by Sara Shepard
A sharp, bitter taste filled Emma’s mouth. She breathed in to speak, but couldn’t find the words. What was she supposed to say? Maybe you could fill me in?
Just then a shrill bell blared across the courtyard. Charlotte shot up. “We should go.”
But Madeline just sat there, glaring.
Charlotte rested a hand gently on the sleeve of Madeline’s sweater. “The last thing we need is your dad getting a phone call about you being late to class.”
Finally, Madeline sighed and slung her bag over her shoulder. Charlotte murmured something about seeing Emma at lunch, then looped her arm through Madeline’s and guided her toward their first class. Even though Emma’s class was in the same direction, she got the distinct impression that she wasn’t invited.
A hand clamped down on Emma’s shoulder, and she flinched. When she turned, Ethan smiled sheepishly behind her. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “I just wanted to know if you’re okay.”
Emma reached out for Ethan’s hand, then pulled back. Her eyes swept furtively around the yard. A couple of drama kids were rehearsing a scene near the parking lot. There was a small line for coffee at the kiosk just inside the school doors. No one was looking at them, but she still felt paranoid. Ethan wasn’t part of Sutton’s clique, nor did he want to be.
She sighed. “I’ve only been here for ten minutes and already it’s been a long day,” she moaned. “And from the way Madeline’s acting, something was definitely going on between Sutton and Thayer before he skipped town.”
Ethan nodded. “Sounds like Sutton was playing Garrett, then.”
“I guess,” Emma said. She didn’t want to assume her sister was cheating, but it was really looking like she had been.
“So how are you going to find out more?” Ethan asked.
Emma took a long sip of the coffee Charlotte had brought for her. “Continue eavesdropping on all the gossip, maybe?” she said with a shrug.
Ethan looked like he was going to say something else, but he was cut off by the final bell. Both of them snapped to attention. “We’ll talk about this later, okay?”
“Okay,” Ethan said. He stepped forward just as Emma did. They bumped feet and stepped back.
“Sorry,” Emma murmured.
“It’s cool,” Ethan said gruffly, shifting his backpack higher on his shoulder. Their eyes met for a moment, but then Ethan lowered his head again and scuttled toward the doors. “I’ll see you,” he mumbled.
“Okay,” Emma said to his disappearing shape. She swung around and began to walk in the opposite direction.
Suddenly, a rustling in the bushes made her stop short. Someone snickered behind a podium. Emma squinted, trying to make out who it was. Was someone watching her? Was it Laurel again, spying on her and Ethan? Before she could get a glimpse, whoever it was ducked into the school and darted up the stairs.
5
GAME, SET, OUTMATCHED
After school that day, Emma walked off the tennis court at Wheeler High, Hollier’s main rival, shading her eyes from the bright glare and smiling bashfully at the smattering of applause. All of Hollier’s sports teams were playing Wheeler that week, and Emma had just finished a grueling match against a petite redhead. Well, it wasn’t supposed to be grueling—Coach Maggie had basically said that the girl was so subpar she could be beaten with an ankle strain and a badminton racket. Before Emma had arrived in Tucson, the most tennis she’d ever played was on a Ping-Pong table in a dingy basement with Stephan, her Russian foster brother. She did use some of the Russian curse words he had taught her when she wanted to swear during a match without getting in trouble, though.
For me, it was yet another reminder of how different our childhoods had been.
“Good game, Sutton,” several people Emma didn’t recognize said as she passed. She collapsed into a chair on the sidelines, kicked off the state-of-the-art tennis sneakers she’d found in Sutton’s closet—not that they helped her game any—and let out a groan.
“Someone still out of shape?” a voice lilted.
Emma looked up and saw Nisha Banerjee leaning against the fence, a smirk on her face. Nisha’s long, slender fingers rested on her trim waist, her überwhite tennis uniform gleamed—she probably bleached it after every match—and there wasn’t even a hint of sweat on the terrycloth band that circled her head of sleek, dark hair. She was Sutton’s tennis co-captain, and she never missed a chance to tell Emma how undeserving she was of the title. Emma bit her lip and tried to tell herself that Nisha was being mean because she was hurting inside—she’d lost her mother this past summer and was dealing with a lot of pain. In a parallel universe, maybe she and Emma would even bond over their absent mothers.
