” I sat up in bed and screamed at the top of my lungs, searching the space around me wildly. “I need it!” I stumbled out of bed and into the hallway, falling into a heap at the top of the stairs. “I need it!” I cried now, pulling my legs into my chest, my body jerking with each sob.

“Shh,” my mom whispered as she walked up the stairs. It was early in the morning, but she still wore the same clothes as the night before. I wondered if she’d ever gone to sleep. “Oh, Kate.” My hair stuck to my tears, and she pushed it back from my face and sat next to me. Pulling me into her lap, she held me in her arms and rocked me back and forth like I was a baby instead of a teenager.

I looked up at her through bloodshot eyes and said the words I feared the most.

“She’s gone, isn’t she?”

“Oh, sweetie. They found a body…in the basement. They’re not saying who it is yet, so we need to pray.”

But I didn’t have to pray. I already knew. It was Grace. She was gone.

Present Day

We huddled under the green glow of an Applebee’s lamp, our heads nearly touching. Seth held the invitation, his brow furrowed.

“I don’t understand. What were you being invited to that night? And if you were invited, why weren’t you there when the fire broke out?” Seth pointed at the flowery calligraphy on the invitation. We had placed the three invitations—Grace’s, Naomi’s, and now mine—together, the pictures forming three-quarters of the crest.

“And the Pemberly crest?” he asked picking up the crumpled page of Cameron’s drawing. “It matches this?” Seth pointed to the incomplete crest and looked at me, confused. “And where’s the last invitation? Who does it belong to?”

I had a choice to make. I could continue to play dumb and risk Seth’s incessant questions and inevitable involvement, or I could tell him everything and get it over with. As scared as I was to break my promise to Grace, I needed help. Besides, he already knew way too much.

The upside to putting it all out there was the sheer volume of random information Seth housed in his brain. He was incredibly resourceful—if he didn’t know the answer he almost always knew where to find it. And it would be kind of nice to have a sidekick.

“Let me start at the beginning,” I whispered, feeling an invisible weight slide off my shoulders the second I began.

By the time I’d finished, the waitress had come by our table at least five times, annoyed that the bill book remained empty, and my story had been interrupted three times by Seth’s cell phone. His mom wanted to know if we were having a good time.

“So…now what?” When Seth asked the question, I almost wanted to leap across the table and kiss him. It felt that good to have someone in on my secret. Someone who cared.

“I honestly don’t know. Naomi’s at tennis camp and Cameron ran away, and they’re the only two people who know about the invitations who might be able to help.”

Without saying a word, Seth picked up his phone and connected a call.

“Mom? I think we’re gonna catch a movie,” he said. “Yeah, a late one. I know it’s a school night, but I did all my homework…I’m almost sixteen and a half.” Seth paused and held the phone away from his ear, and I heard his mom’s voice screaming into the air. “Okay, I’ll call you when it’s over.” Seth snapped his phone shut and beamed at me.

“A movie? Are you kidding?…”

But Seth didn’t let me finish. “So you think they’ve found Cameron yet?” he asked.

I smiled, understanding then, and stood up from the table. “Worth a shot.”

• • •

As we pulled down Cameron’s street, I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect. There was a good chance that Cameron was already back. Students quietly left Pemberly Brown all the time, and based on his history, I couldn’t imagine that the Thompsons would have been in any rush to put him back in school.

But when Seth carefully parked the minivan a few houses down from Cameron’s, I barely registered the fact that his driveway was empty aside from a nondescript sedan. Instead my eyes locked on the house next to his. It wasn’t one of the insane mansions that lined most of the streets in the area, just a modest colonial. It looked dark, almost vacant, but I knew better. Grace’s parents were holed up inside somewhere, along with most of my childhood memories. I tried to hide the grief that overcame me, but Seth noticed. Of course.

“Are you all right?” he asked, looking down at his hands. “If you’re cold, you can borrow my jacket.” We both knew he was talking about so much more than being cold.

I shook my head, and he gave me a second more to swallow back the enormous lump I felt growing bigger in my throat the longer I stared at Grace’s house. I pulled my eyes away and breathed deeply, switching gears.

