by Sara Shepard
“Excuse me?” Emma squeaked indignantly. “How is this my fault?”
They were interrupted by the distant wail of sirens. Mr.Mercer headed for the hall, and Mrs. Mercer followed. The sirens grew louder and louder until they were right outside of the house. Emma heard a car pull up the drive and saw red and blue lights flashing on the front porch. She was about to follow the Mercer parents into the foyer when Laurel caught her arm.
“You’re going to throw Thayer under the bus, aren’t you?” Laurel hissed, her eyes blazing.
Emma stared at her. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know why he always comes to you first,” Laurel continued, as if she hadn’t heard Emma’s question. “You just make his life worse. And you’re never there to pick up the pieces. You leave that to me, don’t you?”
Emma fiddled with Sutton’s locket that hung from her neck, silently begging Laurel to explain herself, but Laurel just glared accusingly. Clearly whatever she was talking about was something Sutton was supposed to know already.
Except … I didn’t.
“We’ve got coffee on,” Mrs. Mercer’s voice echoed from the foyer. Emma turned just in time to see Sutton’s parents leading two officers into the kitchen. One of them had red hair and freckles and didn’t look much older than Emma. The other was more weathered, with oversized ears and a woodsy cologne. Emma instantly recognized him.
“Hello again, Miss Mercer,” the second cop said, shooting Emma a weary look. It was Detective Quinlan, the officer who hadn’t believed Emma when she had told him her real identity the day she’d arrived in Tucson. He’d assumed the long-lost-twin routine was another one of Sutton’s hoaxes—the Tucson police had an entire case file dedicated to Sutton’s wrongdoings as part of the Lying Game, a cruel club Sutton and her friends had invented over five years ago, which involved playing pranks on unwitting victims. One of the most horrific pranks involved Sutton pretending that her car had stalled on the train tracks as a commuter train barreled toward her and her friends. It had ended in Gabby’s hospitalization for a seizure. Emma had only learned about it last week, after she’d purposely gotten caught shoplifting to get a peek at Sutton’s rap sheet. She’d snooped, and she’d scored, but she wasn’t exactly looking for more quality moments with the Tucson police force.
Quinlan sank into one of the kitchen chairs. “Why is it that whenever there’s a call on my beat you have something to do with it, Miss Mercer?” he said in a tired voice. “Did you organize this meeting with Mr. Vega? Do you know where he’s been all this time?”
Emma leaned against the table and glared at Quinlan. He’d had it in for her—er, Sutton—since the day she’d met him. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said quickly, flicking a strand of chestnut brown hair from her shoulder.
Mr. Mercer threw up his hands. “Sutton, please,” he said. “Cooperate with the police. I want this kid out of our lives for good.”
“I told you, I don’t know anything,” Emma argued.
Quinlan turned to Sutton’s dad. “We’ve got three squad cars patrolling the area for Mr. Vega. We’ll find him sooner or later. You can be sure of that.”
There was something about his threat that made Emma shiver. I shivered right along with her, the same question on both our minds: But what if Thayer found Emma again first?
2
A BOY NAMED TROUBLE
“Sutton?” Mrs. Mercer’s voice floated upstairs. “Breakfast!”
Emma’s eyes slowly opened. It was Saturday morning, and she was lying in Sutton’s bed, which was a zillion times more luxurious than any bed she’d ever slept on in her foster homes. She would have thought the plush mattress, thousand-thread-count sheets, down pillows, and satin comforter could ensure a perfect eight hours of sleep every night, but she’d slept fitfully ever since she arrived here. Last night, she’d woken up every thirty minutes to make sure Sutton’s window was still locked. Each time she stood at the window ledge, looking out on the perfectly manicured lawn that Thayer had scurried across just hours before, the same thoughts ran through her head, over and over. What if she hadn’t screamed? What if the vase hadn’t broken? What if Mr. and Mrs. Mercer hadn’t barged into Sutton’s room when they had? Would Thayer have threatened Emma to her face at last? Would he have told her to stop snooping, or else …?
Long-lost Twin Encounters Crazed, Possibly Murderous Runaway, Emma thought to herself. During her years as a foster kid, she’d gotten into the habit of titling her daily activities with a punchy headline as training for becoming an investigative journalist. She’d recorded the headlines in a notebook and named her newspaper The Daily Emma. Since moving to Tucson and taking over Sutton’s life, her adventures really were newsworthy—not that she could tell anyone about them.
