by Sara Shepard
Emma turned in to a row of blue-gray lockers and found Laurel had made it there first. She had already changed out of her tennis gear into snug-fitting sweat shorts and a white tee and was sitting cross-legged on the long wooden bench, her back turned. Her iPhone was poised at her ear, and she was saying something in a hushed voice. It sounded like If she’s truly loyal, she’ll go along with it.
“Excuse me,” she interrupted, resting Sutton’s racket against the bench.
Laurel jumped an inch and dropped her phone. “Oh. Hey.” Her face turned bright red, and Emma realized with a jolt that Laurel must have been talking about her. But what had the words meant?
Emma twirled the combination lock to Sutton’s sports locker between her fingers. The door popped open with a clank. She stuffed Sutton’s sneakers into the locker and checked her reflection in the small magnetic mirror.
“Nice effort today,” Laurel said sarcastically. “I guess you can’t win them all, huh?”
“Whatever,” Emma shot back. She was too tired to get into a bitchy fight with Laurel right now.
“Seriously, though,” Laurel said. “When was the last time you lost to me or Nisha? No offense, Sutton, but Clara was playing well. It was you who wasn’t.”
Nerves jumped in Emma’s stomach. Talk about an understatement. She hadn’t been playing well since she’d taken over Sutton’s life. “I guess I’m just off my game lately,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant.
Laurel adjusted the strap of her gold sandal and rose from the bench. “I’ll say.” She gave Emma a knowing look. “Maybe someone’s just distracted because she has to prank her secret boyfriend.”
Emma bit her lip and stared into Sutton’s locker.
“Lili texted me. She set up the website our fake poet is going to post Ethan’s work to,” Laurel announced.
“She did?” Emma asked weakly.
“Yep! But you can still call it off. You know what you have to do to make that happen!” Laurel trilled. Then she jingled her car keys. “I’m taking Drake to the groomer’s at six. Don’t let Mom start dinner without me.” She turned and waltzed from the locker room.
Emma listened as the door slammed, then let out a sigh. Slowly, she kicked off her tennis sneakers and slid on Sutton’s espadrilles. A figure sidled up beside her, and when Emma turned, she saw Clara standing at the end of the aisle, an apologetic smile on her face.
“Is it okay if I grab my stuff?” she asked.
“Of course,” Emma said, laughing.
Clara scuttled to her locker. Emma glanced inside, noting how precisely her extra T-shirts were folded, and how she kept her deodorant, shampoo, and body wash in a line at the bottom. Then, her breath caught in her chest. The metal bottom of Clara’s locker was a full two inches lower than Sutton’s.
Clara noticed her looking and flinched. “Oh, God. I usually keep my locker much neater than this.”
Emma stared at her. Did Clara think she was going to punish her or something? “Don’t be silly. I was actually admiring how organized it was.”
“Really?” Clara’s eyes lit up. And then she bit her lip nervously. “Hey, Sutton, I heard there was going to be a top-secret party this Friday. Maybe at an abandoned house or something?”
“That’s right,” Emma said. Madeline had told her the details about the party, saying that it was in a house that had been foreclosed upon months ago. She took in Clara’s eager expression, then stepped forward. “Do you want to come? I can text you the details.”
“Really?” Clara looked like she was going to keel over with delight. “That would be amazing!”
Clara thanked Emma at least six more times before she finished up, grabbed her stuff, and disappeared. Emma looked around the locker room. It was full of kids on the tennis and swim teams. There was no way she could investigate Sutton’s locker right now. She’d have to wait in a quiet corner until the school emptied out … and then make her move.
By seven, the school was completely silent. The lights flickered off, shrouding Emma in darkness where she sat outside the library. A few teachers passed by on the way to their cars, but no one asked why she was there. Finally, she made her way back down the hallway and reentered the girls’ locker room. The door shut behind her, leaving her blind in the pitch-black darkness. The smell of bleach barely masked the dull stench of sweaty gym clothes. Water dripped in the showers, and a sighlike sound echoed in the air.
