Page 2 of This is Why We Lied

That wasn’t exactly what he was going to say, but it was close.

Will was a special agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Sara had trained as a pediatrician and was currently serving as a medical examiner with the GBI. Both occupations tended to elicit long conversations from strangers, not all of them good and some of them very bad. Concealing their jobs had felt like a better way to enjoy their honeymoon.

Then again, saying you were one thing didn’t stop you from being the other. They were both the kind of people who worried about other people. Particularly Mercy. She seemed to have the entire world against her right now. Will knew how much strength it took to keep your head up, to keep moving forward, when everyone else in your life was trying to pull you down.

“Hey.” Sara hugged him closer, wrapping her legs around his waist. “I have another confession.”

Will smiled because she was smiling. The butterfly in his chest started to stir. Then other things stirred because he could feel the heat of her pressing against his body.

He asked, “What’s your confession?”

“I can’t get enough of you.” Sara kissed her way up the side of his neck, using her teeth to tease out a response. The chills came back. The feel of her breath in his ear flooded his brain with need. He let his hand slowly travel down. Her breath caught when he touched her. He could feel the rise and fall of her breasts against his bare chest.

Then a sharp, loud scream pierced the night air.

“Will.” Sara’s body had tensed. “What was that?”

He had no idea. He couldn’t tell if it was human or animal. The scream had been high-pitched, blood-curdling. Not a word or a cry for help, but a sound of unrestrained terror. The kind of noise that made the primal part of your brain kick into fight or flight.

Will wasn’t built for flight.

He held onto Sara’s hand as they quickly made their way toward shore. He picked up his clothes, gave Sara her things. Will looked out over the water as he put on his shirt. He knew from the map that the lake spread out like a slumbering snowman. The swimming area was at the head. The shoreline disappeared into the darkness around the curve of the abdomen. Sound was hard to pin down. The obvious source of the scream was where the people were. Four other couples and a single man were staying at the lodge. The McAlpine family was in the main house. Leaving out Will and Sara, the guests were in five of the ten cottages that fanned away from the dining hall. That brought the total number to eighteen people on the compound.

Any one of them could’ve screamed.

“The fighting couple at dinner.” Sara worked the buttons on her dress. “The dentist was wasted. The IT guy was—”

“What about the single guy?” Will’s cargo pants skidded up his wet legs. “The one who kept needling Mercy?”

“Chuck,” Sara provided. “The lawyer was obnoxious. How did he get on the Wi-Fi?”

“His horse-obsessed wife annoyed everybody.” Will shoved his bare feet into his boots. His socks went into his pocket. “The lying app guys are up to something.”

“What about the Jackal?”

Will looked up from tying his bootlace.

“Babe?” Sara kicked over her sandals so she could slide them on. “Are you—”

He left the lace untied. He didn’t want to talk about the Jackal. “Ready?”

They started up the path. Will felt the urge to move, picking up the pace until Sara started to lag. She was incredibly athletic, but her shoes were made for strolling, not running.

He stopped, turning to her. “Is it okay if—”

“Go,” she said. “I’ll catch up.”

Will left the path, taking a straight line through the woods. He used the porch light as his guide, his hands pushing away limbs and prickly vines that caught at his shirt sleeves. His wet feet were rubbing inside his boots. It had been a mistake to leave the one lace untied. He thought about stopping, but the wind shifted, carrying an odor like copper pennies in the air. Will couldn’t tell if he was smelling blood or if his cop brain was throwing out sense memories of past crime scenes.

The scream could’ve come from an animal.

Even Sara hadn’t been sure. Will’s only certainty was the thing that had made the sound was in fear of its life. Coyote. Bobcat. Bear. There were a lot of creatures in the woods that could make other creatures feel that way.

Was this an overreaction?

He stopped trudging through the overgrowth, turning around to locate the path. He could tell where Sara was, not by sight but by the sound of her shoes on the gravel. She was halfway between the main house and the lake. Their cottage was on the far end of the compound. She was probably trying to form a plan. Were there any lights on in the other cottages? Should she start knocking on doors? Or was she thinking the same as Will, that they were being overly vigilant considering what they both did for a living, and this was going to be a really funny story to tell her sister about how they heard an animal give a death cry and rushed off to investigate rather than having hot lake sex.

Will could not appreciate the humor right now. Sweat had pasted his hair to his head. A blister was rubbing on the back of his heel. Blood trickled from his forehead where a vine had ripped open the skin. He listened to the silence in the woods. Not even the crickets were chirping now. He slapped at an insect that bit him on the side of his neck. Something scurried in the trees overhead.