“So exactly what is the plan?” Coming here had seemed like a good idea when Seth had suggested it at Applebee’s, but now I wasn’t so sure. I mean, we couldn’t just ring the doorbell and ask the Thompsons if Cameron had given them any information about Grace’s death and how it might connect to our headmaster’s brother, who may or may not have been a rapist.

Luckily, lights were still on downstairs, and in spite of the rain, most of the windows were cracked an inch. The chances that we’d actually find anything were fairly slim, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to take a look around Cameron’s yard and maybe peek into the windows to see if there were any signs that Cameron had come back home.

“Come on. I’ve got an idea.” Seth opened the car door and stepped into the wet street. I yanked the hood of my sweatshirt up over my ponytail, relieved to relinquish the lead.

Please be back. Please be back. Please be back.
I chanted the mantra in my head the entire way through Cameron’s soggy yard. For extra luck, I touched Grace’s pearls, a reminder of the importance of our mission.

“Okay, let’s just walk around the house. We’ll look in the windows and see if he’s home,” Seth said.

“And if he’s there?” I asked.

“I don’t know. We try to talk to him, right? This could be our only chance.” I hung on to the words “we” and “our.” They had never sounded more beautiful. Even if they had been said by Seth, who simultaneously pulled a small plastic bag of pickles out of his pocket and began munching.

He must have seen the look of disgust on my face, because between bites he said, “What? I can’t help it. I get hungry when I’m nervous—low blood sugar.”

I shook my head and grabbed his arm. “Come on. It’s now or never.” We started toward the side of the house. When we reached the low side windows, we saw a dark dining room but no sign of Cameron.

I motioned for Seth to be quiet as we crept along the perimeter of the Thompsons’ home. As we approached the backyard, light reflected off the wet grass from the kitchen windows. They were placed higher on the house, so we were both able to stand undetected as long as we hugged the brick exterior.

“Seth,” I whispered, “I hear someone.” Seth ducked down and pulled me with him.

“Yes, I’m here. They still haven’t found him.” The voice from inside the house was muffled but still audible.

Well, I guess that was that. No Cameron. But the voice sounded eerily familiar, and I was almost positive it wasn’t Cameron’s dad. We heard the scraping of a chair and a soft thud as someone sat down.

“Who is it?” Seth whispered, his hot pickle breath rolling over my cheek. I shushed him and wrinkled my nose at the same time.

“No, I don’t think they know anything, but we can’t be too careful.” The voice paused. “No, that won’t be necessary. At least I don’t think it will be. As far as I can tell, he didn’t leave the evidence behind.” The speaker lowered his voice, and I struggled to make out the words. “…Family…anything…sisterhood exposing…he’s coming. I have to go.”

A brief pause was followed by the sound of a chair scraping against the floor again. I looked over at Seth. His eyes were wide. Whoever this guy was, he clearly was worried about the evidence Cameron had gathered about Grace’s death. The evidence that now belonged to me.

“Thanks again for stopping by.” A new voice rang out in the still night air, and this time I was positive it was Cameron’s dad.

“Of course.” The voice trailed away as Mr. Thompson and the visitor moved toward the front door. “I hope the information…alternative schools…Cameron…support…” was all we could make out.

“Come on! They’re moving to the front of the house.” I grabbed Seth and started to take off for the front yard, but suddenly the entire backyard was flooded with blinding light. It must have been a motion sensor.

Two sets of footsteps pounded back toward the kitchen and the screen door screeched open.

Shit.

I don’t think I’d actually ever seen Seth run before. If we hadn’t been in danger of being busted by Cameron’s dad and his sketchy visitor, I’m sure I would have taken more time to appreciate the fact that Seth ran like a prepubescent girl, but I was too busy sprinting.

“Hey! You! Stop right there!” Cameron’s dad had made it out of the house and was chasing after us.

Thankfully, he gave up about halfway through his massive front yard, and I didn’t think he’d be close enough to see the license-plate number as Seth’s minivan tore down Cameron’s street. I tried to twist around to get a good look at the other man behind the voice, but he must have ducked back inside.

