by Sara Shepard
“Anyway, I’m sorry if I was prying,” Nisha said. “The whole thing just seemed really scary, and I wanted to make sure you were okay. It’s not the same, but … I understand what you’re going through. It’s tough to watch your mom not acting like herself.”
Nisha’s mother had died of cancer last year. Emma had gotten the sense that it had been fairly quick, but surely Mrs. Banerjee had undergone treatment—radiation, chemo—that would have made her unrecognizable.
“What’s it like, volunteering up there?” Emma asked. “I mean, isn’t it hard, being around all that … insanity?”
Nisha took off her glasses and polished them on the edge of her shirt. “To be honest, I signed on for the psych ward because my dad works there,” she said bluntly. “It’s the only way I ever get a chance to see him anymore. He’s always been a workaholic, but it got way worse after Mom died.” She slid the glasses back on, making her eyes look bigger and somehow more vulnerable. “It’s actually not so bad. I mean, there’s lots of creepy stuff that happens there. But sometimes you get to watch someone getting better. It’s like they come back to themselves or wake up from a really bad dream. It’s pretty inspiring.” She cleared her throat. “That sounds so cheesy.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Emma said softly. “I think it sounds amazing.”
The floodlight snapped back on. Emma flinched, squinting into the sudden glare. Nisha looked back toward her driveway. “Don’t worry, it’s probably just the neighbor’s cat.”
Emma exhaled heavily. “I’ve been jumpy ever since my mom escaped from the hospital. I just wish I knew exactly what was wrong with her. No one will tell me anything. What if she’s … violent?”
Nisha nodded slowly. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Emma bit her lip, glancing at Ethan’s house.
“Do you know a way I could look at her records?” she asked. Nisha recoiled slightly. “I would never ask you to get them for me,” Emma said quickly. “I know they’re confidential. But if you knew how to get them … it would mean a lot. Maybe I could figure out where she’s gone. Maybe I could find her.”
Nisha tilted her head back and looked up at the sky. She fidgeted with a gold initial pendant on a chain around her neck, the letter D. Emma suspected it must have belonged to Mrs. Banerjee.
“I think I might be able to help you,” Nisha said. She ran her fingers through her hair. “Can you wait here for a second?”
“Sure.”
Nisha padded back across the driveway to the house. Emma heard her door open and shut. She leaned against her car, counting the seconds. Somewhere in the canyon a coyote was hunting, its short, shrill barks bouncing off the desert rock. The sound sent a shiver up her spine. She stared into the darkness in the direction of the park, trying to convince herself she had nothing to be afraid of.
A few minutes later, Nisha’s footsteps sounded on the gravel driveway. “My mother’s birthday is September seventh,” Nisha said cryptically. Then she slid something shaped like a credit card into Emma’s hand.
Emma opened her fist. It was a small white electronic passkey. The University of Arizona Hospital logo was stamped on the front.
She immediately pulled Nisha into a hug. For a few seconds, Nisha stood rigid and surprised in her arms. Then Emma felt her body relax as she tentatively hugged her back.
“Thanks,” Emma whispered, stepping away.
Nisha nodded. “I’ve gotta go. See you at the party, okay?” She went back into the house. Emma imagined her going into the Banerjees’ silent foyer, walking past all the things that her mother had bought for their household—a vase, a picture frame, a throw. The house must feel almost haunted.
I wondered about that. Did Nisha travel with her own invisible passenger? Did Mrs. Banerjee hover around her, cajoling and comforting a daughter who couldn’t hear her anymore? Somehow I doubted she had the same kind of unfinished business I did.
Emma opened the door to the Volvo. As she was getting in, she saw a curtain flutter at a window in Ethan’s house. A moment later, a light snapped on in the front room, and his mother passed by the window in a worn gray bathrobe. Emma watched for another moment, wondering if she’d been eavesdropping on her conversation with Nisha. Then she climbed in the car.
Emma sighed. Maybe asking Nisha for help with the files was unethical. But if it helped clear Becky, it would be worth it. And if it didn’t—it might help her finally catch her sister’s killer.
I agreed with Emma. With Becky on the loose, we needed all the information we could get.
