Chapter 1 - The Girl Who Always Lied
Three hours earlier, Valeria Mercer had been sitting on the cold tile floor of the girls’ restroom at Briarwood High School.
She had locked herself inside the last stall.
Her backpack lay beside her, half open, with a chemistry textbook and several loose pages spilling across the floor.
Outside the stall, students moved between afternoon classes.
Their voices echoed through the restroom.
Someone complained about an exam.
Someone else laughed about a boy from the soccer team.
To everyone beyond the metal door, it was an ordinary Thursday.
Inside the stall, Valeria pressed both hands against her stomach and tried not to scream.
The pain had started weeks earlier as a dull ache beneath her ribs.
Her father had dismissed it immediately.
“You want attention.”
When she had thrown up during dinner, he accused her of making herself sick because she did not want to eat his cooking.
When the school nurse called home, Daniel told her that Valeria had a history of exaggerating.
That word had followed Valeria for most of her life.
Exaggerating.
Lying.
Manipulating.
Daniel had used those words so often that other people eventually began using them too.
Teachers.
Relatives.
Neighbors.
Even Elena sometimes repeated them without realizing it.
Valeria had once told her mother that her father searched her bedroom when she was at school.
Daniel said she was paranoid.
She said he read her messages.
He said parents had the right to know what their children were hiding.
She said he had installed something on her phone.
He laughed and asked why anyone would bother spying on someone as boring as her.
After enough denials, Valeria learned to stop explaining.
She began recording instead.
A knock struck the restroom door.
“Valeria?”
It was Mia Torres, her closest friend.
Valeria did not answer.
Mia knocked again.
“You missed history. Mrs. Fallon asked me to find you.”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
“I just need a minute.”
Mia pushed open the main door and walked farther into the restroom.
Her sneakers stopped outside the stall.
“You’ve needed a minute for forty-five minutes.”
Valeria leaned her head against the partition.
“I’m going home.”
“You can barely stand.”
“I’ll call my mom.”
“No. I’m calling an ambulance.”
Valeria opened the stall door so quickly that Mia stepped back.
“No ambulance.”
Mia stared at her.
Valeria’s face was gray.
A line of sweat ran down her temple.
“What happened to you?” Mia asked.
“Nothing.”
“Do not give me the same answer you give everyone else.”
Valeria tried to rise.
A wave of pain folded her in half.
Mia caught her before she struck the floor.
“Valeria!”
“Don’t call my father.”
“Why?”
“Promise me.”
“Why?”
Valeria grabbed Mia’s sleeve.
“Because he’ll make me leave the hospital.”
Mia stared down at her friend’s terrified face.
“What does he know, Val?”
Valeria opened her mouth.
Before she could answer, the restroom door swung open.
Vice Principal Garrison entered with the school nurse.
Mia had sent a message before approaching the stall.
The nurse knelt beside Valeria.
“Where does it hurt?”
Valeria’s hand remained over her stomach.
“Everywhere.”
“Could you be pregnant?”
The question seemed to drain the remaining color from her face.
“No,” Valeria whispered.
But she did not sound certain.
The nurse noticed.
So did Mia.
Within twelve minutes, paramedics were moving Valeria through the school hallway on a stretcher.
Students stepped aside and watched.
Some recorded with their phones.
Valeria covered her face.
As the stretcher passed the front office, the secretary called Daniel Mercer.
Valeria heard her.
“Your daughter is being transported to St. Catherine’s Emergency Department.”
Valeria grabbed the paramedic’s wrist.
“Please tell them not to call him.”
The paramedic looked confused.
“Your father?”
Valeria nodded.
“Please.”
But the call had already been made.
Daniel arrived at the hospital before Elena.
He entered Valeria’s room without knocking.
He did not ask whether she was all right.
He did not ask what the doctor had found.
He stared at her stomach and then at the backpack beside the bed.
“What did you tell them?”
Valeria’s lips trembled.
“Nothing.”
“You had better not be lying to me.”
Dr. Cole entered a moment later.
“We need to run some tests.”
Daniel smiled at the doctor.
“My daughter has a problem with attention-seeking behavior.”
Valeria turned her face toward the wall.
Dr. Cole studied her for a moment.
“What sort of behavior?”
“She invents symptoms. She causes scenes. She has been difficult since childhood.”
“I’m right here,” Valeria said.
Daniel ignored her.
“She once told people I was monitoring her phone.”
Dr. Cole glanced at him.
“Were you?”
Daniel’s smile disappeared.
“I’m her father.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Before Daniel could answer, Elena rushed into the room.
She went straight to Valeria.
“What happened?”
“She’s performing again,” Daniel said.
Valeria shut her eyes.
Her mother touched her forehead.
“She’s burning up.”
“She worked herself into a panic.”
Dr. Cole checked the monitor.
“Her fever is over one hundred and three. Her blood pressure is dangerously low. This is not a performance.”
Daniel’s expression hardened.
Valeria watched him stare at the backpack.
He was not worried about her fever.
He was worried about the phone.
That was when she understood.
He knew she had saved something.
And if she lost consciousness before anyone saw it, he would make it disappear.
Valeria gathered the last of her strength.
“He knows why it hurts!”
Her scream changed everything.
But even as security restrained her father, Valeria realized there was something she had not considered.
Daniel was not the only person who knew what was inside her phone.
Someone else had sent the final message.
Someone who had written:
May you like
Your father knows what happened at the lake house.
But your mother knows why.
