The Lying Game tlg-1

by Sara Shepard

  Emma sucked in her stomach. Did she really want to read her sister’s diary? When she lived in Carson City, she’d sneaked into a bedroom that belonged to Daria, a pretty, mysterious older foster sister who paid no attention to her. She’d read every page of Daria’s diary, which was mostly about boys and how she thought her legs and arms were too fat. Emma had also searched through the pockets of Daria’s jeans. She’d stolen a pair of headphones out of Daria’s room, purely because they were hers. She’d taken little things every time she went in after that: a rap CD, a black jelly bracelet, a department-store sample of Chanel No. 5. After she’d moved on to another home, Emma felt ashamed about what she’d done. She’d put all of Daria’s pilfered things in a manila envelope, wrote Daria’s name on the top, and sent them back to social services, vowing she’d never do something like that again.

  It’s nice that she was being all moral, but I just wanted her to read the damn diary.

  Sighing, as though she’d actually heard my thoughts, Emma looked down at the first page again and started to read.

  Each entry was short and sweet, more like quick Twitter entries and scattered thoughts. Sometimes Sutton wrote things like Elizabeth & James clogs or B-day party on Mount Lemmon? Sometimes she wrote exclamations like I hate history! or Mom can kiss my ass! The entries that seemed like they might be about something deeper were even more baffling though. C has been so bitchy lately, Sutton had penned on February 10. She just needs to get over it. On March 1: I had an unexpected visitor after school today. He’s such a cute little puppy dog, following me everywhere. On March 9: M outdid herself today. Sometimes I think C is right about her.

  Emma leafed through the pages, trying to extrapolate meaning from the entries. There were a lot about L, who she could only assume was Laurel. L came downstairs this morning in an identical outfit to mine. And, Playing an awesome prank on L this afternoon. Maybe she’ll be sorry she wanted in so badly! And then on May 17, L is still ruined over T. Pull yourself together, bitch. He’s just a guy. Emma’s gaze landed on an entry from August 20, just a week and a half ago: If L brings up that night one more time, I’m going to kill her.

  What night? Emma wanted to yell. Why was Sutton so ridiculously vague? It was like she was keeping a journal for the CIA.

  I was just as frustrated as she was.

  Then a small construction-paper square fell out of the notebook and fluttered to the floor. Emma picked it up, gazed at the bold writing on the front, and gasped: THE LYING GAME MEMBERSHIP CARD. Below that was Sutton’s name, the title EXECUTIVE PRESIDENT AND DIVA, and then a date in May more than five years ago.

  On the other side of the card was a list of rules:

  1. Don’t tell ANYONE. Telling will be punishable by expulsion!

  2. Only three people allowed in the club at one time. (But someone had crossed out three and written four above it.)

  3. Every new prank must be better than the last. Those who outdo one another earn a special badge!

  4. If we’re really in trouble, if it’s not a prank, we will say the sacred code words: “Cross my heart, hope to die.” This means 9-1-1!

  Beneath that was a sub-list of pranks that were off-limits. It mostly contained things like hurting animals or little children, damaging stuff that was irreplaceable or really expensive (Charlotte’s dad’s Porsche was the example), or doing something that would have the government after them (someone had written a ha! after that). In different-colored blue ink at the very bottom, someone had added No more sexting, underlining it three times.

  I stared at the membership card, too, my brain buzzing. I had a flash of Madeline, Charlotte, and me cutting out the cards and presenting them to one another ceremoniously, like we were receiving Oscar statuettes. But then, just like that, the memory was yanked away.

  Emma read and reread the membership card several times over, feeling affirmed. At least she had a clear picture of what the Lying Game was now: Girl Scouts for psychopaths. She thought again about the snuff film. Perhaps it had started out as a prank, too. But maybe one of Sutton’s friends took it too far. . . .

  She placed the membership card aside and went back to the journal. On the very next page, she noticed an entry from August 22: Sometimes I think all my friends hate me. Every last one. Nothing more, nothing less. Below it Sutton had written down what looked like a Jamba Juice order: bananas, blueberries, Splenda, wheatgrass detox shot.

  Okaaay, Emma thought.

