by Sara Shepard
“Not for me, it isn’t,” Laurel said.
Emma was grateful she’d at least said something. “Look, I don’t know why Thayer came into my room, and—”
Laurel whipped around and stared at her. “Oh, really? You really don’t know?” Her gaze fell to Emma’s waist. Emma sucked in her stomach, feeling the folded letters she’d found in Thayer’s bedroom press against her. It almost felt like Laurel knew they were there.
“I really don’t know,” Emma said. “And I don’t know why you’re so pissed about it, but I wish you would tell me what I can do to make it up to you so you aren’t mad anymore.”
Laurel narrowed her eyes and backed away. “Okay, now you’re freaking me out. Sutton Mercer doesn’t repent. Sutton Mercer doesn’t make it up to anyone.”
“People change.”
Or sometimes they die and their nicer twin takes their place, I thought grimly.
A new country song blared over the loudspeakers, this one about loving the good old USA. Laurel absent-mindedly picked up a pair of pink cowboy boots and put them back down again. Her expression seemed to soften. “Fine. There is one thing you could do to make it up to me.”
“What?”
Laurel leaned forward. “You could get Dad to drop the charges against Thayer. Or you could tell Quinlan that you invited Thayer over. That way the cops will be forced to let him go.”
“But I didn’t invite him over!” Emma protested. “And I’m not going to go behind Dad’s back and lie to the police.”
Laurel blew air out of her mouth angrily. “Like that’s ever stopped you before.”
“Well, I’m trying to turn over a new leaf. Trying not to have Mom and Dad pissed at me every other day for once.”
“Yeah, right.” Laurel snorted.
Emma balled her fists in frustration, staring at the tobacco-colored carpet. The bells to the store jingled, and an incongruous-looking tall girl in a peasant skirt walked through. She was wearing a T-shirt that said CLUB CONGRESS POETRY SLAM. Laurel’s expression shifted; she’d obviously noticed the shirt, too.
“Look,” Emma said, eyeing the girl, “if you’re mad at me, be mad at me. Don’t drag Ethan into it. We shouldn’t ruin his poetry reading.”
For a second Laurel looked guilty. But then her features hardened again. “Sorry, Sis. No can do. The plan’s already in motion.”
“We could call it off,” Emma tried.
Laurel smirked. “Sutton Mercer, calling off a prank? That’s not your style.” She leaned against a rack of what looked like burlap wizard cloaks. “I’ll make a deal with you. You get Thayer out of jail, I stop the prank.”
“That’s not fair,” Emma hissed.
“Well, then, no can do.” Laurel turned on her heel perfunctorily. “I guess you don’t care that much about your secret boyfriend, huh? Then again, that’s not really a surprise. You treat all your secret boyfriends like shit.” With that, she shot Emma a knowing look, pushed against the door, and walked out into the sun. The jingle bells on the handle mocked Emma as the door slammed shut.
A few hours later, Emma pedaled up to the curb of a familiar-looking ranch house across from Sabino Canyon. Her legs ached from the ten-mile uphill bike ride from Sutton’s house, and her skin was slick with sweat, even though dusk had fallen and the air had cooled. She had no choice but to ride to Ethan’s house tonight—it wasn’t like Laurel would drop her off. She had to see him.
Ethan’s house was next door to Nisha Banerjee’s, where Emma had attended a party her first night as Sutton. The Landry property was situated on a small plot of land bordered by a white picket fence that needed painting. Sparrows sat on the thin branches of an oak tree at the edge of the yard and the setting sun cast long shadows onto the slightly overgrown lawn. Tiny purple flowers in clay pots lined the front porch, and a rocking chair with chipped yellow paint sat next to three days’ worth of newspapers rolled in blue plastic bags. Even though the house was nicer than anything Emma had ever lived in, it seemed small compared to the Mercers’ five-bedroom bungalow. It was weird how quickly one got used to luxury.
She knocked loudly. A few seconds later, Ethan’s face appeared in the window. He gave Emma a surprised smile as he unlocked the door to his house.
“Sorry I didn’t call first,” Emma said.
Ethan lifted a shoulder. “It’s cool. My parents aren’t home.” He stepped aside, making room for Emma. “Come on in.”
