Seven Minutes in Heaven tlg-6

by Sara Shepard

  She hadn’t had the guts to reach out to any of Sutton’s friends. Her relationship with them was built on a lie—and now they knew it.

  A soft knock came at the door. “Are you ready?” Ethan asked.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be,” she replied, opening the door. He smiled at her, grabbing the end of her braid and tugging lightly.

  “It’s kind of weird, seeing you like this. Like seeing Sutton in Emma-drag.”

  “I know,” she admitted. “I feel like I’m still playing a role.”

  Ethan shrugged. “We all play roles. You just have to find the one that you like best.”

  She poked him in the ribs. “What role are you playing?”

  He put on a mock-hurt expression. “Prince Charming, obviously.”

  Laughing, Emma followed him down the hall to the entryway. Staying with Ethan was the silver lining to this whole nightmare. She’d never spent so much time with a boy before, but it just felt . . . right. A perfect fit.

  On the way to school Ethan played an old Arcade Fire album, humming under his breath. Emma idly opened and closed the glove compartment. She tried to steel herself for whatever would come.

  The area around the student parking lot was clotted with news vans. Emma had anticipated this. She put on her shades and pulled the hood of her sweatshirt up over her head.

  “You look like the Unabomber,” Ethan said.

  “At least they won’t be able to see my face,” she replied.

  Dozens of students milled about among the reporters, trying to get on TV. Emma saw Celeste Echols speaking into a microphone that Tricia Melendez held under her chin, and she groaned aloud. Celeste had been saying something was wrong with her “aura” since they first met. She would be insufferable now.

  Ethan parked the car, and they stepped out into the pallid winter morning. A crescent moon still hung low on the horizon. She met Ethan’s questioning glance with a determined, let’s-get-this-over-with nod.

  The students loitering in the parking lot stared at her baldly. A crowd of muscular guys hanging out around a Ford F-250 stopped body-slamming each other to gawk as she walked past. Two twiggy freshman girls scuttled out of her way as if she’d menaced them. She caught sight of a half dozen girls from the tennis team clustered near the flagpole. They fell silent as she approached, their faces pale and eyes wide. Ethan took her hand, and she squeezed back, trying not to look right or left. She focused on walking slowly and deliberately, though a part of her just wanted to bolt toward the glass double doors to the school.

  Then she saw who was waiting in the entryway. Principal Ambrose stood with her arms crossed over her chest and her legs planted wide. She wore a zebra-striped suit coat and a pair of purple trousers. Her skin was usually dull and sagging, but today she’d put on turquoise eye shadow up to her eyebrows.

  I had the distinct impression that Ambrose had dressed up for the media attention. I could just hear her saying Sutton Mercer was such a special girl, with tears in her eyes. So effervescent! I’d like to think I was something of a mentor to her. Never mind that the only times Ambrose talked to me were the handful of times I’d been busted for a Lying Game stunt.

  Emma stopped uncertainly a few feet in front of the principal. She glanced at Ethan, who’d gone strangely pale, then back to Ms. Ambrose. The principal’s lips were pressed into a single thin line.

  “You will not be allowed on the premises,” she said in a smug voice. “Emma Paxton is not registered at Hollier.”

  Emma blinked, stunned. “But . . . what about school?”

  Ms. Ambrose shrugged. “I expect they’ll let you get your GED in prison. Now please leave, before I report you for trespassing.”

  The crowd surrounding Emma went absolutely quiet, a hundred pairs of ears straining so that they could later report everything they’d seen and heard.

  “Can I at least clean out my locker?” she asked quietly. Her palms were suddenly moist with sweat. She let go of Ethan and grabbed her backpack straps in each hand.

  “Those aren’t your things,” Ms. Ambrose said simply. “The police have confiscated the contents of Miss Mercer’s locker.”

  Emma took two steps back, tears stinging her eyes. How could she be so stupid? She should have expected this. She turned to run when Ethan caught her hand.

