“That’s a pretty elaborate prank,” the doctor said. “Besides, I thought Liam was dead. You said you were sure.”
I froze. How could I have forgotten that? “That’s right. Still. I told you all the things he did. He anticipates—anticipated—everything.”
“You did anticipate everything,” the doctor said. “Mia and Galen’s every move. But you didn’t anticipate how you yourself would react. That by the time the police arrived, you’d have invented this person called Rob to deal with the guilt of killing your best friend and her boyfriend. And now you keep telling me the same elaborate story over and over again, in an effort to convince yourself it really happened the way you said it did. It’s like what you said Mia told you: it’s a psychological game you’re playing to convince yourself a lie is the truth.”
“But I didn’t kill Mia and Galen,” I said. “Liam did.”
“And you killed Liam?”
“Yes! In self-defense, but yes. In the woods.”
“There were two bodies at the cabin, Galen and Mia. They died exactly the way you said they did. That part of your story is true. But there was no third body, not in the woods where you said, not anywhere. There was no blood on any of your clothing, no cuts on your body from the devil’s walkingstick. And there’s no record of anyone named Rob Gear at your school, in your city. None of Mia’s and Galen’s friends have even heard the name. Just Liam.”
“But . . . I killed Liam.”
“By strangling him?” the doctor said.
“Yes! I’ve been totally honest with you from the start.”
“You may have been honest with me, but you haven’t been honest with yourself. Everything you told me that happened to you and Mia and Galen, I think that’s mostly true. But everything that happened that was just between you and Liam? I think that’s a lie. You stole the satellite phone, and you lit the fire in the barrel before the three of you headed off on that hike. You poked those holes in the gas tank, and you killed Galen, probably with the hammer after you followed him and Mia over to the Brummits’ cabin. And later you put the rat poison in her cereal. As for whether Mia really ran over you on your bike, I don’t know. But your medical records show you were in a bad bike accident, so I suspect that part’s true too.”
We stared at each other. I tried to laugh again, but this time my mouth wouldn’t move. The tattoo on my wrist was still itching something fierce, so this time I scratched it, but it didn’t help. Right away, it started itching again.
“There were four of us at the cabin,” I insisted.
“No,” the doctor said patiently. “Just three.”
“This doesn’t make any sense!”
“It actually makes a lot of sense. All those years around Mia and her friends, pretending to be someone you’re not. It became like a second nature to you. But when you finally went through with what you were planning, when you killed Mia and Galen two weekends ago, you surprised yourself by feeling guilty afterward. It was one thing to imagine getting back at Mia, to plan and dream about it. The reality was something far different. But by then it was too late to change it. The past was the past, and Mia and Galen were dead. So you dealt with the guilt the way you’d dealt with a lot of things over the years—by compartmentalizing. By splitting your personality. You killed ‘Liam,’ then invented a new personality, ‘Rob,’ to keep yourself blameless. He was a victim of Liam’s, along with Mia and Galen. But unlike Mia and Galen, he was smart and resourceful enough to fight back, to defeat Liam. That’s the story you tell yourself. Unfortunately, Rob’s not real. His entire existence, every single thing you told me he did and thought, is a lie.”
I didn’t know what to say. What do you say when someone makes up a crazy whopper like that? I was one hundred percent sure it was a lie. But I still couldn’t make myself laugh.
“I’ve told you all this before,” the doctor said. “We’ve done all this before. You don’t remember, but that’s okay. I listen just the same. And I heard something in your story yesterday that I’d never noticed before. So today I listened for it again, and I heard it again. It’s something that I think is a very good sign.”
“What’s really going on here?” I said. “What kind of joke is this? Are you trying to drive me crazy?”
“Listen to me, Liam,” the doctor said. “This is very important. The story you told me? Never once did Rob and Liam speak to each other, not unless they were alone. And no one except Liam ever referred to Rob by name. You told me everything you were thinking at the time, but the way you spoke, the specific things you said, it could just as well have been Liam talking. It could have been Liam there alone.”
“That’s not . . .”
“Because it was Liam there alone. Do you understand?”
I thought about what the doctor was saying.
But then I shook my head. “It was a coincidence,” I said. “Assuming that’s the way I even did tell the story. Or are you one of those doctors who don’t believe in coincidences?”
“I think it’s the way you always tell the story.”
“Then what does it mean?”
