Seven Minutes in Heaven tlg-6

by Sara Shepard

  “You should stay away from Garrett.”

  Emma blinked. There was no malice in Louisa’s voice—just a blunt matter-of-factness. But her brow was crumpled in a worried frown.

  “I’m not trying to make any trouble,” Emma said carefully.

  Louisa shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Look, Sutton, I’m not just trying to be bitchy. He’s seriously worse when you’re around. I don’t know what happened between you guys, but these past few months he’s been a total wreck. There’s no way you guys are going to be buddies after all that, okay? Just stay out of his life. You owe him that.”

  A chill crawled up Emma’s spine. “He’s been unstable since the breakup?”

  Louisa gave an impatient snort. “Since before that. The night before Nisha’s party he came home hysterical at like three in the morning. He wouldn’t tell me where he’d been, but he was hyperventilating and pacing. It took me the rest of the night to get him to calm down.” She sighed. “I thought you guys had broken up, but then you were together at Nisha’s, so I didn’t know what to think.” She gave Emma a tiny, almost apologetic smile. “I’m not saying it’s your fault, Sutton. We both know my brother has problems. But you make them all so much worse. If you really want what’s best for him, you’ll stay far, far away.” And with that, she left.

  Emma stood paralyzed in the middle of Garrett’s room, Louisa’s words tossing around in her mind. We both know my brother has problems . . . but you make them all so much worse.

  A sick, twisted fear washed over her. The night before Nisha’s party was the night Sutton died. Was his mood frantic because he’d just murdered her in cold blood?

  Frustration raged through me. I felt like I was choking on all the things I couldn’t tell Emma. If only I could beam my memories straight into her head. If only I could show her what I knew—that Garrett had been in the canyon with me. That he’d killed me.

  I’d kill him myself, but thanks to him, I was less than a shadow: silent, intangible—and helpless.

  16

  LAW AND ORDER: LONG-LOST TWIN UNIT

  Later that afternoon, Emma pulled Sutton’s Volvo into a parking space outside the police station for her interview with Quinlan. Mr. Mercer had offered to meet her there, but she’d told him not to. She’d lied to the Mercers enough already; she didn’t want him to witness this, too.

  By now the drab gray building was familiar to her. This was where she’d first tried to report Sutton missing, only to be accused of crying wolf. This, too, was where she’d been brought after she was arrested for shoplifting, when she’d first read Quinlan’s file on her twin.

  Every time she’d been there before, a sleepy, muted feeling had permeated the air, almost as if the station were underwater. But now officers strode quickly and purposefully through the labyrinth of desks behind the reception area. Phones jangled from every corner, pitched just slightly off from one another so their tones clashed painfully. A flat-screen TV had been installed on the wall of the waiting area, tuned in to the national news. The sound was off, but the headlines sprang up swiftly along the bottom of the screen. She gave a jolt as she realized that the silver-haired CNN reporter was standing outside Sabino Canyon’s visitor center. His lips moved soundlessly. GIRL’S BODY FOUND WEDNESDAY, said the blocky text under his handsome face. TPD HAS YET TO RELEASE AN OFFICIAL CAUSE OF DEATH.

  So it’s gone national, she thought grimly. No wonder the station was looking sharper than usual.

  Behind her the door opened and then closed, a blade of sunlight cutting quickly across the room and then disappearing again. She glanced away from the TV and gasped.

  Travis Lambert, her old foster brother, stood there looking as smarmy as ever, though he’d obviously tried to dress up. He wore a button-down shirt that bunched around his waist where it was badly tucked in, and he’d shaved off the pathetic little strip of hair on his upper lip.

  Next to him was a balding, middle-aged man in a tailored gray suit. He carried a briefcase, swinging it back and forth like it was some kind of weapon. They walked to the reception desk, where a female officer with thin, penciled-on eyebrows sat typing on an ancient-looking computer.

  “My client’s here to see Detective Ostrada,” drawled the man with the briefcase. The officer gave them a skeptical, unimpressed look, then picked up a phone receiver and hit a button.

