“We’re doing it in Sabino Canyon?” Emma couldn’t keep a note of dismay out of her voice. The less she had to be at the scene of her sister’s murder, the better.
“It’s close to my house,” Nisha explained. “I thought that afterward we could order takeout and celebrate our success. If you guys want to, that is,” she added.
“Sabino is totally perfect,” Madeline said, squeezing Emma’s elbow. “It’s so spooky out there, it’ll be the perfect place for a séance. That freak is going to be sorry she ever tried to mess with you.”
Emma’s gaze traveled across the courtyard to where Celeste sat in a half-lotus pose. Today she was wearing hemp pants and knotted rope sandals, with a five-point Wiccan star on a chain around her neck. For a moment, Emma felt almost bad about the prank—Celeste reminded her of a weirder version of Erin Featherstone, a girl at her school in Henderson who was a devout Buddhist and cried whenever bugs died. But then Celeste looked up and met Emma’s gaze. A slow, dreamy smirk came to her lips, and her eyes narrowed dangerously. It didn’t matter what Emma thought, she realized—right now she was Sutton Mercer, and no one messed with Sutton.
She turned to the others. “Let’s do this.”
Damn right, I agreed.
Everyone got up and headed to Celeste’s locker, which was in the fine arts hall between the auditorium and the dance studio. They nominated Charlotte to shove the invitation through the ventilation slats, then ran behind a corner and waited breathlessly for Celeste to appear, choking back their laughter.
The cacophonous warm-up of the school orchestra crashed out from the music room down the hall. The smell of turpentine was pungent in the air. “She’s coming!” Laurel whispered, and they all craned their necks around the corner to watch.
Celeste drifted toward her locker. Even her walk was dreamy, as though she wasn’t entirely touching the ground. She swung open the locker door and the flyer fluttered out. Laurel bit down on her knuckles to stifle her giggles as Celeste leaned over to pick it up.
“She’s reading it,” hissed Lili.
Charlotte slapped her shoulder. “That’s what we want her to do, idiot.”
Celeste looked up and down the hall, then carefully folded the sheet of paper and slid it into a book. She shut her locker and started down the hall toward them.
“Quick!” Gabby shrieked.
The girls ran down the hall into the pottery studio for cover. A few moments later, Nisha’s iPhone vibrated. “She RSVP’d,” she announced, locking eyes with Emma and grinning. “Ladies, it’s time to raise the dead.”
If only she meant it literally, I thought. But a prank on a girl who deserved it was almost as good.
16
EVERY DAY SHOULD BE SENIOR SKIP DAY
The next day, before third period, Charlotte and Madeline swooped in on either side of Emma and steered her toward the door to the student parking lot. “Guys?” Emma asked as they passed her classroom. “I have English next. I have to turn in a paper on Jane Eyre.”
No matter how important it was for her to pretend to be Sutton, Emma hadn’t been able to give up her own study habits. She’d finished Jane Eyre for the second time and loved it, not that she could ever admit it to Sutton’s friends. She doubted Sutton would have gushed over angsty Victorian literature.
Um, no. I would have been more likely to browse the Wikipedia entry ten minutes before class and hope no one called on me. But good for my sister. It was nice to know that one of us was a brainiac.
Madeline snorted. “So turn it in at the end of school. Anyway, who wants to talk about some weird old book by a chick who obviously never got laid? I gave up after the first page. We totally deserve a mental health day. And we need new clothes for the party.”
Emma paused. In her old life back in Nevada, she wouldn’t have dreamed of skipping class. She’d always been a good student—she knew her only shot at going to college was to land a top-notch scholarship, so she’d worked hard. She’d also liked school—it was an escape from the more depressing living situations in which she found herself, a place she could slip anonymously into the crowd and disappear from the eyes of creepy foster siblings or eccentric guardians and just be a normal kid.
But a mental health day did sound like just what she needed right now. “Okay, I’m in,” she agreed, linking arms with Madeline and walking out into the sunshine.
The girls climbed into Charlotte’s Jeep Grand Cherokee and blasted a Kelly Clarkson song as they turned out into the street. Emma felt the weight on her shoulders lightening for the first time in days. This was better than sitting in class.
