Seven Minutes in Heaven

by Sara Shepard

Page 12

  Emma’s body twitched involuntarily. Clarice had all but kicked her out of the house after Travis had framed her for stealing from her purse. Why was the news even talking to her? She didn’t know anything about Emma.

  Travis had the microphone now. “Emma was a wild girl,” he said with a smirk. “She was into all kinds of crazy stuff. I found a video of her online, getting held down and strangled and . . . ” His next word was replaced with a loud beep. “She always had money, too. Maybe she was involved with some kind of fetish dungeon or something. ”

  I goggled at the TV—would they show the snuff video? I didn’t want my parents to see me like that. They both stared at the screen, my mom with a disturbed grimace, my dad looking confused. I wondered if he’d ever even heard the phrase “fetish dungeon” before, much less in connection with anyone he might be related to.

  Across the table, Laurel set her glass down with a loud thunk. Emma glanced up at her, her mind shooting back to what she’d learned of the snuff video. Laurel had masterminded that prank—and she’d been the one with the movie saved on her hard drive. What if she recognized what Travis was describing? But Laurel just toyed with her food, a distracted look on her face.

  The newscaster’s voice came back. “When investigators tried to find the video, they found no trace. Whether it’s been since taken down, or was a case of mistaken identity, is still under investigation. Meanwhile, LVPD, who is assisting the Tucson police with the investigation, discovered a locker checked out to the missing girl at the Greyhound station, containing clothes, what seem to be journals, and around two thousand dollars in cash. ”

  Emma’s insides lurched. They had her journals? Her cheeks felt like they were on fire. She imagined the police flipping through the cheap composition books, guffawing over the phase in junior high when she’d dotted all her i’s with hearts, or reading her fake headlines out loud to a room of beat cops. Girl Goes Stag to Homecoming, Stands by Refreshment Table All Night—she imagined Quinlan and his buddies reading it aloud and erupting in laughter. The very thought made her want to hide her face in her hands.

  The cameras jumped back to the newscaster, who held her microphone to her lips and looked seriously into the camera. “Meanwhile, the Tucson Police Department has refused to give an official cause of death, saying the case is still under investigation. But our sources tell us Paxton was hoping to meet up with her biological family in Tucson. Whether she made it to them is unknown. The family has so far declined our requests for an interview. ” At that, Mrs. Mercer hit the remote, and the sound muted.

  “Requests?” she snapped, curling her lip. “You spent most of the day on our front lawn, you gargoyle. ” Then she sighed, and started gathering dishes. “Poor Emma. It sounds like she could have used our help. ”

  “What do you mean?” Emma asked, glancing up at her grandmother.

  “Just, if she was as troubled as those people said . . . ” Mrs. Mercer trailed off, then shook her head. Her face darkened. “I wish we’d known about her sooner. This is all Becky’s fault. It’s always Becky’s fault. She lies, she steals, she keeps secrets, and she doesn’t care who she hurts along the way. ”

  “Kristin,” Mr. Mercer said softly. But his wife scowled, grabbing the Pyrex dish of lasagna from the center of the table. She moved so violently a small splatter of sauce flew free and landed on her sweater, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “You know it’s true. She kept us in constant agony, wondering where she was and if she was okay. And for some insane reason, she didn’t tell us about this other little girl who we could have . . . ” Tears sprang to her eyes. “This little girl we could have saved. ”

  Mr. Mercer stood up and gently pried the dish from her hands. He set it back on the table and pulled his wife into his arms. She broke down then, sobbing against his chest as he patted her back. Laurel and Emma looked at each other with wide, frightened eyes. Emma had never seen Mrs. Mercer this emotional, and from the look on Laurel’s face, she hadn’t either.

  Emma couldn’t help but agree with Mrs. Mercer. She wanted to forgive Becky—Becky was her mother, after all—but sometimes she was so angry she could scream. What had been the point of keeping Emma if she was only going to abandon her five years later? What had been the point of separating the twins?

  It was so unfair. If Sutton hadn’t died, if Emma hadn’t come out to Tucson to find her, the wheels might have been set in motion on their own, by Becky’s confession to Mr. Mercer. What would it have been like if the Mercers had come for her as a family? She imagined being called out of class in Henderson, just like she had been the day they found Sutton’s body. But in this alternate reality, she was summoned to meet her family. Her real, blood family. She pictured it: Mr. Mercer, gentle and reassuring; Mrs. Mercer, a nervous but excited smile twitching the corners of her lips; Laurel, wary at the possibility of a new rival but hopeful, eager to be liked. And Sutton. Her sister. Her twin.

  “What was she like?” Laurel asked softly, breaking Emma’s thoughts. Emma gave a start, her mind racing to come back to the present. To the reality where Sutton was gone, and she was alone.

  “What was who like?” she asked.

  “Emma,” she said. “You talked to her, right?”

  Emma ran her finger along the condensation on the outside of her glass. “Just a little bit. I didn’t know much about her. ” Then, because she couldn’t resist, she added, “I know her foster mom had just kicked her out of the house. She sounded kind of awful. ”

  “Who, that woman with the tacky lounge-waitress hairdo?” Laurel said. “She looked awful. ”

  “Now, girls,” Mr. Mercer said, frowning at them from where he still stood with Mrs. Mercer in his arms. “You don’t know that. It can be hard to know what to do for someone who’s troubled. I’m sure that woman did her best for Emma. ”

  Emma knew he was speaking more about his own relationship with Becky than anything, but she was glad that Laurel at least had sided with her.