  “Ostrada? The witness you requested is up here.”

  Emma took a few steps backward and sat on the low bench in the waiting area, trying to look like just another citizen waiting to talk to a cop. Stay calm, she ordered herself. He hasn’t seen you. And even if he does see you, you’re Sutton Mercer. You have no idea who the hell he is. She softened her gaze so that she could look as though she were staring into space while keeping Travis in her periphery. The last thing she wanted was to make eye contact.

  The officer hung up the phone and stood up. “You can follow me,” she said, sounding like she didn’t really care if they did or didn’t. She opened the gate that separated the reception desk from the rest of the station, and the lawyer stepped through.

  Travis lingered for a moment, his hand on the gate. Go on, Emma urged him. Straight through the gate and out of my sight. But instead he pivoted slowly, his pupils flaring with recognition when his eyes landed on the bench. Emma fought to keep her face neutral, to act like he was just someone a girl like her wouldn’t have the time of day for. She was Sutton Mercer now—not poor, powerless Emma Paxton, with a whole journal titled Comebacks I Should Have Said. She pretended to be captivated by a poster on the wall over his head with McGruff the Crime Dog peering suspiciously over the lapel of his trench coat.

  “Travis?” the lawyer said, sounding mildly impatient. “Come on, we have a meeting.”

  “Coming,” he said in a singsong voice. Then, staring right at Emma, he pursed his lips to kiss in her direction before pushing through the gate and disappearing into the back.

  Her stomach twisted in knots, a sick, shaky feeling sweeping through her. Of course she was still poor, powerless Emma. So long as the murderer kept playing with her like she was his puppet, so long as she had to hide the truth from everyone she loved, she would still be as helpless to control her own fate as she had ever been as a ward of the state back in Vegas.

  Emma uncrossed and recrossed her legs on the bench, shifting her weight, wondering why in the world Travis was even here. Maybe they just wanted someone else to identify the body. Maybe he was there to tell more lies about Emma, about how wild and perverted she’d been.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by Detective Quinlan, who was now standing at the gate holding it open for her. “Thanks for coming down, Miss Mercer. Please follow me.”

  As Quinlan led her past the clusters of desks, she was intensely aware of all the eyes following them both. Everyone in the office seemed to know who she was and what she was there for. A paunchy, buzz-cut officer gawked openly as she passed. A woman whose black hair was twisted in a high pompadour on her head took a surreptitious photo of her with a cell phone.

  Who knew the police force would be just like a bunch of high school kids, I thought bitterly.

  Quinlan led Emma down a linoleum hallway to an interrogation room at the back of the station. Like everything else in the building, the room was drab and industrial gray. A faded silk fig tree stood in a plastic pot in one corner, thick dust on its fake leaves. She glanced nervously at Quinlan. “How come we’re in an interrogation room?” she asked, trying to sound like she was joking. “Do I, uh, need a lawyer?”

  Quinlan’s mustache twitched slightly. “No, no, Miss Mercer. Not to worry. This is just a casual conversation.” He moved to the far side of the table, then tossed two manila folders onto the table, side by side. The tab on the thicker one read SUTTON MERCER. The other read EMMA PAXTON.

  Emma stared at the thin folder with her name on it. What could possibly be inside? The only time she’d ever gotten in trouble with the law in her old life was the night she and Alex had br
oken curfew to see a punk show on UNLV campus, and the officer then hadn’t even written them up—he’d just driven them home and handed them over to Alex’s furious mother, which had been bad enough. Was the file only for information about the body they’d found in the canyon? Her fingers ached to flip it open, but that was obviously impossible with Quinlan right in front of her.

  I wanted to see inside just as badly as Emma did—especially if there was information about my body in her file. Every time I tried to imagine my corpse, an overwhelming sense of curiosity took hold of me. I’d never liked creepy things when I was alive—I didn’t watch slasher movies or medical dramas or anything like that. But the urge to see my body was like an itch just out of reach. It wouldn’t go away until I’d scratched it.