But not in this universe, I wanted to tell her. Nisha Banerjee and Sutton Mercer were sworn enemies and always would be. If Nisha hadn’t had a solid alibi for the night of my murder—she’d had the entire tennis team over at her house for a sleepover—she would have been at the top of my suspect list.
Emma grabbed her gym bag and made her way inside the school. Wheeler’s locker room smelled like old socks and strawberry-scented body spray. A shower head dripped in the corner, and a flyer for intramural water polo hung limply on the cinderblock wall. Emma crumpled her sweaty white socks into her gym bag, pulled her tennis uniform over her head, and changed into Sutton’s pink ballet flats, denim shorts, and V-neck tee. As she walked toward the sinks, the muscles along the backs of her thighs protested loudly, and she winced. She had eight more tennis matches to go before the end of the season. She’d probably have to get thigh replacements after that.
As she turned the corner, she saw girls in swim caps printed with HOLLIER SWIM TEAM. The room was filled with steam, and shower taps whooshed. Emma caught snippets of conversation: about someone’s butterfly splits, and then about some hot Wheeler swimmer named Devon. When she heard the name Thayer Vega, the hair rose on the back of her neck. She inched toward the showers.
“And you just know Sutton Mercer had something to do with it,” a girl chirped.
“Doesn’t she always?” said another, her voice raspier than the first.
“It’s unreal how Thayer went to her house after everyone says she put his life in danger. I mean, what’s that guy thinking getting involved with her again?”
A prickly feeling crawled along Emma’s body. Sutton had put Thayer’s life in danger? Suddenly, she remembered something Ethan had told her on Friday, right before they kissed: There was a rumor that Sutton had almost killed someone with her car. She pictured Thayer’s exaggerated limp as he ran from the Mercers’ house. Was it possible?
Sutton’s iPhone buzzed, and Emma scrambled to answer it. She ducked into a bathroom stall so that the swimmers wouldn’t see her spying and checked the screen. It was an unknown number with a 520 area code. “Hello?” she whispered.
“Sutton?” a low voice grumbled. “This is Detective Quinlan.”
She clenched the phone tighter, her heart lurching. Emma had grown up fearing the police. Becky had had some run-ins with them, and Emma had always worried the cops would throw her in jail, too, by association. “Yes?” she squeaked.
“I need you to come to the station to answer some questions,” Quinlan barked.
“About… what?”
“Just come.”
Emma couldn’t exactly say no to the police. Sighing, she said she’d be there soon. Then she pocketed the phone and pushed out of the changing room into Wheeler’s marble halls. There was a long line of lockers on the far wall, many of them decorated with stickers, miniature pom-poms, and graffiti that said things like GO WHEELER or ENGLISH SUCKS or JANE IS A HO. Late afternoon sunlight streamed through an open window and cast rectangles of gold onto the cornflower-blue walls.
Emma looked at her phone again. The police station was right next to Hollier High, five miles away. How was she going to get there? Laurel still wasn’t talking to her, and she’d no doubt report back to the Mercers that Sutton was in trouble again. T
he questioning could have something to do with Thayer, which meant she couldn’t call Madeline. Charlotte was still finishing up her tennis match, and Ethan was taking his mom to the doctor. The Twitter Twins were the only option left.
Emma scrolled through Sutton’s iPhone and found Lili’s number.
“Of course I’ll drive you,” Lili said when she answered and Emma explained her plight. “What are friends for? Gabby and I are on our way!”
In minutes, the Twitter Twins’ shiny white SUV pulled up to the curb. Lili sat in the driver’s seat, wearing a Green Day T-shirt and ripped jeans, while Gabby lounged in überpreppy rugby stripes on the passenger side. Both girls had their iPhones in their laps. As Emma hopped into the back seat, she could feel the twins’ eyes on her.
“So,” Gabby started as they pulled away, her voice dripping with hunger. “You’re going to visit Thayer in jail, aren’t you?”
“We knew it,” Lili said before Emma could answer. Her blue eyes widened as she glanced in the rearview mirror, clumps of mascara dotting her lashes. “We knew you couldn’t stay away.”