  The next page was full of drawings of girls in dresses and skirts, titled “ideal summer outfits.” Sutton’s last entry was on August 29, two days before Travis showed Emma the video. I feel like someone is watching me, she’d written in shaky, hurried handwriting. And I think I know who it is. Emma read the entry again and again, feeling like someone had reached into her heart and squeezed.

  I concentrated hard, but nothing came to me.

  Emma placed the journal on Sutton’s desk next to her computer. She moved the mouse on the sky blue pad, and the screen flickered to life. She opened Safari and clicked on Facebook. Sutton’s page loaded automatically. As Emma scrolled through the posts and notes, patterns began to emerge. In August, Sutton had written, I see you on Laurel’s Wall. In July, she’d told Madeline, You’re such a naughty spy. She wrote Charlotte a private message in June: You’re after me, aren’t you? She’d even written something similar on the Twitter Twins’ pages: Will you two stop plotting against me?

  “What’re you doing?”

  Emma jumped and whirled around. Laurel leaned against the doorway, iPhone in her hand. Her blond hair was pulled up into a ponytail, and she’d changed into a pink terry beach cover-up and black flip-flops. Ray-Ban sunglasses obscured her eyes, but there was a broad smile on her face.

  “Just checking email,” Emma said in the airiest voice she could muster.

  The iPhone in Laurel’s hand bleeped, but she didn’t look at the screen. She kept her eyes fixed on Emma, turning a silver ring around her finger. Then her gaze fell to the open padlock on the bed. The journal in Emma’s lap. The Lying Game membership card on the desk. Emma’s heartbeat pulsed in her fingertips.

  Finally Laurel shrugged. “I’m going out to the pool if you want to join me.” She shut the door behind her as she left.

  Emma opened to a page in Sutton’s journal again: Sometimes I think my friends hate me. Every last one. Emma gritted her teeth. Emma had never known her father. She’d been abandoned by her mother. And now her sister had been taken from her, too, before she’d ever had the chance to meet her. Emma wasn’t even sure she would have liked Sutton, but now she’d never know. And Sutton’s friends—or sister—weren’t going to get away with it. Not if she had anything to do with it. She was going to find out what they did to Sutton. She’d do whatever it took to prove they’d hurt her sister. She just had to get close enough to find out more.

  She swiveled to the computer, clicked the mouse on Sutton’s Facebook status update window, and began to type: Game on, bitches.

  Three responses to the status pinged onto the screen almost immediately. The first comment was from Charlotte: A game? Do tell. I’m in! Then Madeline: Me too! And Laurel added: Me three! It’s a secret, right?

  Kind of, Emma typed in answer. Except now the prank was on them. And this time it was a matter of life and death.

  Chapter 21

  UNREQUITED SPYING

  “So where do you want to go for dinner?” Garrett asked Emma, guiding his Jeep Wrangler down a hill.

  “Um, I don’t know.” Emma bit her pinkie. “Why don’t you pick somewhere?”

  Garrett looked shocked. “Me?”

  “Why not?”

  A glassy, indecisive look swept across Garrett’s face. He reminded Emma of the malfunctioning Tickle Me Elmo doll she had inherited from an older girl her first year in foster care; sometimes the Elmo stared into space and didn’t know what to do next. “But we always go somewhere you like,” Garrett said.

  Emma pressed her nails into her palm
. If only she could just tell him she couldn’t pick a damn restaurant because she didn’t know any around here. Then she spotted a Trader Joe’s out the Jeep window. “Why don’t we buy some cheese and stuff and have a picnic on the mountain?”

  “Great.” Garrett swerved across three lanes of traffic to get to the grocery store parking lot.

  It was Saturday night just past 7 P.M., and the sun hung on the horizon. Garrett had shown up at the Mercers’ door a half hour earlier with a bouquet of flowers in his hands and a bouquet of different fragrances on his body—colognes, body sprays, hair gel, the works. There was such a hopeful, eager expression on his face that Emma couldn’t bring herself to call off the date, even though every cell in her body was dying to. She didn’t want to deal with Garrett right now; she wanted to be searching for Sutton’s killer.