It was time to learn some of our mother’s secrets.
24
MEET ME AT THE PLAZA
Emma opened her eyes, blinking slowly in confusion. Her body felt strangely heavy, her arms like lead at her sides. She stared up at an unfamiliar tiled ceiling dotted with industrial fluorescent lights. The room smelled like floor wax and medicine. Strange monitors loomed over her bed, beeping and winking down at her.
She tried to sit up, but her body still wouldn’t budge. She looked down, and her heart began to hammer. Instead of Sutton’s polka-dot pajamas, she wore a thin white hospital gown. A plastic bracelet stuck to her wrist. Her arms and legs were strapped to the bed with stained leather restraints.
“No!” Emma screamed, pulling against the restraints. She thrashed back and forth, but that only seemed to make them tighter.
“I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” said a familiar voice. Emma gasped. Becky. “I’m so glad you could finally join me.”
A rustle of the sheets and a creak of the mattress springs indicated that her mother had crawled out of bed. Emma turned her head so hard that her neck felt like it might snap off, but she still couldn’t see her. “Mom?” she whispered.
“They tried to keep us apart,” said her mother. “But you and I are supposed to be together always, Emmy. And now we can be.”
“This is a mistake,” Emma said, struggling again. “I don’t belong here.”
“Of course you belong with your mother,” said Becky soothingly. “Don’t worry. You’re here now, and I’ll take care of you. Then you’ll realize.”
“Realize what?” Emma asked. Becky didn’t answer. “Mom?”
“It was so hard to watch you bounce from foster home to foster home.” Her mother’s voice sounded sad, tremulous. It was closer now. “I hated to see you so lonely. So miserable. All you ever wanted was a family.”
Emma lay in breathless silence.
“You thought that I abandoned you, but I was watching over you all this time. And I know. A mother always knows. I had a plan, and it worked. You waited patiently like a good little girl, and now you have a family.”
Emma shook her head frantically, straining against her bonds. “I didn’t want to get a family this way,” she insisted. “I never wanted to hurt anyone.”
“People get hurt every day,” Becky whispered into her ear. “Do you have any idea how much it hurt to give birth to twins? I never knew there was going to be two of you. There wasn’t supposed to be two. But that’s okay. I’ve corrected the mistake.”
“Mom, stop,” Emma said, writhing again. “Please tell me you didn’t do this.”
Becky’s face suddenly appeared in front of her, more skeletal than ever. Her eyes were sunken and hollow, her lips thin and bloodless. She smiled down at her daughter sadly. A gnarled hand reached down to stroke Emma’s hair off her forehead, a gesture Emma remembered from when she was a little girl.
Then Becky picked up a pillow from the bed next to Emma and cradled it almost like a baby.
“Honey, you don’t always get what you wish for,” she said. Then, still smiling, she pushed the pillow down onto Emma’s face.
Emma screamed into the pillow. She tried to shake off Becky’s weight, but the cuffs on her wrists and ankles cut into her skin. Multicolored spots danced against the backs of her eyelids. Her lungs burned, and her mind went fuzzy, until the world around her became shiny and transparent. And t
here, in that surreal space somewhere beyond vision, she saw a girl around her own age. The girl was shouting something. She was pretty, with long brunette hair and blue eyes. Was she seeing … herself?
No. She was seeing me. “Emma,” I yelled.
Emma saw the girl’s lips move, but she couldn’t distinguish the words. Somehow, though, she knew that this was Sutton. Emma gazed at her sister’s face, so like her own. Then she felt a peaceful sense of detachment, as if she was deep underwater. Wait for me, Sutton, she thought. I’m coming. At least she would be with her sister now. Becky had seen to that.
Her lungs gave a final, desperate heave. Then she sat, bolt upright, in Sutton’s bed. In Sutton’s pajamas, in Sutton’s house. It was Saturday morning. The sheets had wound around her arms and legs so tight she could barely move. Daylight streamed in through the window.
Still breathing heavily, she grabbed Sutton’s robe and stepped into the bathroom connecting her room to Laurel’s. Locking the door, she turned on the water as hot as it would go. Steam filled the little pink-and-white room. She pulled the shower curtain aside and stepped in.