“But we won’t tweet about it if you don’t want us to,” Gabby said quickly. “We can keep a secret.” The Twitter Twins, true to their name, were the school’s biggest gossip hounds, airing everyone’s dirty laundry on their Twitter pages.
“I heard his trial is set for a month from now and his dad’s going to let him rot in jail until then,” Lili said. “Do you think he’ll go to prison?”
“I bet he looks good in orange,” Gabby trilled.
“I’m not going to see Thayer,” Emma said as lightly as she could, leaning against the leather backseat. “I, um, just need to sign something about the shoplifting fiasco. The shopkeeper is dropping all charges.” That piece, at least, was true. Ethan knew the salesgirl at Clique and had gotten her to back down.
Gabby frowned, looking disappointed. “Well, since you’re there, you could stop in to see him just for a second, couldn’t you? I’m dying to know where he’s been all this time.”
“You know, don’t you?” Lili jumped in, waving her finger in the air. “Naughty, naughty, Sutton! You knew where he was this whole time and you didn’t tell anyone! So how did you guys communicate? I heard it was secret email accounts.”
Gabby nudged her sister. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Caroline’s sister is friends with a girl whose friend hooked up with the goalie on Thayer’s traveling soccer team,” Lili explained. “Apparently, Thayer told him lots of stuff before he took off.”
Emma glared at the Twitter Twins in the front seat. “I think I feel a migraine coming on,” she said icily, summoning up her best I’m-Sutton-Mercer-and-you-will-do-anything-I-ask voice. “How about we ride the rest of the way in silence?”
The twins looked deflated, but turned down the radio and drove the final stretch in utter silence. Emma glanced out the window at the sand-colored buildings of the University of Arizona whizzing past. Could Sutton have communicated with Thayer through a secret email account? She hadn’t come across anything on Sutton’s computer or in her bedroom, but Sutton was nothing if not sneaky and smart. They could have communicated any number of ways—disposable cells, fake email addresses or Twitter accounts, regular old mail …
I racked my memory for any kind of correspondence with Thayer—secretive or not. I saw myself sitting at my desk with a blank computer screen in front me, a familiar feeling of restlessness in my body, like there was something I needed to tell someone, anyone. Maybe Thayer. But the computer screen stayed as white and untouched as fresh snow, the blinking cursor mocking me with its steady beat.
The car passed a ranch called the Lone Range, where three palomino horses grazed in a rectangular pasture. A woman dressed in a flowing white skirt and a raisin-colored tube top sold turquoise jewelry next to a handwritten sign advertising HIGH QUALITY, LOW PRICE. The sun blazed just above the horizon.
When they pulled into the parking lot of the police station, Lili caught Emma’s eye in the rearview mirror. “Do you want us to wait for you?”
“Yeah, we could even come in with you, you know, for moral support,” Gabby added.
“I’ll be fine.” Emma slid out of the backseat and slammed the door. “Thanks for the ride!”
Emma and I didn’t need to turn back around to know that Gabby and Lili were watching her as she walked through the glass doors marked TUCSON POLICE DEPARTMENT.
6
LITTLE EMMA IN THE BIG WOODS
The inside of the station was the same as the past two times Emma had been there: first to report that Sutton was missing, then after she’d stolen the bag from Clique. It still had that rancid smell of old takeout. The telephones bleated loudly and jarringly. An old HAVE YOU SEEN HIM? flyer with Thayer Vega’s face and information hung on a bulletin board in the corner, next to a document listing Tucson’s most wanted. Emma stepped forward and gave her name to an emaciated woman with a helmet-perm who sat at the front desk.
“S-U-T-T-O-N M-E-R-C-E-R,” the woman repeated, her purple acrylic nails tapping each letter on an ancient-looking keyboard. “Have a seat and Detective Quinlan will be right with you.”
Emma sat on a hard yellow plastic chair and looked at the bulletin board again. The calendar was still on August. Emma guessed it was the receptionist who had chosen the picture of a kitten chasing a tattered ball of red yarn. Next she scanned the MOST WANTED poster. It looked like the majority of the guys on it had outstanding warrants for drug possession. Finally, she let her eyes graze the MISSING poster. Thayer’s hazel eyes stared directly at her, the hint of a smile playing across his lips. For a moment, Emma swore the boy in the photo actually winked at her, but that was impossible. She ran her hands over the back of her neck, trying to get a grip. But Thayer was somewhere in this building. Just his proximity made her shudder.
