See How They Lie Read online

  To Mum and Dad, with thanks

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Epilogue - One Year Later

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  ONE

  This is a good place. Behind the kitchen building, far enough away from the vegetable garden not to be seen by any gardeners. The ground is summer-dry and the air vibrates with the buzz of insects. When we lie down we’re hidden from view in the long, wild meadow grass. Too near the perimeter fence we’d be picked up on the CCTV cameras, but here is perfect.

  It started a few months ago, Drew and me meeting alone in secluded areas to smoke. At first Drew smoked and I watched, but these days I have a cigarette so he doesn’t think I’m a total lost cause. Drew negotiated the deal. The signed basketball jersey he was given on his last birthday in return for tobacco, papers and a lighter smuggled in by a recovering addict. We keep our smoking kit buried in a plastic ziplock bag in the Woodland Gardens, and pick it up on our way to wherever we’re meeting. Our shared bad secret.

  We’re each propped up on an elbow, the ground already moulded to our bodies. I watch Drew’s large tanned fingers roll the cigarette. He’s become better at it. He lights it and hands it to me, and I suck the evil smoke into my lungs. Am I becoming addicted?

  “The new teacher is super-demanding,” he says as he rolls the next one for himself. “And she’s how old? Barely college-age.”

  “She’s all right,” I say. He’ll laugh if I say I like her.

  “At least she doesn’t spit when she talks like Miss What’s-her-name,” he mumbles, his cigarette still in his mouth. “That was grim.”

  “The guy before her was worse,” I say. “At least Miss Constable didn’t make us listen to audiobooks while she took naps.”

  “How does admin find these losers?” asks Drew. “They must have loads of applications and they choose idiots every time.”

  We’re both aware that people love working here, even though it’s in the middle of nowhere. We hear whispered conversations between assistants in admin when we’re there for our individual computer sessions. They love their high salaries, access to all the facilities here and bonus payments for going above and beyond to promote Creek values.

  “All I know is it’s a complicated process,” I say. It’s what Dad told me one time when we were between teachers.

  Drew shrugs, bored with the conversation, as he always is about lessons and teachers.

  Limb by limb, I feel myself relax. I know where I am with Drew. I’ve known him pretty much all my life. With my finger I trace the healed graze on his leg, just below the line of his running shorts. An old basketball injury. Everyone here is fit, or soon becomes fit, but some people’s muscles suit them better than others. Drew’s body is near perfect.

  He bats my hand away. “Hey, that tickles.”

  He doesn’t touch my body as much as I touch his. There are nights when I lie in bed and stroke the side of my face and pretend that it’s Drew’s hand touching me, except my body isn’t fooled at all.

  Pulling my hand away, I change position so that I’m at more of a right angle to him, and rest my head on his T-shirted chest.

  “Geez, Mae. Your head is heavy. Must be all those brains.”

  I feel the steady rhythm of his chest rising and falling, and the heartbeat that I swear pumps in sync with mine.

  “Don’t go dropping your ash on me,” he says but he doesn’t push me off his chest.

  I pull my arm away immediately – we don’t want anyone to smell the smoke on us later. I check the pocket of my shorts for the little toothpaste tablets I swiped earlier from the freshen-up area of the spa.

  We watch the only cloud in the sky change shape as we smoke in silence. Tobacco, alcohol, drugs of any kind, junk food – they’re banned from Hummingbird Creek, all nine square miles of it. The penalties of being in possession are harsh. But Drew and I are careful, and we only smoke now and again.

  “I asked your dad again for permission to go running outside the gates on my own,” he says.

  “And?”

  Drew sighs. “What d’you think, Mae? It was a straight-out no.” He wriggles so I lift my head to allow him to change position. “Then I said I’d go running with you. The two of us. That we’d train for a marathon. Still no.”

  I move so that I can see his face properly. Study the grey-blue eyes. “That would be cool,” I say. “Just you and me, outside the gates.” I dig a burial place for my cigarette end as I shake the image from my mind because it’s never going to happen. “I’m sorry,” I say. “About my dad being … being like he is.”

  “He treats us like the patients.” Drew looks away towards the perimeter fence. “Don’t you want freedom, Mae? Tell me, what’s so wrong with wanting to go running outside the grounds?”

  “Nothing,” I say. “But—” I bite my lip.

  “You’re going to tell me we’re lucky, aren’t you?” Drew jabs his cigarette into the ground. “That we’ve got everything here.”

  “I just think…” I try to find the right, placatory words, ones that won’t make him cross. “You’d be happier if you stopped wanting these things so badly.”

  Drew makes a snorting noise. He’s finding it harder and harder to accept the rules.

  “Two more years,” I say. “That’s all.” When we’re eighteen we’ll be off to college. I lie on my back, one hand behind my head. The sky is vast. Swimming-pool-blue and beautiful.

  Count your blessings. It’s one of the Creek phrases. Sometimes in group sessions we actually do count them.