Emma groped for the light switch, and ugly fluorescent light filled the locker room. She made her way to Sutton’s locker, her fingers trembling as she turned the lock. She emptied out sneakers, pink-trimmed tennis socks, a box of Band-Aids, and spray-on sunscreen, tossing them all onto the bench. She stuck her fingers into the corner of the locker and pried open the base, flinching at the metal scraping noise that reverberated through the empty room.
Just below where the locker bottom used to be was a narrow, dirty space. Nestled among dust bunnies and rusted bobby pins was a long, thin silver lockbox. Heart pounding, Emma rifled through her wallet and found the small key she’d uncovered in Sutton’s room. Slowly, she inserted it into the lock.
It fit.
Emma turned the key and opened the box. Inside was a mess of papers. She pulled out the paper on top and looked at the tight, neat handwriting. It was a letter, signed with Charlotte’s name at the bottom. I’m so sorry about everything, Sutton, Charlotte wrote. She’d underlined everything three times. Not only about Garrett, but about how unsupportive I’ve been while you’re having a hard time with you-know-who.
I stared at the note. What did it mean? What kind of hard time was I having, and with whom? A moment slipped through my mind as I remembered Charlotte and me standing outside Hollier with bags slung over our shoulders, hunching toward each other and speaking in whispers. She knows, Sutton, she does, Charlotte whispered. She’s not a fool. And then she added, You need to think about where your loyalties lie. I tried hard to hold onto the memory for longer, but it slipped away faster than it came.
Emma refolded Charlotte’s message and dug deeper into the box. There was a list from Gabby and Lili of reasons why they should be allowed in the Lying Game, most having to do with their “awesome style and flair for drama.” Next was a German test; all of the answers were filled in and it read TEACHER’S COPY in the top right corner. Emma dropped it as though it were on fire, paranoid Frau Fenstermacher might barge into the locker room and catch her red-handed.
The dripping noise from the shower slowed to a trickle. A vent clicked on, and a cough echoed somewhere in the distance. Emma shook off her nerves and kept digging through the notes. She flipped through an old detention slip, a pop quiz with a fat red F on it, and then she came across a dog-eared note written in a slanted, boyish scrawl:
Dear Sutton, I’m sorry. I don’t want to be this way with you—this angry. It’s like something inside me is making me. But I’m worried that unless things with us change, I’m going to snap. —T
A chill ran down Emma’s spine. This was from Thayer. It had to be.
She didn’t know what he was apologizing for, but the letter sounded like a threat and showed just how unstable Thayer was. A lump formed in Emma’s throat as she reread Thayer’s note. She was tired of wondering and guessing. There was only one way to know exactly what the hell was going on.
She had to see Thayer.
18
VISITOR FOR VEGA
The lockup was connected to the police station, though the entrance to the jail was through a separate door, with a different set of guards. Emma hesitated in front of the steel gate, taking heaving breaths. Finally, an overweight, bald guard in a navy uniform and carrying a paperback book strutted up to the door and peered at her. “Help you?” he asked, jingling a set of long, silver keys on his belt. “Visiting hours are almost over,” he continued gruffly.
Emma checked the Cartier watch she’d found in Sutton’s jewelry box. 7:42 P.M. “I’ll just be a few minutes,” she said, forcing her face into th
e sweetest smile she could muster.
The guard glowered at her. Emma got a glimpse of his book. The cover showed an overly muscled man with a sword strapped to his back, kissing a lithe blonde woman. When Emma was little, she’d read Harlequin romances like that—they were usually the only types of books on her foster mothers’ shelves. For a while, she’d pretended that a brunette dressed as a pirate on the cover of Shipwrecked and Heartbroken was Becky.
Finally, the guard buzzed her in. He pulled out a clipboard with a sign-in sheet attached. Emma tried to keep her hand steady as she signed SUTTON MERCER under the column marked VISITOR and THAYER VEGA under INMATE. She knew what she was doing was risky, but she had found out as much as she was going to on her own. Now she needed to hear it from Thayer. And face-to-face in a jail, where they’d be separated by bulletproof glass, was about as safe as this conversation was going to get.
The guard glanced at the name Emma had written, then nodded. “Come with me.” He led her through a heavy steel door and down a long hallway.