“Miss Mercer.” Quinlan appeared in the doorway wearing dark brown pants and a tan button-down. At six feet tall, he cut an imposing figure. “C’mon back.”
Emma stood and followed him down the tiled hallway. Quinlan opened the door to the same cinderblock interrogation room he’d stuck Emma in the week before, when he’d questioned her about shoplifting from Clique. As soon as the door whooshed open, Emma was enveloped in lavender Febreze. She pressed her hand to her nose and tried to breathe through her mouth.
Quinlan scraped back a chair and gestured for Emma to sit. She lowered herself into it slowly, and Quinlan sat across from her. He leveled a look at her over the table, as if he expected her to just start talking. Emma studied the gun at his waist. How many times had he used it?
“I called you in about your car,” Quinlan finally said. He steepled his hands and stared at Emma over his fingertips. “We found it. But first—is there anything you want to tell me about?”
Emma tensed, her mind drawing a blank. She knew very little about Sutton’s car—that she had used it in a cruel prank against her friends a few months ago, pretending to stall the vehicle on the train tracks when an Amtrak commuter was barreling down on them. That she had signed it out of the impound lot the night she died. That it had since vanished, along with Sutton.
I wished I remembered what I’d done with the car that day. But I didn’t.
Still, Emma’s heart quickened with excitement, too. Sutton was driving that car the day she died. Maybe the car held a clue inside of it. Maybe there was some sort of evidence in there. Or maybe—she cringed—maybe it contained Sutton’s body.
I hoped not. But suddenly, a flash of memory sparked in my mind. I felt my feet pounding over rocks and my ankles scratching against tree branches and cactus needles as I sprinted across a dark path. Fear pulsed through me as I ran. Then I heard footsteps hammering the earth behind me, but I didn’t stop to turn around to see who was following me. In the distance, I was able to make out the outline of my car waiting in a clearing beyond the brush. But just before I could reach it, the memory popped like a soap bubble.
Quinlan cleare
d his throat. “Sutton? Can you answer my question?”
Emma swallowed hard, wrenched from her spinning thoughts. “Um, no. I don’t have anything to tell you about the car.”
The detective sighed loudly, raking his hands through his dark hair. “Fine. Well, the car was abandoned in the desert a few miles away from Sabino Canyon.” He sat back, crossed his arms over his chest, and looked at Emma meaningfully, as if waiting for some sort of reaction. “Want to explain how it got there?”
Emma blinked, her nerve endings firing rapidly. “Um… it was stolen?”
Quinlan smirked. “Of course it was.” The corners of his mouth lifted. “So then I’m guessing you don’t know anything about the blood we found on it?”
Emma’s entire body shot to life. “Blood? Whose?”
“We don’t know yet. We’re still testing the evidence.”
Emma pushed her hands to her lap so Quinlan wouldn’t see them shake. The blood had to be Sutton’s. Had someone run down her sister then stashed the car and Sutton’s body in the desert? Who?
Quinlan leaned forward, perhaps sensing Emma’s fear. “I know you’re hiding something. Something big.”
Emma shook her head slowly, not trusting her voice to work.
Then Quinlan reached behind him and pulled a plastic bag from a rusted metal shelf. He emptied the contents onto the table in front of Emma. An ikat-print silk scarf fluttered across the table, along with a stainless-steel water bottle, a duplicate of the sign-out sheet from the impound lot with Sutton’s signature on it in big, bold letters, and a copy of Little House in the Big Woods.
“We found these items inside the car,” he explained, pushing them across the table.
Emma’s fingers traced a line across the silk scarf. It smelled exactly like Sutton’s room—like fresh flowers, chocolate mint, and that organic, Suttony essence she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
“And as for the car, we’re holding it—along with these items—until we figure out whose blood is on the hood.” Quinlan leaned forward and eyed Emma sternly. “Unless you’re going to change your mind and enlighten us.”