  I have a lot more blessings than the patients. Not just because I don’t have problems the way they do, but also because I’ve lived here longer. Dr Hunter Ballard met my mom when he was working in England, and we moved to America when I was six. He bought this land and had Hummingbird Creek built: a psychiatric treatment and rehabilitation facility for teenagers. His philosophy of masses of exercise, perfectly balanced organic food prepared by top chefs, brain training and positive thinking, with regular health checks in a highly structured, stunning environment, is so popular that parents will pay enormous sums of money to keep their children here for extended periods.

  “Two long years,” says Drew. He pushes the tobacco towards me. “Want to make the next ones?”

  I roll two cigarettes, but the lighter’s almost empty. We’re never given outside money and there’s no lighter on the Creek’s limited shopping site, so we’ll have to arrange for one to be smuggled in through the post, hidden inside another item, and exchange it for something else. I think Drew gets a kick out of living these prison-movie mome
nts.

  Drew manages to light one, and we smoke and peer at the bugs in the grass until his watch bleeps and the screen lights up with a reminder message. “Ten mile run, here I come,” he says. “My exercise schedule is crazy today.” He takes one last drag of his cigarette before stubbing it out and leaving it for me to bury, peeks above the grass to check it’s clear, then leaps to his feet.

  “Have fun.” I blow a kiss at him and he smiles, so perfectly that my stomach tightens. I watch him bound over the long grass to the vegetable garden to pick a few herbs. He’ll chew those to rid his breath of tobacco. I check my watch, which is the same as Drew’s but with my name engraved on the metal back. I still have free time left until my computer session, and enough tokens for a spa treatment.

  I have the spa to myself because the patients have scheduled time. I squiggle my signature on the payment screen and within minutes I’m lying on a treatment table with a cooling detox cream on my face.

  “Would you like music, miss?” asks the beauty therapist.

  I shake my head, gently so that the cream doesn’t gloop down my neck, and she slips from the room while the cream does its work. Outside I can hear the birds and the low rumble of distant machinery in the fields beyond the perimeter fence. After this I’ll go to the juice bar and order a carrot-and-ginger juice and do more of this week’s mega-jigsaw of an ocean scene. I let my arm dangle off the edge of the table. It feels so good to be done with my exercise for the day. To be relaxed. Content.

  An hour later, in the juice bar, someone’s completed the jigsaw. All 4,700 pieces are in place. There’s already a photo of it on the noticeboard alongside the other jigsaws we’ve completed this year. On our annual open days Dad tells people they’re a metaphor. Pieces of different shapes and sizes that don’t make sense are put together at the Creek to make something whole and amazing. I run my finger over the bumpy surface of the ocean bed, and change my mind about the juice. I’ll see if Jenna, my favourite receptionist, is on duty.

  I walk back out into the sunshine and take the long way round to reception. The outdoor pool, twice the size of the indoor one in the spa area, gleams. The lawns are immaculate, the flowers like a bold new fashion collection in their early summer glory. We rarely have visitors, but the Creek is always in perfect order regardless. It’s because we have high standards and personal pride.

  I turn the corner to enter reception by the formal entrance. Across the drive and the next expanse of lawn is the staff accommodation block, Hibiscus Hall, where I live. There are five floors visible from the outside, and two further basement floors. The first basement floor, which my dad has fitted out to the same high standard as the patient accommodation, is for support staff. A harmonious society is one where every single person is valued. That’s one of his favourite sayings, and it’s printed in big letters in the lobby. The second basement floor is for the underground complex of fully-equipped gym, sprung-floor exercise studios, break-out spaces, movie theatre, games room and breakfast cafeteria. Underground corridors lead to the main building and to the patient accommodation block, Larkspur Hall. Drew says there could be a nuclear disaster outside and we’d all be fine for months.

  I’m in luck – Jenna is on reception. She’s tapping at the keyboard on the large dark-wood desk, the short sleeves of her top digging into her plump arms. When she looks up, she says, “Why Mae, honey, how nice to see you. How are you?”

  “Good,” I say and settle into the black leather swivel chair next to her. “I’ve got twenty minutes until my computer session.”

  Jenna beams. “You want to do some helping?” She treats me like I’m still a little kid, but it doesn’t stop me liking her. She plunks a pile of envelopes in front of me, then a few sheets of white labels printed with addresses, and nods towards an open cardboard box of glossy brochures under the table. “Make sure you keep the address labels straight. When you’re done, I’ll fix us both some tea.” Jenna’s one of the few members of staff who live outside the Creek, which means she has more interesting things to talk about when she has a tea break. We’re kind of friends, despite our massive age difference. I’m one of six staff kids and we’re not encouraged to mix with the patients, so my friendship pool is limited.

  I stuff envelopes while Jenna carries on typing. As she’s waiting for her document to emerge from the printer, the phone rings. She leaves it the regulation two rings before picking up.

  “Good afternoon. Hummingbird Creek. How may I help you?” There’s a pause, and she says, “Certainly, sir. I’ll put you through right away.” When she’s replaced the receiver, she checks her puffy hair is still in place and says, “Peppermint tea coming right up. I won’t be long.”