A second guard, this one wearing a matching navy uniform with STANBRIDGE printed on a nameplate on his burly chest, waited for Emma in a small, square room separated in the middle by a sheet of thick glass. Emma was happy to see it wasn’t Quinlan—she didn’t feel like dealing with him today. “You’ll sit here,” Stanbridge said, gesturing to a cubicle that faced the glass and was lined up evenly with a cubicle on the other side.
Emma sat on a hard, orange, plastic chair. The two wooden panels that squared her off must have been for privacy, not that Emma needed it in the empty room. Graffiti splashed across the panels in colored marker and ink: CP LUVS SN. HEARTS 4 EVER. Dates as far back as 5/4/82 were carved into the wood.
A door swung open on the other side of the glass, and Emma flinched, her heart leaping to her throat. There, sweeping through the door, escorted by a pudgy guard with a bowl cut, was Thayer. His skin looked pale and taut against his bones. When he saw Emma, he stopped short. His mouth tightened at the edges. For a moment, Emma felt sure he’d turn back and retreat through the door. But then the guard put a hand between Thayer’s shoulder blades and gave him a small shove toward her.
Thayer reluctantly stepped forward and settled in the seat opposite Emma. When he picked up the phone receiver on the opposite side of the glass, the orange sleeve of his jumpsuit fell back to reveal a tattoo Emma hadn’t noticed at the precinct. An eagle emblem was inked on the underside of his wrist with the initials SPH printed in tiny letters beneath it. Was this the strange tattoo Madeline had spoken about?
I examined Thayer carefully, taking in every inch of him. I tried to imagine loving him. Having a secret relationship. Risking friendships just to be with him. Even dead, even memory-less, I could feel something stirring inside me for him, a magnetic pull that made me want to get as close to him as possible. At the same time, as I took in his dark eyes and menacing expression, I felt afraid. I knew there was something huge in my memories that I hadn’t seen yet, a horrible moment I had blocked out.
Emma picked up the receiver and took a deep breath. “We need to talk,” she said in the strongest voice she could find. “I have some questions for you about that night,” she went on, meaning the night Sutton died. “About everything,” she added.
Thayer raised his eyes to hers. Dark, bluish half-moons stamped the area beneath them; it looked as though he hadn’t slept in days. “You got my messages. You shouldn’t have any questions. But instead you acted like a complete psycho and ruined everything.”
Messages? A cold, clammy feeling washed over Emma. He had to be talking about the SUTTON’S DEAD, PLAY ALONG OR YOU’RE NEXT note. And what he’d written on the chalkboard at the Homecoming rally after nearly killing Emma with that falling light.
Emma opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Thayer leaned back and gave her a cold, calculating stare. “Or is this just a game? Haven’t you heard? I’m not one to play games with. Not when I’m the only one who knows who you really are.”
Emma’s body went weak from her feet to her throat. Her fingers tingled around the base of the phone and she struggled to hold it against her ear. It was glaringly obvious. Thayer knew who Emma was … and who she wasn’t. He had done it. He had killed Sutton. She was sitting across from her sister’s murderer.
“Thayer, what did you do?” Her voice was a whisper.
I was dying to know, too. Thayer’s words, his posture, his entire being seemed to radiate anger. How could he have said he loved me, then hurt me?
“Wouldn’t you love to know?” Thayer grinned, flashing white teeth. “Anyway, did you hear the good news? We got the hearing moved up to next week. I’ll be out of here soon.”
“You’re getting out next week?” Emma repeated, beginning to tremble. That meant she was only safe for eight more days.
“Yep. My lawyer is trying to get the case dismissed. I’m a minor, and they’ve got me on trumped-up charges as an adult, but my lawyer’s going to prove it’s bullshit. This is Quinlan’s idea of revenge—that guy hates me. He hates you too, Sutton.” He gave her a long look. “And when I’m out, we’ll finally be able to talk one-on-one. Just like old times.”
The words Thayer was saying were innocent enough, but his voice dripped with sarcasm and hatred. He arched forward, inches from Emma’s face. He bent so close to the glass that Emma could see the outlines of his breath against the pane. His pupils widened into black spheres. Emma clenched the phone tighter, feeling sweat between her fingers and the beige plastic. Then he slammed the phone into its cradle. A dull tone buzzed in Emma’s ear.
