by Sara Shepard
Page 24
“We were over it before it even began. ”
Gabby nudged Emma into the backseat, which smel ed overpoweringly of Skittles. The Twitter Twins climbed into the front, and Gabby started the engine. Her blue eyes met Emma’s in the rearview mirror. “To the impound, right?”
Emma nodded, and the Twins exchanged a look and shared a secret giggle that turned Emma’s stomach. Then Gabby steered the car out of the parking lot and made a left at the light. Lili tapped away on her iPhone. Emma could just make out the Twitter icon on the little screen. She leaned forward, dying for a peek. Was Lili writing under her secret Twitter name? Was she sending a secret missive to Gabby?
Lili cocked her head, noticing Emma. Emma snapped her head away, pretending she wasn’t looking. Lili covered the screen with her hand and smirked. Emma pul ed out her phone to check, but nothing new was posted.
Gabby merged onto the freeway, snaking around cars and nearly cutting off a fast-moving milk truck. “So, Sutton. Excited for tomorrow night?” She swiveled around and glanced at Emma, taking her eyes off the road.
“Gabby!” Emma screamed, gesturing toward the
highway with her phone. Was Gabby even al owed to be behind the wheel? Could people with epilepsy get driver’s licenses?
One corner of Gabby’s lips lifted into a smile. She stil didn’t turn around. “But, Sutton, I thought you liked to live on the edge!”
“Whoo, whoo!” Lili said in a high-pitched voice, her fingers flying over the iPhone’s keyboard.
More cars honked at the SUV. Sweat began to bead on the back of Emma’s neck. She placed a hand on Gabby’s shoulder as a pickup truck swerved out of her way. “Gabby, please!”
Final y, as Gabby was about to have a head-on col ision with an oncoming Jeep Cherokee, she calmly faced forward and wrenched the SUV back into the far lane like they’d never been in peril at al . “We’re real y excited for Homecoming, Sutton,” she said, picking up on the previous conversation as though nothing was amiss. “It’s a big night for us. You’re going to die when you see us!”
Emma flinched. “Excuse me?” She grabbed the door handle, wishing she could jump out of the car. Lili giggled. “Our costumes are amazing. ”
“God, what did you think we meant?” Gabby asked, snickering. The girls exchanged another glance, as though they knew how much they were freaking Emma out. Just then, Gabby took the next exit and turned into a dingy lot. A sign on the chain-link fence read TUCSON PD
IMPOUND. As they pul ed in, a beefy man with a shaved head emerged from a smal , nut-colored building and motioned for Gabby to rol down the window.
As soon as the car slowed, Emma unlocked the
passenger door and jumped out.
“Sutton!” Gabby cal ed. “What the hel ?”
“I can take it from here!” Emma yel ed back, relieved to be standing next to the worker, who had ham-sized arm muscles and a menacing tattoo peeking out from under his col ar. “But thanks, guys! I real y appreciate the ride!”
The Twitter Twins idled at the gate for a moment, wrinkling their noses. Then Lili shrugged and said something to Gabby that Emma couldn’t hear. The two of them smiled, and Gabby threw the vehicle into reverse. Both girls gave Emma a three-finger wave as they pul ed away.
Emma waited a few beats for her heart to slow down. Then she turned to the impound worker. “I’m here to pick up my car,” she said, her voice cracking.
“Come in here. ” The worker led Emma to the building inside the lot. “I need your driver’s license and credit card. ”
Emma handed over Sutton’s license from her wal et. The worker typed something into a dusty keyboard and stared at the screen. A wrinkle formed on his brow. “Sutton Mercer?” he repeated. “1965 Volvo?”
“That’s right,” Emma said, remembering the details from Sutton’s police file.
The man gave her a long, suspicious look. “It says here that you picked up this vehicle nearly a month ago. ”
Emma blinked. “What?”
“It’s right here. You signed it out on the morning of August thirty-first. The fine was paid in ful . ” He twisted the monitor to show Emma the screen. She stared at a scan of the car’s release form. There, at the bottom, next to the X, was Sutton’s signature.
A memory bloomed in my mind: I had been here before. I remembered the leaky Bic pen that I used to sign the release forms. I remembered hearing my phone ring and feeling a jolt of happiness. But before I could get a look at the screen, the vision tunneled and blinked off. Emma stared at Sutton’s signature, that swooping S, the humps of the M. It was another clear link to what Sutton was doing the day she died, but it felt like her investigation had taken a huge left turn. Why hadn’t Sutton told anyone she’d signed out the car that day? And where was Sutton’s car now?
The man cleared his throat, breaking Emma from her thoughts. “This is your signature, right?”
Emma’s tongue felt like it was made of lead. She wasn’t sure how to answer. Should she say it wasn’t and report the car stolen? But what if she did that and then the police found Sutton’s body in the trunk? As soon as that happened, Emma would be arrested—without any other evidence, she was the most likely suspect in her sister’s murder: the unlucky twin trying to escape a life of poverty.
“Uh . . . I guess I made a mistake,” she croaked. Then she backed out of the little booth and into the blinding sunset.