“It’s a tell, Liam, like Mia said. It means your subconscious mind is trying to tell us that part of the story’s a lie. Rob couldn’t talk to Liam when others were there, because you are Liam. There’s only one of you—there was always only one of you. And deep down, I think you know this. I think on some level, you want to rejoin the world of reality. That’s why I think this is a very, very good sign.”
My tattoo itched, even worse than before, but I didn’t scratch it again. What was the point? Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a housefly skitter along the windowsill, but I didn’t swat it either. I just knew what the doctor would have to say about my doing that.
“I want to leave,” I said. “You can’t keep me here against my will.”
“Liam, listen to me,” he said. “Before we can begin the next part of your treatment, you need to accept the truth. You need to accept that you’re Liam Linard, and that you alone were responsible for all the horrible things that happened up at that cabin.”
I didn’t move a muscle. I thought about what the doctor was saying, thought about it for a very long time. Was there any chance, even the slightest percentage, he was telling the truth?
Finally, I turned to look at the fly on the windowsill. Now I saw it couldn’t have been moving because it was dead on its back.
I looked back at the doctor.
“It was my fault,” I said softly, but firmly. “Everything that happened that weekend.”
He looked surprised, but pleased. “Really?”
I nodded sadly. “It’s hard for me to admit that, but it’s the truth. I was the one who suggested it in the first place. If I hadn’t had the dumb idea to go away, who knows how things would’ve ended? Somehow, I’m going to have to live with that for the rest of my life.”
Acknowledgments
Three people believed in this book long before anyone else: my husband, Michael Jensen; my agent, Jennifer De Chiara; and my editor, Michael Stother. They’re the reason it exists in any form other than a file on my computer.
The folks at Simon & Schuster and Simon Pulse have also been extraordinarily supportive right from the beginning, especially Mara Anastas, Jon Anderson, Mary Marotta, Liesa Abrams, and my managing editor, Kayley Hoffman.
If a book is published and no one hears about it, was it still published? These folks have made sure that’s not a question for this particular project: Lucille Rettino, Carolyn Swerdloff, Tara Greico, Anthony Parisi, Candace Greene McManus, Betsy Bloom, Michelle Leo, Christina Pecorale, Victor Iannone, Rio Cortez, and Danielle Esposito. And great book jackets don’t design themselves—Steve Scott does.
Early readers who generously contributed their time and extremely helpful opinions include Liam Arne, Matt Browning, Matt Carrillo, Brian Centrone, Brian Dahlvig, Ulysses Dietz, Donna Gephart, Josh Loden, Peter Monn, Timothy Sandusky, and Peter Wright. David Lister and Scott Jarmon, tha
nks for the forensics tutorials, and Bill Middlebrook, thanks for showing me how to disable a car.
Finally, thanks as always to my assortment of creative genius friends: Tom Baer, Tim Cathersal, Lori Grant, Erik Hanberg, Marcy Rodenborn, James Venturini, and Sarah Warn.
About the Author
BRENT HARTINGER is the author of twelve novels. His first book, Geography Club, was adapted as a stage play and a feature film costarring Scott Bakula. Also a screenwriter, Brent has several film projects in active development.
In addition to his writing, Brent is the cohost of a podcast called Media Carnivores; a sometime member of the faculty at Vermont College in the MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults; and the founder of The Real Story Safe Sex Project, an HIV/AIDS education effort. In 1990, Brent also cofounded the world’s third LGBT youth support group in his hometown of Tacoma, Washington.
Brent now lives in Seattle with his husband, writer Michael Jensen. Read more by and about Brent, or contact him at brenthartinger.com.
Simon Pulse
SIMON & SCHUSTER, NEW YORK
VISIT US AT SIMONANDSCHUSTER.COM/TEEN
authors.simonandschuster.com/Brent-Hartinger
Also by Brent Hartinger
The Russel Middlebrook Series
Geography Club (Book 1)
The Order of the Poison Oak (Book 2)
Double Feature: Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies/Bride of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies (Book 3)
The Elephant of Surprise (Book 4)
Russel Middlebrook: The Futon Years
The Thing I Didn’t Know I Didn’t Know (Book 1)
Barefoot in the City of Broken Dreams (Book 2)
The Road to Amazing (Book 3)
Other Books
Shadow Walkers
Project Sweet Life
Grand & Humble
The Last Chance Texaco
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First Simon Pulse hardcover edition August 2016
Text copyright © 2016 by Brent Hartinger Jacket illustration by Steve Scott
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Brent Hartinger, Three Truths and a Lie
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