“So, I ordered dessert for the party from Hey, Cupcake!” Charlotte said as they drove past a comic book shop with a life-sized fiberglass Spider-Man attached to the outside wall. “Do you think seven dozen will be enough?”
“I love their red velvet,” Madeline said, her eyes fluttering back in her head in bliss. “Maybe you’d better request another dozen.”
“If I have to watch you eat a dozen cupcakes, I’m going to kill myself,” Charlotte complained, eyeing Madeline’s lithe dancer’s frame with envy.
“Are you bringing a date, Char?” Madeline asked, in what Emma suspected was an attempt to change the subject.
Charlotte applied NARS peach gloss in the rearview mirror at a stoplight. “John Hokosawa,” she said. “I wasn’t going to bother, but we were talking after Calc yesterday, and he’s looking amazing.”
“Oh my God, I love his new haircut,” Madeline agreed. “He looks like he should be racing motorcycles.” They both giggled.
“Wait, rewind,” Emma said, cocking her head at Charlotte. “What did you mean, you weren’t going to bother with a date?” As far as she knew, the Lying Game girls didn’t go stag to anything.
Charlotte shrugged. “There’s no one to date anymore.”
“Ugh, tell me about it.” Madeline leaned back against her seat, sticking her lip out in a pout. “I’m so tired of high school boys. I keep looking around the halls and thinking, this is it? They’re all such children.”
“So are you going alone?” Emma asked.
Madeline looked at her like she was crazy. “Of course not. I’m taking Jake Wood. I’m not going to go without for the next six months just because there are college guys on the horizon.”
Emma had never heard Madeline or Charlotte talk about college, but she probably shouldn’t have been shocked. College was on the horizon—at least for them. Everyone seemed to be looking ahead, ready to move forward with their lives, while she was stuck in someone else’s. What would happen if she couldn’t solve this case before college applications were due? Would she submit them as Sutton, or would she be stuck here in limbo, chasing dead leads and spinning her wheels?
I wondered, too. What if she got sick of wondering who’d killed me? What if she figured out a way to abandon my life without getting hurt? Then what would happen to me?
They pulled into the La Encantada parking lot. Young mothers in Lululemon yoga pants and diamond earrings pushed strollers through the sunny arcades. A group of senior citizens power walked past the girls, swinging their arms cheerfully. Upbeat jazz filtered through the PA speakers, and the smell of bread and frying things wafted through the air from AJ’s Market. As they walked toward the main shopping area, Emma’s phone chimed. ANY MORE THOUGHTS ABOUT BECKY? Ethan wrote.
NOT REALLY, Emma responded.
MAYBE WE SHOULD RESEARCH WHAT HER CONDITION IS, EXACTLY, Ethan suggested. IF IT’S SOMETHING HARMLESS, THEN WE CAN RULE HER OUT.
THAT’S A GOOD IDEA, Emma agreed. GOTTA GO.
ENGLISH IS THAT INTERESTING? Ethan joked.
Emma stared at the gleaming storefronts in front of her. What would Ethan think about her cutting class? She knew that he considered Sutton’s friends frivolous and superficial. TOTALLY INTERESTING, she wrote back, deciding not to tell him.
They hopped on the escalator up toward the Bebe store. Emma looked at the girls out of the corner of her e
ye. Charlotte’s gaze was hidden behind her aviators, while Madeline was texting furiously. A decal that said SWAN LAKE MAFIA covered the back of her iPhone—some kind of ballet inside joke. Once they walked through the doors, Madeline beelined straight for a rack of cropped sweaters, while Charlotte started leafing through dresses. As she studied a short, fringed dress that made her think of flappers and the Roaring Twenties, Emma had a sudden thought: Tons of people would be at Charlotte’s house, the very place she’d been attacked late one night during her first week in Tucson. The party would be unsupervised. What if Sutton’s killer was there?
She shuddered, remembering those strong hands at her throat, tightening the chain of Sutton’s silver locket against her skin until she could barely breathe. If only she’d been able to see her attacker’s face.