  Quinlan, meanwhile, was busy fidgeting with a digital recorder he’d set on the table. “Can you please state your name and date of birth, Miss Mercer?”

  Emma repeated Sutton’s name and their birthday, and after he’d replayed the recording to make sure it was working, he clasped his fingers together and rested them on the table. “All right. Can you please tell me again what you know about Emma Paxton?”

  Emma swallowed hard. The recorder both made her feel better and not—she didn’t like the thought of the lies she’d have to tell being recorded in her own voice, but on the other hand it would document anything Quinlan said, too. He wouldn’t be able to bully or intimidate her if he wanted to use the recording as any kind of evidence.

  “Well, like I told you,” she said slowly, “I met my birth mom for the first time in Sabino Canyon on August thirty-first. She told me I had a twin named Emma. That same night I got a message on Facebook from a girl named Emma Paxton. Her picture looked exactly like me. We messaged back and forth a few times, and we made arrangements to meet the next evening back at Sabino. I went the next night to meet her, and she never showed up, so I went to Nisha Banerjee’s party instead. I didn’t really think about her after that—I assumed the Facebook messages were either a lame prank from my friends, or that Emma was just a flake like my birth mom.”

  “Can you show me those Facebook messages?” Quinlan asked. She nodded, pulling them up on her iPhone and handing it across the table. The night before, she’d sat up staring at her Facebook exchange with Sutton, trying to see if there was anything incriminating that she hadn’t realized. As far as she could see, the messages were safe.

  Quinlan’s eyes flickered up to meet hers. “‘Don’t tell anyone who you are until we talk—it’s dangerous!’” he read out loud. “What was that all about?”

  Emma’s throat felt dry. “I wanted to surprise my parents with her,” she said, beads of sweat gathering at her temple. “I was afraid someone else would find her before I did and think she was me. I didn’t want her to give it away.”

  Quinlan’s eyebrow twitched, but otherwise his face was motionless. Somewhere overhead the air conditioning kicked on, and a blast of cold turned her sweat clammy.

  “Pretty weird coincidence,” Quinlan said. “The night you found out about her was the night she messaged you?”

  Emma nodded, shrugging. “Yeah. I know it’s weird; I thought so, too. But like I already told you, Becky’s weird. Maybe she was in contact with Emma, too.”

  Quinlan pushed the phone back across the table. Emma slid it into her pocket, her skin crawling under his gaze. He was watching her intently, his gray eyes sharp and glinting. She tried not to squirm away from making eye contact.

  “Do you know anything about her foster family?” he asked then. She shook her head.

  “I saw them on TV yesterday, but she didn’t tell me anything about them.” She frowned slightly. “I thought I saw her foster brother—what’s his name, Travis?—out front in the waiting area. Does he know anything about what happened to my sister?”

  The corner of Quinlan’s eyebrow twitched again, but besides that his face didn’t move. “We’re hoping he can help us with a timeline,” he said. He picked up Emma’s file, opening it near his chest. She strained her eyes to try to see over the top of the page, but he kept it at a close angle to his body.

  “Okay, now, what can you tell me about Nisha Banerjee?” Quinlan’s voice was almost conversational, his face neutral and earnest, but a blade of cold shot up Emma’s spine. She stared at him blankly.

  “What about her?” she asked. She fought to keep her fingernails out of her mouth, instead sliding her hands under her butt on the chair. Quinlan gave her a disingenuously curious look.

  “Well, her phone records show that she called you over and over the day she died. She apparently had something really important to tell you. What was so urgent?”

  Emma shrugged, trying to look more wistful than terrified. “I’ve already told you, I wish I knew. She died before she could tell me. But what’s that got to do with Emma?”

  “I don’t know, Sutton. You tell me.” Quinlan closed the file and set it down, then crossed his arms over his chest. He stared at her for a long moment, as if expecting her to volunteer more information.

  Alarm bells went off in my head. I knew this game too well. Quinlan and I had played cat and mouse for the past few years. His bullshit radar was hair-trigger keen. Emma needed to step very carefully.