She rolled over, the events from last night flooding into her brain once more. Could Thayer be Sutton’s killer? His behavior certainly wasn’t dispelling her suspicions.
“Sutton?” Mrs. Mercer called again.
The sugary smell of maple syrup and waffles wafted up to Sutton’s bedroom, and Emma’s stomach rumbled with hunger. “Coming!” she yelled back.
With a groggy yawn, Emma climbed from the bed and pulled an Arizona Cardinals sweatshirt from the top drawer of Sutton’s white wooden dresser. She yanked the $34.99 price tag from the collar and slid it over her neck. The shirt was probably a present from Cardinals über-fan Garrett, who’d been Sutton’s boyfriend when she died—now her ex-boyfriend after Emma turned down his naked and willing body at Sutton’s eighteenth birthday party. There were some things sisters weren’t meant to share.
Uh, yeah—like each other’s lives. But I guess it was a little too late for that.
Sutton’s iPhone buzzed, and Emma checked the screen. A small photo of Ethan Landry appeared in the upper right-hand corner, which made Emma’s heart do a flip. ARE YOU OKAY? he wrote. I HEARD THERE WERE COPS AT YOUR HOUSE LAST NIGHT AFTER I LEFT. WHAT HAPPENED?
Emma shut her eyes and tapped her fingers on the keys. LONG STORY. THAYER BROKE IN. SUPER SCARY. MAYBE HE’S A SUSPECT. MEET UP LATER AT THE USUAL PLACE?
AREN’T YOU GROUNDED? Ethan wrote back.
Emma ran her tongue over her teeth. She’d forgotten that the Mercers had grounded her for stealing the purse from Clique last week. They’d only let her go to Homecoming because she’d done well in school—a first for Sutton, apparently. I’LL FIGURE OUT A WAY TO GET OUT, she typed back. SEE YOU AFTER DINNER.
Damn right she’d figure out a way. Other than my murderer, Ethan was the only person who knew who Emma really was, and the two of them had joined forces to try to identify Sutton’s killer. He’d definitely want to know about Thayer.
But that wasn’t the only reason Emma wanted to see Ethan. After the hubbub of last night, she’d almost forgotten that they’d reconciled … and kissed. She was dying to see him and take things to the next level. Ethan was the first real almost-boyfriend Emma had ever had—she’d always been too shy and moved around too much to make an impression on guys—and she wanted it to work out.
I was hoping that it would work out, too. At least one of us should find love.
Emma descended the stairs for breakfast, pausing for a moment to stare at the family photographs in the Mercers’ hallway. Black-framed photos showed Laurel and Sutton with their arms wrapped around each other at Disneyland, sporting matching neon pink–trimmed ski goggles on a ski trip, and making a sand castle on a beautiful whitesand beach. A more recent one showed Sutton and her dad in front of a British racing-green Volvo, Sutton holding up the key gleefully.
She looked so happy. Carefree. She had a life Emma had always wanted. It was a question that plagued her constantly: Why had Sutton gotten such a wonderful family and friends, while Emma had spent thirteen years in foster homes? Sutton had been adopted into the Mercer family when she was a baby, while Emma had remained with their birth mother, Becky, until she was five. What if their roles had been reversed, and Emma had gotten to live
with the Mercers? Would she be dead now? Or would she have lived Sutton’s life differently, appreciated her privileges?
I gazed at the photos, zeroing in on a recent snapshot of the four of us on the front porch. My mom, my dad, Laurel, and I looked like the picture-perfect family, all of us dressed in white tees and blue jeans, the Tucson sun brilliant in the background. I blended so well with them, my blue eyes almost the same as those of my adoptive mother. I hated when Emma assumed that I’d been a huge, ungrateful brat my whole life. Okay, so maybe I hadn’t appreciated my parents as much as I should have. And maybe I’d hurt some people with Lying Game pranks. But did I really deserve to die because of it?