She turned the letters over in her hand as she followed him down a long hallway wallpapered in a light pink– colored floral print. On the walls were the kinds of paintings Emma had only seen in funeral homes, various watercolors of roses and sunsets. There were no photos of Ethan. The house had a strange smell to it, too—kind of closed-up and musty. It definitely wasn’t welcoming.
Ethan led Emma into a small, dark room. “This is my bedroom,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “Obviously,” he added, as though suddenly embarrassed.
Emma looked around. She’d imagined what Ethan’s room looked like plenty of times since they’d become friends, figuring it was a little bit cluttered, full of stargazing maps, telescope parts, old chemistry sets, dog-eared notebooks, and tons and tons of books of poetry. But this room was spotless. The tracks from a vacuum cleaner were visible on the carpet. A pair of black climbing gloves rested on the nightstand along with the leather journal Emma had noticed the first day she met Ethan. The only item on the desk was a beat-up-looking laptop—nothing else, not even a ball-point pen. The bed was made so neatly it could’ve passed a hotel’s service inspection, the duvet pulled tight, the pillows stacked one in front of the other. Emma had once worked as a maid in a Holiday Inn, and her managers always yelled at her for not fluffing the pillows correctly.
She glanced at Ethan, wanting to ask him if this was really his room. It was almost completely devoid of character. But Ethan looked so awkward that she didn’t want to make him feel worse. Instead, she sat down on the bed and reached for the packet of papers in her pocket.
“I found these in Thayer’s room today,” she said. She unfolded the letters onto the bedspread. “Sutton wrote them to him. It proves that they had a romantic relationship.”
Ethan picked up each letter and scanned the contents. Emma felt a flicker of guilt, as though she was betraying her sister by unveiling her secret feelings.
Even though I understood why Emma was showing Ethan the letters, I felt a pang of protectiveness, too. These were my private thoughts.
“I never thought I could be so into someone,” Ethan read aloud. He flipped to the next page. “I want to kiss you in the U of A football stadium, in the brush behind my parents’ house, on the top of Mount Lemmon …” He stopped, clearing his throat.
Emma felt heat rise to her cheeks. “They obviously really liked each other.”
“But she was still with Garrett,” Ethan said, pointing to a line in one of the letters that said, I want to break up with Garrett and be with you, I swear. But it’s not the right time, and we both know it. “Maybe Thayer was pissed that Sutton was still with her boyfriend during all this … and killed her.”
A chill went through me. I thought about how quickly Thayer had changed when Garrett came up that night on our hike. His anger was intense—even he admitted it was his worst quality, the thing that reminded him most of his father. Could that have been enough to set him off?
Emma leaned back on the bed and stared at the popcorn ceiling. “That seems pretty extreme. Killing someone because they wouldn’t break off a relationship?”
“People have killed for much less.” Ethan stared at his hands. He looked distant, as though something was upsetting him. When he finally spoke, his words were slow and deliberate. “Maybe Sutton drove him mad. She was a master at manipulation.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Emma asked sharply. She didn’t like the tone of Ethan’s voice. Or what he’d said about her sister.
“One minute, she liked you,” Ethan said. “And
the next, she treated you like dirt. I saw her do it to a million guys.” He frowned. “Maybe she was doing that to Thayer. Maybe it was driving him insane and he just … snapped.”
Emma’s palms felt clammy. Could her sister’s fickle behavior be the thing that pushed Thayer to the brink? If she’d been hot and cold with him—all while dating Garrett—it could have sparked a rage inside of him. “Maybe,” she whispered.
“So what do you think we should do about it?” Ethan asked.
“We could call the police,” Emma suggested.
“Or we couldn’t.” Ethan shook his head. “If we do that, you’ll have to out yourself as Sutton’s twin. It’s too risky.” He crossed his leg over his knee and jiggled his navy Converse sneaker. “We’re getting close, though. You need more solid proof. What about the blood on the car? That’s definitely Sutton’s, right?”
Emma rose from the bed and began pacing around the room. “Probably. Although the police aren’t done testing it yet. I’m guessing they’ll also be looking at the fingerprints on the steering wheel—maybe Thayer’s will come back a match.” Then she made a face. “But wouldn’t the person have to be in the criminal system for them to find a DNA match?”