It was just a dream, she kept repeating to herself. But didn’t scientists always say that dreams revealed the truths that the waking self couldn’t face? Had her dream shown her the real truth about Becky? She wished she could talk to Sutton, just for a minute, so that her twin could tell her the name of her killer.
But I don’t know either, I thought sadly.
Emma scrubbed angrily at her skin with a pink loofah, trying to wash away the memory of the nightmare. By the time she’d dried her hair and decided on fire-engine red skinny jeans and a white T-shirt, she was feeling a little better, though the dream still clung to the back of her mind like a piece of cellophane. She trotted downstairs to the kitchen, hoping that a glass of orange juice and some breakfast might help clear her head.
Mrs. Mercer sat at the table, sipping a cup of tea and reading the wedding section like she did every lazy Saturday morning. Mr. Mercer was finishing the dishes while Laurel dried them and put them away.
“There you are,” Mrs. Mercer said, glancing up over her reading glasses. “I was just about to knock and see if you were moving.”
“We saved you a waffle,” Laurel added, sliding a plate toward Emma.
Laurel and I had always had a tacit agreement not to talk about carbs or calories on Saturday mornings, when our parents would make pancakes or French toast or my mom’s special cream cheese blintzes. Emma smiled and reached for the syrup.
“We thought we’d go to the farmers’ market after breakfast,” Mr. Mercer said. “I’ll throw together a ratatouille tonight if I can find some decent vegetables.”
Emma took a bite of her waffle, considering. She had wanted to go straight to the hospital today to find Becky’s records. But after the nightmare she’d just had, she didn’t think she could face it quite yet. The sun shone in through the window, and a crisp fall breeze ruffled the curtains. It was a beautiful day for a family excursion. “Sure,” she said. “Let’s do it.”
Half an hour later, the family piled into the SUV. Mr. Mercer turned the radio to a fifties station as he drove along the back roads toward the market. The weekly Tucson farmers’ market was in a stone plaza adjacent to an old, mission-style church. Eucalyptus trees perfumed the air, and a fountain splashed musically at the center. Booths covered in checkered picnic cloths were overflowing with fresh produce—zucchini and summer squash, apples and oranges and pears, a rainbow of bell peppers. A young couple with a double stroller stood outside a carpenter’s booth, examining the hand-painted wooden toys on display. The line for the organic coffee shop across the courtyard snaked almost to the church steps.
Mr. Mercer immediately approached a man in a Grateful Dead T-shirt selling tomatoes on the vine and began haggling over prices. Mrs. Mercer sampled various eco-friendly cosmetics, chatting happily with the saleswoman, who reminded Emma a bit of an older, friendlier version of Celeste with her all-linen outfit and her stacks of rings.
“We shouldn’t have had breakfast,” Laurel said, eyeing a booth of mini crackers and cheeses. Emma examined a jar of fresh olive tapenade, thinking back to her picnic with Ethan. The memory made her smile. “Um, hello? Earth to Sutton?” Laurel said, waving her hand in front of Emma’s face. “What planet are you on?”
“Just thinking about Ethan,” Emma confessed.
“Cute.” Laurel nudged her playfully. “So I was wondering, can I borrow your liquid eyeliner for the party tonight? I want to do a retro cat-eye thing.”
“Of course,” Emma said. “Are you taking anyone to the party?”
“Yeah, Caleb and I are trying again,” Laurel said, turning pink. “I kind of dropped him when Thayer came back. But I told him that was all over.”
“He seems really sweet,” Emma offered. Laurel and Caleb had started dating right before Halloween, and Laurel had been really into him—until Thayer reentered the picture.
“He is.” Laurel smiled. “I’m glad he forgave me.”
“I wish Ethan would get over the whole Thayer thing, too,” Emma said, hoping it wasn’t too weird to talk about this with Laurel. “I really do want to be friends with Thayer, but whenever I talk to him, it feels like I’m sneaking around behind Ethan’s back.”