In the kitchen, Mrs. Mercer poured golden batter into a waffle iron. Drake sat patiently beneath her, waiting for the batter to ooze over the sides and drip onto the floor. When Emma appeared in the doorway, Mrs. Mercer glanced up with a pinched, worried expression. The lines around her eyes stood out prominently, and there was just a hint of gray at her temples. The Mercer parents were a little older than most parents she knew, possibly in their late forties or early fifties.
“Are you all right?” Mrs. Mercer asked, shutting the top to the waffle iron and dropping the whisk back into the batter.
“Uh, fine,” Emma murmured, even though she would have felt a lot better if she knew where Thayer was.
A loud thwack sounded across the room, and Emma turned to see Laurel sitting at the kitchen table bringing a long silver knife down hard over a ripe, juicy pineapple. Sutton’s sister caught her eye and grinned mockingly, holding out a dripping slice. “Some vitamin C?” she asked coldly. The knife glinted menacingly in her other hand.
If it had been a week or so ago, Emma would have been afraid of that knife—Laurel had been in her top-ten suspect list. But Laurel’s name had been cleared; she’d been at Nisha Banerjee’s sleepover the whole night of Sutton’s murder. There was no way she could have done it.
Emma looked at the pineapple and made a face. “No thanks. Pineapple makes me gag.”
Mr. Mercer, who was standing by the espresso machine, turned around and gave her a surprised look. “I thought you loved pineapple, Sutton.”
A fist inside Emma tightened. Emma hadn’t been able to eat pineapple ever since she was ten, when her then foster mother, Shaina, had won a lifetime supply of canned pineapple after submitting a pineapple upside-down cake recipe to a cooking magazine. Emma had been forced to eat the slippery yellow chunks at every meal for six months. Of course it would be Sutton’s favorite fruit.
It was the little details about Sutton, things she couldn’t possibly know, that always tripped her up. Sutton’s dad seemed hyper-aware of her gaffes, too—he was the only one who’d questioned Emma about a tiny scar when she’d first arrived in Tucson, one that her twin didn’t have. And he always seemed to weigh whatever he had to say to her carefully, as though he were holding back, hiding something. It was like he knew something about his daughter was off, but couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
“That was before I found out it was really high in bad-for-you carbs,” Emma said quickly, thinking on her feet. It sounded like something Sutton would say.
Steam erupted from the espresso maker on the soapstone countertop before anyone could respond. Mr. Mercer poured milk into four porcelain mugs printed with pictures of Great Danes much like Drake and then turned to Emma. “The police found Thayer last night. Picked him up trying to hitchhike on the on-ramp to Route 10.”
“He’s been arrested for unlawful entry,” Mrs. Mercer added, adding a stack of waffles to a plate. “But that’s not all. Apparently, he had a knife on him—a concealed weapon.”
Emma flinched. One wrong move last night and Thayer might have slashed her.
“Quinlan says he resisted arrest,” Mr. Mercer went on. “It sounds like he’s really in trouble. They’re holding him at the precinct for questioning about some other things, too. Like where he’s been all this time and why he’d worried his family for so long.”
Emma kept her expression neutral, but relief coursed through her body. At least Thayer was in jail, not roaming Tucson. She was safe—for now. With Thayer behind bars, she had time to get to the bottom of his mysterious relationship with Sutton… and to figure out if she really needed to be afraid of him.
“Can we visit him in jail?” Laurel asked as she stuffed the spiky stem of the pineapple into the garbage.
Mr. Mercer looked horrified. “Absolutely not.” He pointed at both his daughters. “I don’t want either of you visiting him. I know he was your friend, Laurel, but think about all the fights he got into on the soccer field. And if half those rumors about alcohol and drugs are true, then he’s a walking pharmacy. And what was he doing carrying a knife? Trouble follows that kid wherever he goes. I don’t want you mixed up with someone like that.”
Laurel opened her mouth to protest, but Mrs. Mercer quickly interrupted. “Set the table, will you, sweetie?” There was a wobbly quality to her voice, as if she were trying to smooth everything over and sweep the mess under the rug.
Mrs. Mercer set a heaping mound of Belgian waffles on the kitchen table and filled everyone’s glass with orange juice. Mr. Mercer strolled over from the coffee machine and sat down at his regular seat. He sliced a piece of waffle and popped it into his mouth. His eyes were on Emma the whole time. “So. Is there a reason Thayer snuck into your bedroom?” he asked.