The worker stared after her, shaking his head and muttering under his breath about how every kid was on drugs these days. As Emma walked out of the lot, figuring she’d cal a cab to take her back to the Mercers’, a flash to the right caught her eye. A figure ducked behind an abandoned old Burger King on the other side of the chainlink fence. Even though Emma had only seen a glimpse, she was almost positive the figure had dirty-blonde hair like the Twitter Twins.
They were watching my sister for sure. The only thing I didn’t know was what they were planning next.
Chapter 22
Tweet, Untweet
Just hours before Homecoming, the doorbel rang at Charlotte’s house. Emma left her Diet Coke on the kitchen counter and padded through the hal to get it. She opened the door to find an older, spiky-haired, tattooed woman in a black tutu, ripped CBGB T-shirt, and worn motorcycle boots. She looked like a cross between the Bride of Frankenstein and a coked-up Courtney Love.
“Hey, sweetie!” the woman at the door cried, breaking Emma from her thoughts. She grabbed Emma’s arms and kissed her on both cheeks, leaving behind vampy red lipstick prints. Emma wasn’t sure if she should assume the woman knew Sutton, or if this was just the way she greeted everyone. She played it safe with a cool smile. We’d met before—I was sure of it. A memory slithered through my mind: the woman and Charlotte’s mother talking in hushed voices in the kitchen. You know I’ll kill him if it’s true, Charlotte’s mom had said. But both of them straightened and smiled when I entered the kitchen, gushing with smal talk about how fashionable I looked and if I thought they could pul off denim leggings, too. (The answer, for both, was a groaning “no. ”)
The woman sauntered into the kitchen and plopped two giant makeup cases down on the farmhouse table. “Okay, ladies!” she croaked in a two-packs-a-day voice. “Let’s get you gory and gorgeous for Homecoming!”
Madeline, Charlotte, and Laurel cheered. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. The idea was to primp at Charlotte’s, take dozens of sexy, Facebook-worthy pictures in their Hal oween dresses, and then their dates would pick them up in a stretch limo a half hour before the dance. Wel , everyone else’s dates—Emma hadn’t bothered to ask anyone after Ethan. She tried to play it off like going stag was the cool thing to do; Sutton probably would have. Emma stil had a lot to learn about me. The only place I went stag was the bathroom.
Charlotte’s mother clonked into the kitchen on raffia wedges and gave the makeup artist an air kiss. With her perky boobs, giant Chanel sunglasses, and grass-green Juicy Couture minidress, Charlotte’s
mom didn’t look like the rest of the mothers in suburbia, even in Sutton’s upscale Tucson neighborhood. “Ladies, you remember Helene, my makeup guru,” she said, chomping gum between her shiny veneers. “You’re in excel ent hands with her. ” She slung a studded bag over her shoulder and grabbed her Mercedes keys from the telephone table.
Helene pouted. “You’re not staying to watch the magic?”
Mrs. Chamberlain glanced at her pink diamond-studded watch. “Can’t. I’ve got an appointment for a Brazilian in ten minutes. ”
“Mom!” Charlotte covered her ears. “TMI!”
Mrs. Chamberlain gave her daughter a dismissive, you’re-such-a-prude hand flutter. Emma wasn’t sure which was more bizarre—that Charlotte’s mother had just announced she was getting a take-it-al -off bikini wax, or that she trusted her makeup needs to Mistress of the Night Helene.
After Mrs. Chamberlain disappeared out the door, Charlotte turned to Helene. “Can I go first? I’m going as an Egyptian goddess, so I need real y dramatic Cleopatra eyes. ”
Emma wondered if Sutton would push past Charlotte and demand to go first instead, but she didn’t have the heart to do that.
“Comin’ right up. ” Helene opened her giant makeup cases, revealing a bevy of brushes, shadows, powders, mascara wands, and curlers.
As she waited, Emma pul ed Sutton’s phone from her pocket and checked out the Twitter Twins’ secret accounts. There was a new entry.
@MissLiliTal ywhacker: The night we’ve been waiting for . . .
Emma hoped Lili was just talking about her and Gabby’s big night on the court.
But we both knew it meant more than that.
Madeline turned toward the fridge. “Time for
refreshments,” she said, winking at Emma. “Sutton, can you grab some glasses?”
Emma fol owed Madeline, skirting around the behemoth soapstone island, running her fingers along the eerily familiar surface. The last time she’d been in this kitchen, someone had startled her from behind and nearly strangled her. If she squinted, she could see a faint outline of the scuffmark the assailant’s shoe had made on the baseboard when he or she had rammed Emma against the wal . In the oppressive atmosphere, she could almost hear the attacker’s words lingering in the air: I told you to play along. I told you not to leave.
As Emma laid out four glasses on the island, Madeline pul ed a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke from the Chamberlain’s fridge and poured each glass three-quarters ful . Then, raising a finger to her lips, she whipped her silver flask from her pocket and topped the drinks off with rum. Emma’s nose tickled with the cloying scent.
“You’re not making cocktails over there, are you?”
Helene crowed, a giant blush brush in her hand. “If so, can you make me one, too, honey?”
Madeline grinned. “Sure!”
The doorbel rang again. “Sutton, can you get that?”
Charlotte asked, her eyes closed as Helene swept sparkly silver powder over her lids.