  “Here,” he said, pressing his car keys into her palm. “Go home. Call me if you need anything.” With that, he planted a firm, ostentatious kiss on her lips. Then he pulled away, giving the principal a defiant smirk, and shouldered past her into the school.

  Bolstered by Ethan’s kiss, Emma turned and walked with as much dignity as she could back toward Ethan’s Civic. She was so focused on getting out of there that when Madeline and Charlotte stepped in front of her, it took her a moment to process. She stopped in her tracks.

  Madeline looked as unkempt as Emma had ever seen her. Her hair was loose and unstyled, and while her balletic frame normally seemed willowy and graceful, the shadows under her eyes gave her a skeletal look. Charlotte stood next to her, her face pale beneath her freckles. She hadn’t put on makeup at all.

  “Tell us it’s a prank,” Madeline said, her voice tremulous. “Please. Tell us it’s the best one yet.”

  Emma stared at Sutton’s best friends, wishing desperately that she could tell them what they wanted to hear. Even though their friendship was built on a lie, she’d grown to genuinely care about the girls. Underneath the petty jealousies and pranks, the Lying Game girls were fiercely loyal to one another. Emma wasn’t quite sure when she’d stopped thinking of them as Sutton’s friends and started thinking of them as her own—but like everything else of Sutton’s, they weren’t hers at all.

  Emma looked down at her shoes, avoiding Madeline’s gaze. “It’s not a prank,” she said softly.

  A sharp pain cut across her cheek as Madeline slapped her. “You bitch!” she shrieked, her voice a full octave above its normal range. “What did you do to my best friend?”

  Emma reached a hand to her stinging cheek, blinking back tears. The two girls swam in her vision for a moment before a tear finally fell.

  “You guys have to believe me,” Emma pleaded. “I didn’t do what they say I did. I didn’t mean for this to happen—I never wanted to lie to you.”

  Charlotte had gone even paler under her freckles. Her eyebrows were bright reddish-gold without her makeup, and they made her look wild-eyed.

  “We trusted you,” she hissed. “We told you all kinds of secrets, let you ride in our cars, let you in our houses . . . after you killed our best friend!”

  “I didn’t kill anyone!” Emma’s voice came out louder than she’d intended, reverberating around the parking lot. A few feet away a little conference of pigeons took wing at the sudden noise. She took a deep breath and said more softly, “I’ve been trying to figure out what happened to Sutton since I got here. If you help me, we might be able to figure it out together.”

  Madeline gave a bitter bark of laughter. “Help you? You’ve got some nerve. What makes you think we’d help someone who’s been lying to us for months?”

  “Madeline, we created an entire game about lying,” I shouted, annoyed. “And you have to help her! She’s my only hope!” But obviously I didn’t get a vote this time.

  “I hope you rot in jail,” Charlotte said, her lip curling upward. “And I hope you dream of Sutton every night for the rest of your life. I hope she haunts you until you die.” Then she headed back toward the school entrance without glancing back.

  Madeline gave Emma one last look of loathing, and then turned to follow Char.

  Emma stood frozen, watching them go, until she realized that the entire parking lot full of students was staring at her. With a nervous glance around, she quickly let herself into Ethan’s car and locked the doors.

  In the rearview mirror she could see the entrance to the school. Principal Ambrose still stood there, staring daggers at her. Most of the students started streaming toward the door now that the show
was over. The clock on the dash read 7:58. The bell was about to ring.

  Suddenly, Emma picked one face out of the crowd as if a spotlight shone over him. Garrett stood alone in the shadow of a ten-foot saguaro cactus growing in the desert-scaped bed separating the school from the parking lot.

  His eyes were honed onto my sister like a laser beam. He stared at her for a long moment, his face motionless.

  I stared at him right back, wishing I could unleash the full force of my anger on him. I might have been taken in by those eyes when I was alive, but now that I was dead I knew the truth: They were the windows to a soul that was as dead and rotten as my body.