  When Jenna’s gone through the side door towards the kitchenette, I glance across at the printer and read the top of a patient referral form that she’s just printed. Noah Tinderman. Paranoia. Anxiety. In need of a calm, nurturing environment. Requested length of stay: two months. That’s short by Creek standards. My eye leaps to the address. England. I remember very little about my first few years in England, but one day I’d like to go back.

  The phone rings. I leave it. The voicemail fails to kick in after two rings. Jenna must have forgotten to switch it over. It keeps ringing. On and on, echoing in the empty, marble-floored lobby.

  I’m not supposed to answer the phone, but I know what to say. I’m nearly sixteen, so of course I’m more than capable of taking a message. A million times I’ve watched how Jenna transfers calls. I lift the phone. “Good afternoon. Hummingbird Creek. How may I help you?” My voice sounds fancy.

  I hear a man give a cough, then, “Right. I’ve been fobbed off enough times.” The accent is weird. British, but odd. Perhaps he’s connected to the new patient, Noah. “I want to speak to Louelle Ballard, and this is about the sixth time I’ve called. Would you put me through, please?”

  “Er…” I bite my lip. Should I forward the call to the grounds staff office? Could he be one of the reporters Dad tells us about, trying to sell stories about a celebrity’s son or daughter being here? But if he was, I don’t know why he’d want to speak to Mom.

  “I only need to speak to her for a few minutes.” He sounds less sure of himself now.

  “Who are you?” I ask as I look round for Jenna. I shouldn’t have picked up. “I could take a message?”

  The man sighs. “How do I know you’ll give it to her?”

  While I’m trying to think how to answer, he says, “All right. Tell her that her brother called. Frank.”

  Is he saying that he’s my uncle? “Pardon?”

  “Tell her Frank called. Tell her our mother died a couple of days ago.”

  What’s going on?

  Mom has no family other than me and Dad. Her parents died before I was born, both of them addicts. Her mom abused drugs, her dad alcohol. Dad says Mom and I have a predisposition to addictive behaviours but it’s not something we should worry about while we live here. His job is to protect us.

  The man’s voice is softer now. “If Louelle wants to speak to me, tell her I’d love that. I’ll give you my number.”

  I reach for a pen and pull a Hummingbird Creek memo pad towards me. “OK,” I say, my brain spinning. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jenna, carrying two white bone-china mugs of tea. She speeds up when she sees I’m on the phone, her eyes wide with What are you doing? I’ve missed the first few numbers Frank’s told me. Jenna’s closer. Her cheeks are redder than I’ve ever seen them.

  “Thank you for your call, sir,” I say and hang up, not having had a chance to write anything down.

  “Who was that?” Jenna asks. She barely glances at where she’s placing the mugs on the desk.

  “An inquiry,” I say.

  She frowns. “What about?”

  “The next open day. I told him that he could find the details on the website.” I’m shocked by my lie but I know I’ve done something wrong, and I don’t want to upset her.

  “We could have sent him a
brochure, but OK.” She places a hand on her chest and breathes out dramatically. “Don’t do that again. You nearly gave me a heart attack.” She takes a gulp of tea. “I have a very expensive mortgage and a husband out of work. My job has rules, honey, and I have to follow them or your dad will be extremely unhappy.”

  I cradle my hands round my mug and try not to let my confusion show. Is it true? My grandmother has been alive up until two days ago? Why would Mom and Dad lie to me?

  Frank must be a reporter, or maybe some kind of con artist wanting to score money.

  But, just to be sure, I’m going to pass the message to Mom when Dad’s not here.

  TWO

  In the main building, admin takes up the whole of the first floor, and my computer session is in the main area, accessible through a glass door with swipe-card entry or by buzzing for admittance. Any staff-kid or patient using a computer has to be supervised. It’s about learning appropriate boundaries. I switch on the gleaming computer on the desk next to the supervising assistant, and wait for the login prompt. The view up here is dramatic – the imposing drive to the gates, and beyond them the road to Pattonville, the nearest town an hour away. I’m always drawn to that long, straight road.

  Earl, the head of admin and security, sweeps past me on his way to the corner desk, his long, sinewy arms full of files. Earl’s been at the Creek as long as I have, but he hardly ever speaks to me. He prefers to stare with eyes that don’t blink much. I still feel his eyes on me as I turn back to the keyboard to log in. We have one of the best computer and security systems in the world to ensure patients’ maximum comfort and safety, and according to Dad that’s mostly thanks to Earl. There was a rumour about how he strangled a man with his bare hands when he was in the army. I asked Dad about it once, and he laughed and said I shouldn’t believe everything I hear.

  I click to remove the box that appears on the screen. I know its message by heart: You are logged in for one hour. Please note that you will only be allowed access to the sites listed below. These have been assessed by your clinician as the most suitable for your recovery and/or well-being. All forms of social media are blocked as Hummingbird Creek strives to provide as non-toxic an environment as possible. Emails are subject to filters and may be read for diagnostic or intervention purposes. Ensure you have enough tokens before making any purchases on the shopping sites ($1 = 2 tokens).