Nerves darted through Emma’s insides. Because he might have killed your real daughter? Because he wanted to make sure I wasn’t going around telling people about it?
“You weren’t expecting him, were you?” Mr. Mercer continued, his voice sharpening.
Emma lowered her eyes and grabbed for a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth’s. “If I was expecting him, I wouldn’t have screamed.”
“When did you last see him?”
“Last night.”
Mr. Mercer sighed exaggeratedly. “Before that.”
These were questions Emma couldn’t answer. She looked around at the table. All three Mercers were staring at her, waiting for her response. Mr. Mercer looked irritated. Mrs. Mercer was nervous. And Laurel’s face was a murderous bright red.
“June,” Emma blurted. It was the month that all the flyers in the police station and Facebook pages said Thayer went missing. “Just like everyone else.”
Mr. Mercer sighed heavily, like he didn’t believe her. But before he could say anything else, Mrs. Mercer cleared her throat. “Let’s not worry about Thayer Vega anymore,” she chirped. “He’s in jail—that’s what matters.”
Mr. Mercer’s brow wrinkled. “But—”
“Let’s talk about happy things instead, like your birthday party,” Mrs. Mercer interrupted. She touched her husband’s arm. “It’s only a few weeks away. Almost all the plans are complete.” Even Emma knew about the plans for Mr. Mercer’s birthday party. Mrs. Mercer had been planning the festivities at the Loews Ventana Canyon resort for weeks. Her party to-do lists were scattered around the house on bright yellow Post-its.
Mr. Mercer’s face was still a stony grimace. “I told you I didn’t want a party.”
Mrs. Mercer scoffed. “Everyone wants a party.”
“Grandma’s coming, right?” Laurel asked after swallowing a slug of orange juice.
Mrs. Mercer nodded. “And you girls know you’re welcome to invite your friends,” she said. “I’ve already sent invitations to the Chamberlains and Mr. and Mrs. Vega. And I just ordered the cake from Gianni’s, that gourmet baker who did the cake for Mr. Chamberlain’s party,” Mrs. Mercer went on. “Apparently they’re the best. It’s carrot with a cream cheese frosting. Your favorite!”
Her voice lifted higher and higher. After Teenage Murder Suspect Breaks Into Home, Dutiful Wife Tries to Lighten Mood with Talk of Dessert, Emma thought with a smirk.
“May I be excused?” Laurel asked, even though a whole waffle remained on her plate.
“Sure,” Mrs. Mercer said distractedly, her eyes still on her h
usband’s face.
Emma jumped up, too. “I have German homework,” she said. “Might as well get an early start on it.” This was something Sutton clearly wouldn’t say, but she was eager for the escape. She carried her dish to the sink and kept her head pointedly down as Laurel brushed past. Laurel muttered something under her breath. Emma was almost positive it was bitch.
When she passed by the table again, on her way toward the hall, she felt Mr. Mercer’s eyes on her. He was giving her such a suspicious stare that a sharp pain shot through Emma’s stomach. Suddenly, her mind flashed back to the look Mr. Mercer and Thayer had exchanged the previous night. Was it just her imagination, or did something big happen between them? Did they have some sort of … history together? Did Mr. Mercer know something about Thayer—something potentially dangerous—that he wasn’t letting on about?
I had to agree—my dad definitely knew something about Thayer. As I followed Emma up the stairs, I caught a glimpse of the mountains outside the window, and two puzzle pieces connected for a brief moment in my mind. I saw spidery branches casting shadows across the packed earth while sticky, late summer air clung to my bare legs. I saw Thayer keeping pace at my side, sliding his arm through mine as we navigated a rocky path in the twilight. I saw him opening his mouth to speak, but the memory scattered before I could hear what he’d been about to say.
But maybe, just maybe, it had been something I hadn’t wanted to hear.
3
EVERYONE LOVES A POET
Later that evening, Emma made her way to the local park. Even though it was dusk, there were still lots of people jogging on the dirt paths that wound up toward the mountains, cooking burgers on the public grills, and roughhousing with their dogs on the grass. A radio was playing a Bruno Mars song, and a bunch of kids were splashing each other with water from a fountain.