  23

  A WALK IN THE PARK

  Emma started Ethan’s car, fumbling with the clutch so it rabbit-hopped a few feet before snapping into gear. She swerved toward the exit, narrowly missing a pudgy girl with a backpack shaped like a panda. A few feet away, Tricia Melendez stood close to her cameraman. Emma gritted her teeth. Without looking into the oncoming lane she hit the gas pedal hard, peeling out into the road just as the reporter started rushing toward the car. As the car roared away from the crowd, she could hear Tricia yelling: “Emma! Emma! Emma, what do you plan to do next?”

  She’d never hated the sound of her own name so much.

  Her eyes blurred with tears as she entered a neighborhood lined with pastel bungalows. In one yard a terrier ran alongside the chain-link fence, barking as she passed. A tottering old man with a pair of shears in one hand glared at her suspiciously from another.

  Her heart sank as she glanced in her rearview mirror. A navy blue BMW was tailing her closely. She recognized it immediately—it was Thayer’s car. He honked lightly on the horn, signaling her to pull over. Her heart picked up speed. If Madeline and Charlotte were pissed, he’d be livid.

  Still, Emma took a deep breath, then pulled over. The guilt of hiding Sutton’s death from him had been eating her alive. He deserved the truth, and a part of her believed she deserved what she was about to get.

  She rolled down the window. Thayer held Emma’s gaze for a long moment before speaking.

  “I knew there was something weird about you,” he said finally. “I knew it.”

  Emma swallowed hard. Her pulse throbbed in her ear. “I tried to tell everyone at first. But no one would listen.” She winced, bracing herself for the onslaught of accusations.

  But Thayer just nodded, eerily calm. “I know. Laurel told me.”

  With a sigh of relief, Emma got out of the car and followed Thayer to an empty playground around the corner. A rusted merry-go-round pivoted slowly in the breeze. The jungle gym was shaped like a giant red spider, its long metal legs covered in footholds for climbing. Emma sat down on one of the swings, empty of energy, drifting listlessly back and forth. Thayer slouched against one of the swing set’s support poles, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “You acted too nice,” Thayer said.

  Emma glanced up at him, frowning. “What?”

  “That’s what Laurel said: You were too nice to be Sutton. You didn’t do a very good job playing her.” Thayer shrugged. “Well, I guess you did a fine job. Everyone bought it. Then again, it would have been crazy not to. I mean, I thought I was going crazy.”

  “Thayer, I’m so, so sorry—” Emma started, but Thayer cut her off.

  “Save it,” he said curtly. His eyes narrowed on Emma. “Just tell me—did you kill Sutton?”

  “No.” Emma looked down, shaking her head. Even though the whole world thought she’d done it, it somehow hurt more that Thayer thought she could have hurt her own sister. “I’ve been trying all this time to figure out who did.” She glanced at Thayer, who was staring off across the street. “Ask Laurel—my first morning here, there was a note for me on her car. She thought it was a love note. But it was a threat from the killer. It said that if I didn’t keep pretending to be Sutton, I would be next. It’s in Sutton’s room, if the cops haven’t taken it.” A cloud drifted over the sun, and the colors of the world dimmed like someone was turning down a knob. “I’ve gotten three notes since I got here. I told Quinlan about them. There’s a purple pillow with a ripped seam in Sutton’s room—I hid them all inside it and stitched it back up. Ask Laurel if the police came for it yet.” Emma looked down at her lap. “And it wasn’t just me he threatened. He said he’d hurt the rest of you if I didn’t do what he said. You. Laurel. Laurel’s parents. Everyone.”

  Thayer gripped the pole. “So some maniac has been watching you for months, making sure you kept fooling everyone into thinking you were Sutton?” There was an unavoidable note of skepticism in his voice.

  “Look, I know it sounds crazy. It is crazy. But yes. Sutton’s murderer has been watching every move I make.” Emma paused. “My first week here, someone strangled me with Sutton’s locket during a sleepover at Charlotte’s, warning me to keep up the act. Then that light almost fell on me at homecoming court rehearsal, with another warning note. And . . .” Her voice grew small, but she kept going. “And I think whoever killed Sutton killed Nisha, too. I’m almost certain that Nisha learned something about Sutton’s death that night, and she died because of it.”