“Char?” Emma tried to look casual as she flipped through a rack of belts. “Are you going to disarm the security system for the party?”
Charlotte looked at her strangely. “Um, yeah? I don’t exactly want the cops showing up before the party’s even had a chance to start. The last thing I need is for some drunk moron to trip the switch.”
“Have you seen anyone, like, prowling around your house lately?”
Charlotte narrowed her eyes. “Is this the build-up to a Lying Game prank? Lame, Sutton. No repeats allowed, remember?”
“Repeats?”
“Oh, please. Don’t pretend you forgot about the guy who crashed my tenth-grade birthday with a chain saw and a Jason mask.”
I laughed silently. I wished I remembered that one.
Emma held up her hands. “I’m not planning anything, honest. I’m just curious. I mean, why do you guys even have such a serious alarm system? Has anyone ever broken in?”
Charlotte shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think so, Detective Mercer.”
Shooting one last look at Emma, she threw a few dresses over her shoulder and headed off to the fitting room. Emma stood there thinking. She could see puddles of fabric pooling around her friend’s perfectly pedicured toes. What she really wanted was to know who had access to the security codes—but Charlotte already thought she was acting weird.
The door opened a half inch, and Charlotte’s face appeared in the gap. “Oh good, you’re still here. Can you help zip me up?”
Charlotte turned around and lifted her hair out of the way. Emma tugged at the zipper, but it wouldn’t move. The jade green dress was pulled tight across Charlotte’s midsection. “Um,” Emma said uncomfortably, not wanting to say the words I think you need a bigger size. Charlotte was sensitive enough about her weight already.
Unfortunately, that was the moment Madeline chose to come bounding out of an adjacent fitting room, a midriff-baring sweater stretched tight over her slender torso, exposing her toned abs and narrow waist. She did a quick pas de bourrée in the mirror, landing in a graceful half curtsey. “What do we think, ladies?”
Charlotte tore away from Emma and slammed the door shut.
Madeline froze, her eyes wide. “What the hell?” she mouthed silently at Emma.
Emma gritted her teeth, not knowing how to answer. How could she tell Madeline she’d picked the wrong moment to dance around looking like a Victoria’s Secret model?
Then she turned to Charlotte’s dressing room. “Char?” she called softly, laying her cheek against the door. “Are you okay?”
She heard a sniff inside the dressing room. “I’m fine.”
Madeline shifted her weight uncomfortably. “Did I do something?” she whispered. She wrapped her arms around her waist as if she suddenly felt naked. Emma shook her head. “No, I did.” She turned back to the fitting room door.
“Let’s go,” Emma said. “This place sucks. Plus, I saw an amazing bronze dress down at Castor and Pollux that will look perfect with your skin tone.”
The door flew open. Charlotte’s cheeks were blotchy and her eyes were wet, but she’d conjured up a blasé expression. Behind her, dresses lay in unkempt piles on the floor. Normally Emma would have hated to leave a mess like that for the shop assistants to clean up—she had, after all, been a working-class girl herself in her former life—but now she just laced her arm through Charlotte’s and led her toward the door. Madeline rushed behind them, but Emma twisted around and gave her a look that said, She’s cool, just give me a little time alone with her. Madeline nodded, waiting a beat so she was a few steps behind them.
“So, Castor and Pollux?” Emma asked.
Char shrugged. “Whatever.”
Emma watched Charlotte carefully as they stepped onto the down escalator, trying to read her. Char always carried herself with alpha-female confidence, but it must have been hard to run around with Madeline the Prima Ballerina and Stone-Cold Sutton Mercer, both of whom wriggled into the lower sizes on the racks with ease. Then there was Charlotte’s mother, who ate nothing but grapefruit and who looked as if she could be Charlotte’s older sister.
She placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Char. You know you’re gorgeous, right?”
Charlotte’s face didn’t budge from its cool, aloof mask. She watched three elderly women on the lower level as though they were the most fascinating people in the world.
“Seriously,” Emma persisted. “You’ve got an awesome body. I’d give anything to be able to fill out a V-neck the way you can.”