“Thayer’s been in trouble before,” Ethan offered. “And they would have fingerprinted him when they arrested him.”
“And we already know he was in the car,” Emma went on. “Even if his prints are on the steering wheel, what does that prove?”
“True,” Ethan said, sounding deflated. “It just means we’ll have to dig deeper. Find out what his motive was. Find out something to really nail him to the wall.”
“Yeah,” Emma murmured, but she felt exhausted. She was so close … but so far away.
She closed her eyes, suddenly overwhelmed at the task ahead of her. A teenage soccer star didn’t become a murderer out of nowhere. Something made Thayer Vega break.
When she opened her eyes again, she noticed Ethan’s glowing laptop screen. A Safari window was open to Sutton’s Facebook page.
“You’re on Facebook?” Emma smirked. “You don’t seem like the type.”
Ethan shot off the bed and closed the laptop. “I’m not, really. I mean, I have a page, but I don’t really post on it or anything. I was just thinking about leaving you a message on your—well, Sutton’s wall. But I don’t know.” He peeked at her cagily. “Would that be weird? Your friends don’t really know about … how we talk.”
Emma felt a rush of pleasure that they were even discussing their potential relationship. But then a pit formed in her stomach. She recalled how the girls had giggled about the prank today. She considered telling Ethan about the plan to ruin his poetry reading, but the thought nauseated her. She would just have to thwart the plan, plain and simple.
“Actually, Laurel knows about us,” Emma said instead. She flushed instantly. Was what she said okay? Calling them us? It wasn’t like they were a couple yet.
“Does that bother you?” Ethan asked, a slight smile tugging the edge of his lips.
“Does it bother you?” Emma countered.
Ethan took small steps toward Emma and sat down on the bed beside her. “I don’t care who knows. I think you’re amazing. I’ve never met anyone like you.”
Emma’s heart squeezed. No one had ever said anything like that to her before.
Ethan leaned forward, running his fingers across the nape of her neck. He kissed her gently, his lips warm and soft, and Emma instantly forgot about everything that’d happened since she arrived in Tucson. She forgot about just how excited she’d been when she stepped off the bus to meet her sister. She forgot how quickly the hopes of her and Sutton’s reunion were dashed. She forgot about the note threatening her to be Sutton—or else. She forgot about the investigation into Thayer, or whoever had killed Sutton. In that moment, she was just Emma Paxton, a girl with a brand-new boyfriend.
And I was just her sister, happy that she had found someone she truly cared about.
14
IF THE KEY FITS
That night Emma’s body tangled among Sutton’s light blue bedsheets as she tossed from one side to the other. Sutton’s smattering of ratty stuffed animals were lined up at the foot of the bed and stared at Emma, their eyes glassy in the moonlight. They were so unlike Sutton, one of the only sentimental things Emma could find that her sister had kept from her past. They reminded her of the toys Emma had kept—a hand-knitted monster toy a piano teacher had given her for mastering a hard piece of music, and Socktopus, which Becky had bought for her on a trip to Four Corners. Sutton’s toys made Emma think of all of the time they’d missed, the memories they could have had of playing for hours together in a shared bedroom, making up secret worlds only the two of them understood. Hours they could never get back.
An owl called from the oak tree just outside Sutton’s window. Emma stared at the branches, noting that it was the same tree she’d used the night she snuck out with Ethan, and the same tree Thayer had used to break into Sutton’s bedroom. Suddenly, she jolted up with a start. The window was wide open. And a hulking figure stood in the corner of the room, his breath coming in jagged rasps.
“Did you really think it’d be that easy to get rid of me?” his voice said.
Even though he was in the shadows, Emma recognized him immediately. “Thayer?” she squeaked, the name barely escaping her mouth.
She scrambled back against the headboard, but it was too late. Thayer launched forward, his hands closing around her neck, his lips inches from hers. “You betrayed me, Emma,” he whispered, his hands tightening around her throat. His bottom lip grazed hers. “And now it’s time for your reunion with Sutton to become a reality.”
Emma dug her nails into Thayer’s skin as her oxygen supply dwindled and her life seeped slowly from her. “Please, no!”