  Thayer’s face went pale, but he didn’t flinch. He stared at Emma with steady green eyes. “I guess that explains why you asked me so many weird questions when I was in jail. You thought I did it for a while, didn’t you?”

  Emma hesitated, then nodded. “I know now you’re not capable of anything like that. But when I first got here I didn’t know anything about anyone. Everyone was a suspect. You, Mads, Charlotte, Gabby, and Lili.” She paused. “Even Laurel.”

  Emma fell silent, shivering in the morning breeze. For a few minutes the only sounds were the birds twittering in the low canopy of trees. A college-aged nanny wearing a jumper and tights pushed a stroller down the street. She started to enter the playground but seemed to change her mind when she saw two teenagers hanging out there during school hours. Emma swayed gently on the swing, the chains creaking overhead.

  “Well?” Thayer asked after a moment’s silence. “Who are your suspects now? Do you have any clues?”

  Emma picked at one of her cuticles, her mind racing. Thayer might have information she needed, something that could help her defeat Garrett before he managed to frame her. Then this nightmare could be over.

  But she thought of the notes she’d gotten, the warnings. She’d been one step behind Garrett ever since she arrived in Tucson. Ethan was already in danger just for helping her. She didn’t want to risk any more lives.

  “No,” she lied. “And anyway, I don’t want you involved. It’s too dangerous.”

  Thayer stepped forward quickly, to stand directly in front of Emma. “I’m not stupid. I know you have a suspect.” He lowered his voice. “You think it’s Garrett, don’t you? That’s why you were asking me all those questions about him the other day.”

  Emma hesitated.

  Thayer seemed to read her fears in her expression. He shook his head impatiently. “I’m not giving up on this.” Grief flashed through his eyes, so raw she had to look away. His voice cracked. “Someone took Sutton away from me,” he said fiercely. “And I want that person to pay.”

  The pain in Thayer’s voice tore at me, fear and love warring for control in my heart. I wanted nothing more than for Thayer to stay safe, out of Garrett’s reach. But at the same time, the violence of his feelings sent a little thrill through me. Thayer loved me—and he wouldn’t let Garrett get away with what he’d done.

  Emma clasped the swing chains, hanging her head with a sigh. A moment later Thayer crouched down next to her.

  “Emma?” he prompted.

  “Okay,” she finally said under her breath. “But don’t go doing anything stupid, Thayer. You can’t go after Garrett. You’ll end up in prison, or worse.”

  “I don’t care,” he shot back, his hands clenching against his thighs. She tugged hard at his sleeve, forcing him to turn and look at her.

  “Sutton would care,
” she said softly.

  She was right. The image of Thayer in prison, staring at cinder block for the rest of his life, knotted my insides. But even worse was the possibility that Thayer could end up like me—murdered, lost to his friends and family forever.

  Emma held Thayer’s gaze. “Promise me. For Sutton’s sake.”

  His jaw tightened, and he turned away from her. After a moment, he gave a short nod. She looked out over the tawny mountains, where fluffy clouds drifted against the deep blue. “Garrett was definitely in the canyon the night Sutton died,” she said softly, hugging her knees. “When the cops took me in for questioning I saw a security photo that showed his car in the parking lot. And Louisa mentioned that he came home in the middle of the night. She remembered it because he’d been so upset. Something really freaked him out. She thought that he and Sutton must have broken up.”

  Thayer remained perfectly motionless, but she could see the muscles in his shoulders tense.

  “I don’t have a way to prove it, though. Everything is circumstantial. You didn’t see anything suspicious in the canyon that night, did you?” Emma glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Storm clouds were gathering across his face, grim and foreboding. A sudden fear dawned on her: What if she’d overestimated Thayer’s self-control? What if he couldn’t keep his promise? Before he’d gone into recovery, his temper had been almost as legendary as Garrett’s. The way he looked now, she wasn’t sure he wouldn’t run after Garrett and tear him apart right this moment.