  After standing in line behind an old lady who insisted on paying with a check, Emma and Garrett finally arrived at Catalina State Park, a shopping bag full of sparkling cider, black olives, crackers, grapes, trail mix, fancy Australian licorice, and a wedge of Brie swinging from the crook of Garrett’s elbow. The air was cool and crisp and smelled like sunscreen. Other hikers bounded up the path. After another few twists and switchbacks, they reached the vista and settled on a big boulder. Emma could see all the way down the mountain. Garrett’s car looked like a toy from up here.

  “It’s so nice out tonight,” Garrett murmured, running his hand through his blond hair. He removed his long-sleeved shirt and spread it on the ground as a picnic blanket. His tanned biceps bulged. He twisted the cider bottle open with a satisfying psst.

  “Uh-huh,” Emma replied. She stared blankly ahead. There were tumbleweeds in her mind where conversation topics should have been. What did Garrett and Sutton used to talk about? Did they have inside jokes? What brought them together? If only Sutton’s journal had been normal, Emma might’ve actually learned something useful like this.

  Sighing, she pulled the crackers, olives, trail mix, and licorice out of the bag. She absentmindedly placed a cracker on the napkin and added two olives for eyes, a trail-mix peanut for a nose, and a piece of licorice for a smile. Thinking of Ethan, she poked Garrett. “Like my new friend?”

  Garrett glanced at it for a moment and nodded. “Cute.”

  “You want to make a face, too?”

  Garrett shrugged. “I can hardly draw a circle in art class.”

  Emma popped one of the olive eyes into her mouth. So much for common ground.

  But I was kind of glad she didn’t like Garrett. I couldn’t remember exactly why I loved him. I couldn’t recall what it was that made me think of him as damaged, I just knew that I did. And even in death, I wanted him all to myself.

  Emma sat back and stared at the horizon, absently touching the scratches on her throat from last night. Tiny red marks lacerated her skin. Her windpipe still ached from the pull of the necklace. She’d taken a bunch of Advils and covered up the scrapes with the Dior foundation she’d found in Sutton’s bathroom, hoping Garrett wouldn’t notice anything amiss. She could still feel the assailant’s hot, stale breath on her neck. She shut her eyes and winced.

  “You okay?” Garrett asked.

  Emma nodded. “Yeah. I’m just tired.”

  “Fun sleepover last night?”

  Emma paused. “Actually, sleepover is inaccurate. I didn’t get any.”

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  Emma fiddled with Sutton’s locket, saying nothing. It still felt foreign around her neck.

  “C’mon.” Garrett poked her side. “You can tell me what happens at your crazy sleepovers. I wish you told me more.”

  Emma reached for another cracker, suddenly getting an idea. Actually, Garrett might be useful to this investigation after all.

  “Well, I’m not sure ‘fun’ is the word I’d use,” she said slowly. “More like . . . intense. Sometimes I think my friends hate me. I think they’d stab me in the back if they could.” It felt weird to recite the words she’d found in Sutton’s journal.

  A couple of college kids smelling strongly of pot emerged from behind the curve. The air shifted and suddenly reeked of smelly armpit. Garrett bit down on a grape; some of the juice dribbled down his chin. “Are you talking about that night?”

  Emma jolted up. “What night?”

  Garrett slowly chewed a cracker. “The night you won’t tell me about?”

  Emma’s eyes widened. What did he mean?

  “Or do you mean Charlotte?” Garrett asked when Emma didn’t answer.

  Emma lowered her eyes. Charlotte? “Um, yeah,” she said, hoping this led somewhere. “I just don’t know what her problem is.”

  Garrett pressed the edge of his sneaker into a scrubby patch of desert grass. “You’re going to have to give her some time, Sutton. Try to see it from her perspective. I dumped her . . . to go out with you. A lot of girls would have a tough time with that.”

  Emma pushed another piece of Brie into her mouth to hide her shock. Charlotte and Garrett . . . dated? She certainly hadn’t learned anything like that from Sutton’s journal.

  But it made sense. It explained the death stare Charlotte had given Emma last night when boyfriend-stealing came up in Never Have I Ever. There was that picture of Garrett’s naked torso hanging outside the shower in Charlotte’s bathroom, too. And the picture of him that had been abandoned under her bed.

  “She’s clearly not over it,” Emma agreed. “Actually, I don’t think she’s over you.”