Charlotte’s face whipped toward Emma, her lips curling angrily. “Spare me, Sutton. If my body was so great, that stupid prank with my tags wouldn’t have worked.”
“Tags?” Emma blinked.
“Last year, when you guys spent a whole month switching tags on my clothes so I thought I was gaining weight?”
Emma’s lips parted. They’d seriously done that?
“I got a real kick out of spending half my junior year thinking I was too fat for a size fourteen,” Charlotte spat angrily.
“That was an awful joke,” Emma said seriously. “I’m really sorry, Char.”
The apology seemed to knock Charlotte off kilter for a moment, but then her expression became impassive once more. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes it does,” Emma insisted. “It was a mean thing to do.”
Charlotte sniffed. “It was your idea.”
Emma winced. Of course it was Sutton’s idea. “Well, it was a bad move, and I’d take it back if I could. I’m sorry.”
Charlotte stopped in front of Williams-Sonoma and lifted up her shades to peer at Emma from under them. “Okay, I’m starting to think Celeste might be right. You’ve been replaced by a pod person or something.”
Emma smiled. “No pod person here. I’ve just … well, I realized that I sometimes take you guys for granted. I hope you know how much you and Madeline mean to me. You’re my best friends.”
I hovered by my sister in silent agreement. Being dead had given me an entirely new perspective on the way that I had lived. I guess even ghosts could grow up.
“Wait a minute,” Madeline said, stepping forward to join them for real. “Sutton, having a heart-to-heart? Is this the influence of Mr. Sensitivity?”
Charlotte grinned. “Mads, I think you’re onto something. Are you going to start writing poetry now, Sutton?”
Madeline and Charlotte both giggled, startling a nearby pigeon that sat perched on top of a pretzel. “What about bottle-feeding kittens?” Madeline teased.
“Donating your hair to cancer kids?” Charlotte giggled.
“Taking up the guitar and going to open mikes?” Madeline added.
The tension had broken. Emma wrinkled her nose in mock irritation while Madeline and Charlotte leaned into each other, laughing. “You’re both hilarious,” she said haughtily.
“We know,” Charlotte said, gulping down another giggle. She grabbed their hands. “Come on. I have to find a dress that can handle my hot body.” Her voice was sarcastic, but the bitter edge was gone. “And Sutton …”
“Yeah?”
Charlotte shook her head. “Nothing. Thanks. Or … you know …
I forgive you. Both of you.” She looked at Madeline, too.
“Hey, I didn’t apologize,” Madeline joked, looping her arm through Charlotte’s.
“That’s because you’re a bitch,” Charlotte said lightly. “You can’t help it. But I still forgive you.”
They started down the mall together, my best friends and my sister. “Thank you,” I whispered to Charlotte. “Thanks for forgiving me.”
Everything changes. Sooner or later, we all grow up.
17
RESEARCHING AND REMINISCING
During free period on Wednesday, Emma slipped into the school library. The library was a bland, beige room lined with metal shelves and hung with posters of celebrities holding books. The librarian’s name was Ms. Rigby, a youngish woman who wore cat-eye glasses and vintage cardigans. She had a perpetually aggravated air, as if she simply could not believe teenagers would turn down a chance to use actual research materials on a daily basis, but if she caught sight of a student perusing the stacks voluntarily, she immediately softened. Emma had been in the library a few times since her arrival in Tucson, first to check out materials for an English paper and again to get some books for pleasure reading. The librarian had treated her with skepticism at first—she seemed to know Sutton by her bad-girl reputation rather than by actual library attendance. But over the past few weeks she’d seemed to accept that Sutton Mercer had taken a bookish turn.
Emma had decided to follow Ethan’s suggestion and do some digging into her mother’s illness. It might not help her solve Sutton’s murder, but at least it’d give her some insight into what Becky was going through.
“Hi, Sutton,” Ms. Rigby said, smiling up at her from the reference desk.
“Hey, Ms. Rigby.” She looked around to make sure no one could overhear her, though the library was mostly empty. “I’m doing some research for a presentation.”
“What’s the topic?”
“Uh, mental illness.”
The Lying Game #5: Cross My Heart, Hope to Die Page 10