  Quinlan leaned back in his chair and interlaced his fingers behind his neck. “You know, when I first got word of this, I was sure it was a prank. Sutton can’t have a twin, I thought—one of you is more than enough. Still, something isn’t adding up.”

  Emma straightened in her chair. Her hands trembled, but she tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Hey, thanks for recording this. I’m glad whoever’s going to listen will hear you harassing a grieving teenager without her parents in the room.”

  That seemed to startle him. He glanced at the recorder, then back at her. “Look, I’m just saying, given your history the whole thing seems kind of far-fetched.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t get to write my own life,” Emma snapped. That was true enough, she thought. “Sorry you don’t like the plot.”

  Quinlan held up his hands defensively. “All right, I’m sorry. You’re right.” He sighed. “Can you just do me one favor, though?”

  “What?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.

  “Can I swab your cheek?” She frowned, but he persisted. “I don’t want to go into details, but your sister’s body wasn’t in great shape when we found it. We just want to make sure that she is your biological twin. A quick DNA test will resolve the whole thing.”

  Emma bit her lip. There was something about it that she didn’t like—Quinlan’s rapid-fire questioning had left her feeling vulnerable and confused. But there was no way a DNA test could incriminate her—she and Sutton would be identical, and refusing would seem suspicious. She nodded.

  Quinlan extracted a Q-tip from a clear plastic tube in his briefcase. She opened wide, and he ran it along the inside of her cheek, peering into her mouth like a dentist. Then he briskly slid the swab back in the tube and slammed his briefcase shut.

  “Wait right here,” he said. “I’ll be back in just a few minutes.”

  With that he turned to the door and was gone.

  An uneasy feeling descended on me in the silence left in his wake. I didn’t trust Quinlan. He was almost as crafty as I’d been. And now he was out of sight. But that also meant that Emma was alone—and he’d left the files on the table. It was finally time to see how I’d died.

  17

  BODY OF EVIDENCE

  Emma counted to ten, holding her breath so she could hear Quinlan’s movements as he went down the hall. A distant door opened and shut, and then there was silence. When she was sure he was gone, she grabbed the file that listed her own name.

  She flipped it open—and immediately dropped it. The file landed on the table in front of her, gaping open. Paper-clipped to the inside of the folder was a photo of a skeleton.

  Emma’s throat went dry. She’d known there would probably be post-mortem pictures in the file, but she hadn�
��t stopped to imagine what they’d look like. She couldn’t swallow; her tongue felt like sandpaper inside her mouth. But she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. What if there were clues the cops hadn’t known to look for? She had to see those pictures.

  The body’s empty eye sockets stared straight up at the sky. Brightly colored leaves partially covered it, red and gold and brown. Scraps of skin still clung to the bones, and its long hair spread out behind it, dried out and bleached red by sun and exposure. The skull’s awful grin was a strange contrast to the faded pink hoodie still zipped around the corpse’s torso.

  I gazed at the picture, unable to tear my eyes away from what little remained of the body I’d left behind. Staring at the skull, I could just trace out the memory of my own features—there were my high cheekbones, my narrow chin. But I didn’t feel much connection with the bones in the picture. They didn’t have anything to do with me anymore. Weirdly, Emma’s body felt more like mine than my own did.

  There were other photos, paper-clipped behind the first, capturing the body from different angles. It looked like Sutton had been wearing yellow cotton shorts the night she went to the canyon. Close-ups revealed splintered bones, and one showed a jagged hole near the crown of the skull.

  The more she looked at the pictures, the stranger Emma felt. She’d known for months her sister was dead. Between the killer strangling her in Charlotte’s kitchen and dropping a theater light next to her in the school auditorium, and most recently, what happened to Nisha, there was really no room for doubt. But still, still, there had been some small, hopeful part of her that thought Sutton might walk back into town someday, laughing at the success of her best Lying Game prank yet. Staring down at the pictures of the body, though, there was no room left for hope or fantasy.

  This was what had happened to her sister. This was all that was left of her.