  Garrett sighed and wrapped his arms around his knees. “I wish it never happened. I thought she understood my position. We were friends, and when we tried being more, there wasn’t any romance. I didn’t think she felt a spark either.” He broke off a piece of cracker and held it in his palm. “She’s actually called me a couple of times. Sometimes she just hangs up.”

  Emma sat up straighter. “Like . . . prank calls?”

  Garrett frowned. “I don’t think so. She just doesn’t know what to say. I feel bad for her. I mean, she’s so tough, but it’s got to be hard on her. And I still see her all the time with you. I want her to be my friend—I want all of us to be friends. Besides, Charlotte was there for me during everything that happened with Louisa.” His voice cracked on Louisa. A pained look crossed his face. “We share a lot of history together.”

  The words rushed over Emma. She felt dazed as she tried to process all Garrett had said. Then he grabbed her hand. “I don’t want it to be anything more than that with her though. I’m with you now. I want to be with you.”

  He moved a little closer to her and draped his arm around Emma’s shoulders. “That reminds me though . . . of what we talked about this summer. Our . . . plans?”

  Emma searched his way-too-close face, trying hard not to pull away. Garrett looked so serious all of a sudden. “Uh-huh,” she lied, hoping he’d elaborate.

  “Well, I was thinking of making that happen for your birthday.” He shot her a bashful smile as he traced a squiggle on her arm. “What do you think?”

  Emma shrugged. “Um, sure,” she said.

  Garrett snuggled toward her and leaned his face close to hers. Emma braced herself as he touched his lips to hers, but he tasted like sweet grapes and fizzy cider, and his lips felt warm and soft. She relaxed a tiny bit into the kiss.

  A twig snapped close by. Emma pulled back and sat up straight, instantly on edge. “Did you hear that?”

  There was another snapping sound. “Yeah.” Garrett frowned and looked around, too. Someone emerged from a dirt path off the main trail. It was a girl with pale skin and bright red hair. Emma drew in a breath.

  “Oh!” Charlotte stopped short and pulled a pair of iPod earbuds from her ears. Her gaze darted from Garrett to Emma, then to their entwined hands. What was Charlotte doing up here? Had she been watching?

  Garrett tugged nervously at the collar of his shirt. “Uh, hi, Char. What’s up?”

  Charlotte fiddled with a rope bracelet around her wrist. “Oh
, just getting a hike in.”

  “Cool,” Garrett said.

  “Nice night for it,” Emma added stupidly.

  A hawk screamed ominously from a nearby ledge. When Charlotte raised her head again, her expression was placid. Her mouth no longer trembled. “Anyway,” she said. “See you lovebirds later.”

  “L-Later,” Emma stammered.

  Charlotte slipped the earbuds back in. Garrett waved weakly. Emma did, too. Just as Charlotte made the turn, darkness crept over her face. She glanced over her shoulder, and met Emma’s gaze.

  All at once, Emma felt the hands at her neck and heard the raspy voice from last night in her ear. Sutton’s dead. Could it have been Charlotte?

  I recalled the broad-shouldered shape standing over me in the trunk and wondered the same thing. Could it have been Charlotte staring angrily, finally getting her revenge?

  Then Charlotte whipped her head around, red ponytail bouncing. She shook her hips to the song on her iPod. As she rounded the next rock, her footsteps didn’t make a sound, almost like she’d never been there at all.

  Chapter 22

  DIRTY SECRETS

  On Tuesday afternoon, when Mr. Garrison the gym teacher dispatched the class to either take a walk or play floor hockey—bleh—Emma strode along the hedged-in path past the tennis courts toward the empty running track. The afternoon was breezy but warm, smelling faintly of ground coffee beans from the cafeteria’s espresso bar. Bits of dried grass turned tumbleweeds blew across the eight yellow-outlined lanes and nestled in the long jump pit. Red-and-white-striped hurdles were stacked neatly in the middle of the field, and an abandoned gray sweatshirt lay next to them, along with a half-drained bottle of Gatorade. The only sounds were the crows cawing in the far-off trees.

  Emma pulled out Sutton’s iPhone and composed a text to Madeline: SPA AFTER TENNIS PRACTICE?