A hand clapped around Emma’s shoulder, and she jumped and twisted around. Stanbridge gazed at her sternly. “Visiting hours are over now, miss.”
Emma nodded numbly and followed him out of the room. I trailed behind her, electrical impulses snapping and flashing inside me. Something about seeing Thayer—and that guard clapping a hand on Emma’s shoulder—made a few doors unlock in my mind. I smelled the dust and desert flowers of Sabino Canyon. I felt the cool air on my bare skin. I felt that hand clap around my shoulder—maybe Thayer’s hand. Maybe right before he killed me.
Once again, I was zooming backward into my past …
19
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN
I twist around and see Thayer’s face. It is his hand on my shoulder, and he doesn’t look happy. He clamps down hard, his fingers gripping the soft skin above my collarbone.
“You’re hurting me!” I scream, but his other hand claps over my mouth before I can call for help. He yanks me back from the edge of the cliff, jerking my body against his chest. My fingers claw at his arms and my feet kick frantically against the ground. My elbows stab at his ribs. I’m fighting like a wild animal, but I can’t get away from him. He’s too strong.
“What are you—” My voice is muffled beneath his hand. I finally manage to free myself from his grip and spin across the hardscrabble path away from him. But he advances toward me again, arms outstretched. My mind spins. I rack my brain for anything I can say to calm him down. What have I done to make him so angry? Is it because of what I said about Garrett? Or how hard I pushed him to tell me where he’s been the last few months?
“Thayer, please,” I start. “Can’t we just talk about this?”
There is fury in Thayer’s eyes. “ Be quiet, Sutton.”
And then he lunges at me again. I try to scream, but it comes out like a strangled yelp as his hand smacks over my mouth again. His sneakers scratch against the dried leaves below our feet and his muscles flex as he pulls me against him. His breath is hot on my ear. Blood pools in my feet, and a sense of dread crawls across my body.
Suddenly, a scream sounds loud and clear in the distance. It’s hard to tell whether it’s human or animal. Thayer turns in the direction of the shriek, momentarily distracted. His grip loosens just enough for me to bite the inside of his palm. I taste his salty sweat as I sink my teeth into his skin.
“Jesus!” Thayer screec
hes. He rips his hand away, trying to catch his balance. I take off, my legs hot with adrenaline. Dirt crunches beneath me and leaves crack as I pound the earth. I fly across the trail, my hair wild and my arms pumping. A branch slices across my cheek, thin as paper and just as sharp. I can feel wetness on my skin. I’m not sure if it’s tears … or blood.
Things have been tense between Thayer and me before, but I’ve never seen him like this.
A rush of cold air slaps my body as I push forward. I hear Thayer’s footsteps, and I can tell he’s gaining ground. I’ve traveled this path so many times, though, and the darkness gives me an advantage. I press on through the brambly mesquite trees and brush. Behind me, there’s a crash of Thayer’s body colliding with a tree or a rock. I hear him swear under his breath, cursing me.
I cut a sharp right around the boulder where my father and I used to stop for water breaks. “Sutton!” It’s a man’s voice, but the rocks must distort it, because it doesn’t quite sound like Thayer’s. I continue forward, my lungs burning, the tears running down my face, my heart thudding with fear.
I dart around a massive tree branch that blocks the path and scramble down the steep incline, heading for the trickle of water that passes for a creek—the only body of water in the canyon. I press my heels into the dirt to steady myself as I slip farther into the ditch. My hands reach for something—anything—to grab hold of, and land on a gnarled root along the creek bed. I reach the bottom and spring to my feet, taking off in the direction of the parking lot. I’m close. I just need to make it to my car.
I sprint down the trail toward the lot. I nearly wipe out when my feet slam the gravel. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see my beloved car. Skidding across the lot, I fumble inside my purse for the keys. My fingers close around the heavy, round Volvo keychain, but I’m shaking so badly that it flies out of my hands, landing with a jingle near the front tire. “Shit,” I whisper.