  Mrs. Mercer wiped her eyes with a pineapple-print cloth napkin, then let go of her husband. “Did anyone want dessert? There’s some ice cream in the fridge. ”

  “No thanks, Mom. ” Laurel threw her own napkin down in front of her. Emma shook her head, too. Her stomach felt like a lead weight.

  Mr. Mercer pulled a chair out for his wife. She sat down, her eyes still damp, and he set about clearing the rest of the dishes. The plates and silverware clattered together, echoing around the silent kitchen. On the muted TV Santa Claus delivered pizzas in his sleigh, the phone number for a regional pizza chain painted on the side.

  “Do we have to go to school tomorrow?” Laurel asked, sucking her lower lip anxiously. Mr. and Mrs. Mercer exchanged uneasy glances from across the room. Then Mr. Mercer came back to the table, wiping his hands on a dish towel.

  “I wish I could hide you girls from this forever,” he said, “but I don’t know if you should miss any more school. We talked to the principal this afternoon, and she promised me there would be no press allowed on campus. I know it won’t be easy. I’m sure your friends have a lot of questions for you. ”

  Emma rolled her eyes. That was an understatement. All day long she’d been fielding texts from Madeline and Charlotte. WHAT IS GOING ON???? Charlotte had asked, while Madeline had seemed excited that a “mega-foxy” reporter had cornered her outside campus to ask if she knew Sutton. THIS IS SO CRAZY, she’d texted, along with a photo taken from her phone of a line of news vans just off campus.

  The Twitter Twins’ updates had been the most useful real-time description of the school day. Early in the morning Gabby had tweeted:

  Media circus at Hollier. How’d the paparazzi find me again?

  Lili had followed up shortly after:

  Life expectancy of teen girls seems to be plummeting in Tucson. Be careful, everyone.

  They’d chronicled each rumor as it circulated and had live-blogged the school assembly at which the principal had announced
the discovery of another body. Gabby’s last post had read:

  Hollier High needs a hero. Sutton Mercer, come back and lead your people!

  She knew the halls were going to be buzzing with rumors the next day, and she would be at the center of it. Even imagining it made her heart beat faster—but not nearly so fast as it did a moment later when the news came back from commercials.

  A male reporter with a shellacked helmet of hair stood in front of a coffee shop, talking to a girl wearing an apron over a vintage Bad Religion T-shirt. She wore a pair of black plastic-frame glasses, and her dark hair was spiked in a short, edgy pixie cut. Tears glittered in her eyes. Emma hurried to turn the volume back up.

  “—just don’t understand how this could happen,” the girl was saying, wiping at her eyes. “Emma was my best friend. ”

  Before she could stop herself, Emma jumped to her feet, banging her knee on the table leg. Vibrations of pain shot up through her hip, but she ignored them.

  The girl on the screen was Alex Stokes—Emma’s best friend from Henderson. The one person she’d been in contact with since coming to Tucson. She was standing outside of Sin City Java, where she was a part-time barista.

  The Mercers gawked at Emma, alarm plain on their faces. She’d knocked her chair over, and she stood gripping the side of the table, her knuckles white. Her grandfather looked from her to the TV set, and then back to Emma, his eyes round and baffled. “Do you know that girl?”

  Emma sat down slowly, shaking her head no, but they still stared. Laurel’s glass hovered halfway to her lips, frozen in midair. Mrs. Mercer gave her a worried look. Emma cleared her throat and forced herself to speak. “It’s just that that girl seemed to care about Emma a lot. No one else seems to miss her. It’s just so sad. ”

  Emma stared at her friend’s face. Alex was the only person from her old life who actually cared about her; she also happened to be the only person who could blow Emma’s cover.

  Since coming to Tucson, Emma had been lying to Alex, just like she’d been lying to everyone. She’d told her friend back home that she and Sutton were getting along perfectly, that the Mercers had welcomed her to stay with them for a while. She’d been texting Alex on and off for the past three months—long after “Emma Paxton” was supposed to have died.

  And now Alex could blow all of her lies wide open. All she had to do was mention the texts she’d gotten from her best friend, apparently from beyond the grave, and Emma would be through.

  “We were joined at the hip,” Alex said. And then she looked directly into the camera, tears hanging from her long, dark eyelashes. “We used to meet at the rec center and talk for hours. ”

  And just like that, relief flooded Emma’s body. Alex wasn’t going to expose her. Alex was covering for her. The “rec center” had been their own private code for any kind of rule-breaking. It started when Emma was staying with the Stokeses; one night Alex had slipped out past her curfew for a date with a boy from UNLV. When Alex’s single mom came home early and asked where her daughter was, Emma had stammered out that Alex was swimming at the rec center. They both laughed about it later. Good thing my mom’s internal clock is all screwed up from working nights, Alex had teased, or she’d have wanted to know why that pool is open at midnight on a weeknight. From then on, “rec center” was synonymous for “I’ve got your back. ”