“Goodbye, Emma,” Thayer sneered. His hands squeezed and squeezed … seemingly to the tune of Kelly Clarkson’s “Mr. Know It All.”
Emma shot up in bed. The same Kelly Clarkson song blared in her ears. She looked around. She was in Sutton’s bedroom, Sutton’s sheets clinging to her wet skin. Sunlight streamed through the window—it was, indeed, open. But the corner was empty. She touched her neck, and she didn’t feel any evidence that she’d been strangled. Her skin felt smooth. Nothing hurt.
A dream. It was just a dream. But it had felt so real.
It felt all too real to me, too. I looked hard at the corner, startled that Thayer wasn’t really there. It still shook me that I was carried along with Emma everywhere she went, even into her dreams.
Emma’s fingers trembled as she tugged her light blue pajama top down over her stomach and glanced around Sutton’s bedroom once more. The computer screen glowed with familiar images of Sutton and her best friends—this particular photo was taken after a tennis team victory. The girls had their arms slung around each other and flashed peace signs at the camera. A German textbook lay open on Sutton’s desk along with a small book of poetry Ethan had given Emma the week before. There were no stuffed animals anywhere—the real Sutton had been too mature for toys.
But there was that open window again. Emma could have sworn she shut and locked it the night before. She pushed back the covers, walked to it, and peered out. The Mercers’ impeccable lawn stretched in waves of green before her, not a white wicker lawn chair or potted plant out of place. The Tucson sun was a ball of fire above the Catalina Mountains and the sound of birds chattering filtered into the bedroom.
Bzz.
Emma jumped and turned around. Something was sounding from underneath Sutton’s bed. She realized almost immediately that it was her BlackBerry from her old life. She dove for it and checked the screen. It was Alex, her best friend from Henderson. Clearing her throat, she pressed the green answer button. “Hey.”
“Hey. Everything okay? You sound weird.”
Emma flinched. But Alex couldn’t know what Emma had just dreamed about. She didn’t even know Emma was in danger—as far as she was concerned, S
utton was still alive, and Emma was experiencing a foster-girl’s dream life with her long-lost sister. “Of course everything’s fine,” she croaked. “I was just sleeping.”
“Well, get up, sleepyhead,” Alex giggled. “I haven’t heard from you in ages. I wanted to see how things are going.”
“Everything’s fine,” Emma said, forcing herself to sound upbeat. “Great, in fact. Sutton’s family rocks.”
“I can’t believe you’ve been given this instant new life. You should be on Oprah or something. Want me to submit your story?”
“No!” Emma said, perhaps too forcefully. She padded into Sutton’s closet, partly to select an outfit for the day, but partly because it was more private in there—there was less chance of Laurel hearing her.
“Okay, okay! How’s school? Do you like Sutton’s friends?” Alex asked.
Emma paused in front of a blue silk tank top. “Honestly, things with them are a little tense right now.”
“How come? Can’t they handle two of you?” Alex’s voice was momentarily muffled, and Emma could picture her getting dressed for school, brushing her hair, and shoving a cinnamon bun in her mouth. Alex was the queen of multitasking and had a wicked sweet tooth.
“They’re just a pretty tight-knit group,” Emma said. “They have so much history that I can’t even begin to understand.”
Alex chewed and swallowed. “History is just that—history. Plan something fun and create your own stories with them, maybe even apart from Sutton.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Emma said, realizing that she barely ever hung out with any of Sutton’s friends one-on-one.
Drake let out a low bark downstairs, and Emma heard Mrs. Mercer shush him. “Listen, I should go—I promised Sutton I’d help her with homework before classes start.”
She disconnected the call after promising she’d keep in better touch, then wandered out of Sutton’s closet and flopped back on her bed, her head suddenly throbbing. It was awful to lie to Alex. She thought of all the afternoons she’d spent in Alex’s bedroom, finding new music on Pandora and predicting each other’s futures. They’d shared a mauve-colored journal, taking turns updating it with new entries every few days. They’d stashed it in a trapdoor cut into the carpet below Alex’s bed so no one would find it. They had secrets they kept from the world, but not from each other—until now.