Laurel adjusted the gold tennis bracelet on her wrist. “That’s because you and Thayer can’t be friends,” she said matter-of-factly. Emma blinked. “Oh, come on,” Laurel pressed. “Just because you first dated him as a prank doesn’t mean we don’t all know that you two were crazy about each other. And Thayer’s still in love with you. Those kinds of feelings … they don’t go away easily. Maybe ever.”
Emma shook her head, sputtering. Sutton had first dated Thayer as a Lying Game prank? That was news. “You’re crazy. Thayer’s not still in love with me.”
“Whatever you say.” Laurel reached for a plastic bag and filled it with a few pomegranates. Emma looked away, out across the plaza, so she wouldn’t have to meet Laurel’s eyes.
And that was when she saw a woman with wild black hair, too-skinny arms, and a threadbare T-shirt sitting on a park bench on the other side of the plaza. Becky. A large family passed in front of Emma, and by the time they moved past, Becky had vanished.
Without thinking, Emma jumped to her feet, threw her purse into Laurel’s arms, and took off into the crowd. She passed a man wearing bright purple suspenders selling homemade ice cream in flavors like salted caramel fudge and ginger pear, then tore through a group of teenagers.
“Hey, watch it!” A girl riding a bike with yellow streamers swerved to avoid Emma, but Emma barely even flinched.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, still turning frantically around, trying to see where Becky had gone.
There. She was walking toward the farthest row of booths. Her sneakers were held together with duct tape and didn’t match. Her hair was in pigtail braids, just how she used to do Emma’s hair before school every morning. Emma felt a pang in her chest. Becky looked so helpless—and innocent. Could she really be capable of murder?
Emma pushed through a group of college girls in front of a vegan candy booth, almost stepping into the open guitar case of a stubble-chinned street performer. “Mom!” she yelled. Several women looked her way but then turned back when they realized it wasn’t their daughter yelling. “Becky!”
Emma knew this was her last chance. She broke free from the crowd, running past an upscale pizza restaurant and a gallery that sold Hopi artwork, almost colliding with Becky from behind. She grabbed her mom’s arm and yanked her back.
“What are you …” The question died on her lips. The woman Emma had stopped was only a few years older than herself. She had a safety pin through her nose and deep purple shadow on her eyelids. Her T-shirt advertised a band called the Pukes, and up close Emma could see tattoos through the cigarette burns in the fabric.
She let go of the stranger’s arm.
“I’m so sorry. I thought you were someone e
lse,” Emma muttered.
“Clearly,” the woman said, her voice ragged with hostility. “Keep your hands to yourself.”
Emma turned dazedly away in time to see Laurel running to meet her. The punk girl swore under her breath and stalked away.
“Who was that?” Laurel asked when she’d caught her breath.
“It was … I thought it was Rose McGowan.” Emma stood numbly in place. “I wanted to get her autograph.”
Laurel gaped at her in disbelief. “Why would Rose McGowan be wandering around the Tucson farmers’ market in November?”
“Well, obviously, she wasn’t,” snapped Emma. Her throat ached and she felt as if she was choking—it took her a minute to realize she was fighting back a sob. She took her purse back from Laurel. “Come on, we’d better get back.”
She turned on her heel and strode back to the plaza without another word. Laurel chased after her.
“I think you’re cracking up,” Laurel muttered.
Emma was starting to agree with her. She put her hand in her purse and felt the outline of the hospital key card. Nightmare or no, she had to act. If she sat around waiting any longer to see what Becky might do, she’d end up going crazy herself.
She had to keep it together. Her life depended on it—and any hope I had for justice depended on it, too.
25
FILE M FOR MURDER
Emma stepped off the elevator into the psych wing that afternoon for the third time. This time, though, she had a plan. She’d stopped on the basement level first, using Nisha’s passkey to get into the laundry so she could borrow a volunteer’s uniform. The only one she could find was a size too small, so it looked more like a naughty nurse costume, the red-and-white fabric clinging to her curves. She’d tied her hair back in a tight bun and wiped away all her makeup in the hope that the nurses wouldn’t recognize her as the girl who’d caused so much trouble earlier that week. Last but not least, she put on a pair of black-framed reading glasses she’d found on Mr. Mercer’s bedside table. If it worked for Clark Kent, it’d work for her.