The car was completely silent except for our ragged breathing. I don’t think either of us wanted to jinx our getaway until we knew for sure we were safe. When we made it to my driveway without the sound of sirens wailing behind us, I released the breath I’d been holding.

“Oh, thank God. I can’t believe we made it.” I grabbed Seth’s arm, and he must have interpreted my fingers digging into his upper arm as “I’m so grateful—ravish me” instead of “I’m terrified and need to squeeze something, and your arm just happens to be in reach,” because he placed his fingers on my chin and pulled my face to his.

“It’s okay, Kate,” he said softly, leaning forward.

“
Eww
, Seth!” I yelled, shoving at his chest. “Lay off!”

“What?” He held his hands in the air. “I thought maybe…oh forget it.” He didn’t even pretend to be hurt anymore; it was like he’d expected the reaction before I even had a chance to react. “And what the hell is that crap about sisters? Cameron doesn’t have any sisters.”

“What did you say?” I asked.

“Sisterhood. The headmaster said something about the sisterhood.”

“The headmaster? What are you talking about?” I bumbled, my mind struggling to connect the pieces.

“I’d recognize his voice anywhere. I work in the office, remember?”

“You’re sure?” I asked, trying to understand the significance of Headmaster Sinclair visiting the Thompsons. Maybe it was protocol? But his visit had to be so much more than that. My mind reeled back to Seth’s other realization.

“Sisterhood,” I repeated. “Why does that sound familiar?” I closed my eyes for a second, and then it hit me.

“Elisa, at the nursing home. She said something about sisters.” I opened my eyes and suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to start clapping. “I thought she was being general, but now it makes sense. Abigail Moore’s death and Grace’s are connected somehow.”

“By a group called the Sisterhood?” Seth asked breathlessly. I could almost hear him mentally composing his post for the conspiracy-theory boards he frequented.

“I think so. Ever heard of them?”

“Um, no? Wait…” Seth looked up at the ceiling as though he was scanning the file drawer of his brain that housed long-term memories. “Well, maybe. And I think I know exactly where to look.”

Seth started backing the car out of my driveway. “Hey, what are you doing?”

“You’re coming to my place.” Seth deftly pulled up his own driveway and maneuvered the car into the garage.

“But why?”

“You’ll see.”

Seth sprinted through the door and yelled, “MomI’mhomeKate’shereandwe’vegottachecksomethingforschoolquick. Okay? Okay.” He practically shoved me up the stairs to his room, leaving his mother downstairs asking about eight hundred questions that we could no longer hear.

“Okay, there’s this guy who always posts on my blog…”

“Wait. You have a blog? Seriously?”

Seth looked offended. “Do you want me to help or not?”

“Yeah, yeah, I want you to help,” I said guiltily.

“Okay, so like I was saying, there’s this guy I know who specializes in regional secret societies.” Seth typed furiously into his PC as he talked. “He’s totally obsessed with a society that supposedly formed in the Midwest sometime after World War II, and guess what they’re called?”

“The Sisterhood?”

“Yup.”

“Here, take a look.”

Sure enough, there was a quick paragraph about the Sisterhood. ConspiracyLuvR (and, yes, that was indeed his actual screen name—you can’t make this stuff up) had never been able to find any definitive proof that the group existed. Just anecdotal mentions in old diaries and letters, but based on what he’d pulled together, the group had formed in the Cleveland area during the 1950s.

I looked up from the computer.

“And does…”—I could barely bring myself to say his name out loud—“ConspiracyMother think they’re still active today?”

“It’s ConspiracyLuvR, and, yeah, he’s always trying to dig up proof, but they’re too smart and they lie very low. None of that Skull and Bones crap for them. He thinks they’re very active and expanding.”

“Wow,” I breathed, trying to make sense of all this. And then it occurred to me. The letter on the crest. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Yeah, I’ll ask my mom to bring up some snacks.”

“No, I mean about the crest. The
S
. It’s not supposed to be a
P
. It’s supposed to stand for the Sisterhood.”

As I said the words, I could practically hear the sound of a puzzle piece clicking into place. This was it: the truth that might set Grace free.