by Sara Shepard
“She can’t be gone.” Madeline made a face.
The girls turned for the gate. Emma crouched down and crawled to the next bush, then the next. Her bare knees dug into the gravel. When she reached the wall surrounding the house, she hoisted herself up and over. The rough surface scraped her arms and the top of her thighs.
Her bare feet crunched to the gravel on the other side. She looked around wildly. She had no money, no phone. No shoes. Where could she go?
A wall of parked cars stood in front of her, blocking her passage to the street. A Jeep Cherokee stood closest to her, a Toyota was to her left, and a crookedly parked Subaru Impreza pinned her in on the right. Then Emma spied a narrow escape corridor on the other side of the Subaru along the block-wall fence that separated the Mercers’ yard from the neighbors’. All she had to do was get around the Subaru and she was free. Sucking in her stomach, she squeezed past the car’s side mirror, praying that the car didn’t have one of those car alarms that blared as soon as someone touched it.
A clang made her stop halfway. Three figures stood at the back gate. One was tall and angular, with dark hair and golden skin. Another was shorter and thicker, with pale skin that shone luminously in the moonlight. The third girl had a familiar blond ponytail. All of them looked around. Laurel had a flashlight. Emma quivered, momentarily paralyzed.
“Sutton?” Madeline shouted, her voice cold and unfriendly.
Then Laurel gasped. “There she is!” She shone the flashlight across the yard to where Emma stood. They ran toward her, tramping through the flowerbeds and past the porch. Emma took off down the narrow corridor, her heart drumming in her ears.
“Sutton!” Charlotte, Madeline, and Laurel wove around the cars. “Come back here!”
Emma sprinted, her feet screaming, her gaze on the street just a few yards away. Just as she reached the end of the driveway, her foot landed on something sharp and hot. She yelled out and flew to her knees.
“Get up!” I screamed uselessly at her. “Get up!”
Emma scrambled to her feet. The girls had squeezed past the Subaru, too, and started down the corridor. Emma locked eyes with Laurel. Her shoulders were hunched angrily. Emma let out a whimper and staggered into the street.
And then the automatic light timer on the garage clicked off, bathing the driveway and the street in total darkness. Emma froze, her heart jumping to her throat. She groped for the edge of the block wall that surrounded the Mercer house, then ducked around it, out of their view.
“Sutton?” the girls called. Their high-heeled shoes clicked on the asphalt. They were moving closer and closer in the darkness. For all she knew, they were right next to her.
A hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. Emma jumped and cried out. She was yanked to her knees and dragged farther into the neighbors’ yard. Her palms hit hard, sharp gravel. Tears came to her eyes. Her foot throbbed in pain. Her nose twitched with the sharp smell of a cigarette. She stared at the dark figure in front of her, expecting to see Charlotte’s angry face or Laurel’s searing gaze. “What are you doing?” a guy’s voice asked instead.
Emma blinked hard. “Ethan?” she whispered, her eyes adjusting. She could just make out Ethan’s shorn head and angular jaw. He held a cigarette between his fingers, the red tip glowing eerily in the darkness.
Ethan stubbed out his cigarette in the gravel and stared at Emma’s sweaty, harried face, her torn dress, her lack of shoes. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Sutton?” Madeline called out at the same time. She was right next to them, separated only by the block wall. “Where are you?”
Emma grasped Ethan’s hand hard. “Can you get me out of here? Now?”
“What?”
“Please,” Emma whispered desperately, clasping Ethan’s hands. “Can you help me or not?”
He stared at her. A look Emma couldn’t quite discern flashed over his eyes. He nodded. “My car’s a couple houses down.” Hand in hand, they slipped into the darkness.
I only hoped he could get her away before they caught her.
Chapter 30
SOMEONE KNOWS . . .
Ethan led Emma to an old red Honda Civic hatchback with a gray door and a crack in the windshield. The inside smelled like McDonald’s and old shoes, and the passenger seat was littered with textbooks and papers. Emma swept them aside and belted herself in. Ethan swung behind the wheel. Swiveling around, Emma saw Laurel standing at the edge of the driveway, looking right and left.
The stereo blared as soon as Ethan turned the ignition. It was a fast, raging song, and Ethan dove quickly for the dial and snapped it off. The wheel squeaked as he maneuvered into the street and drove away. Emma’s nails pressed hard into her thighs. She watched the Mercer house grow smaller and smaller in the side mirror until it was no longer visible.
“What’s this all about?” Ethan’s low voice pierced the silence.
“It’s hard to explain,” Emma answered.
They passed the park where she and Ethan had played tennis. Big floodlights illuminated one of the courts, but no one was there. Next they drove past the complex that contained the nail salon where she and Laurel had gotten manicures. Then La Encantada, where she and Madeline had shopped. The road for Hollier curved to the left; a big one-armed cactus pointed the way.
“Where are we going?” Ethan asked.
Emma slumped down in the seat. Where could she go? What about the police? Would they believe her now? Could she get them to search Laurel’s room and find the video?
Then she took a deep breath. “The bus station down-town.”
Ethan’s eyebrows did a quick lift-and-drop. “The one near Hotel Congress?”
“Yep.”
“You taking a trip?”
Emma hugged her chest. “Something like that.”
He nodded toward her feet. “Without shoes?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
Ethan gave her a strange look, then took a left turn at the next intersection and merged onto the highway. It was sparse at this time of night, the concrete lanes empty far into the distance. Neon signs for highway businesses peppered the drive. GREAT DANE TRUCKING. MOTEL SIX. A tall cowboy hat for Arby’s. Lights glittered on the mountain. A helicopter zoomed overhead.
“Can I ask why you’re fleeing your own party?” Ethan asked as he veered off the highway at an exit.
Emma leaned her head against the seat. “I just need to . . . go. It’s too crazy to explain.”
The light turned green, and he made a left at an intersection. They drove in silence for a while on a dark, hilly road. For a few minutes, there wasn’t a single light anywhere. No cars passed them going the other direction. No houses loomed at the curbs. Emma frowned and glanced at the receding highway behind her. The city lights were all in the other direction. “I think you took a wrong turn.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Emma continued to watch the city fade in the rearview mirror. The street rose and dipped. Ethan took another turn, but this road was even more desolate than the last. Dusty gravel crunched under the tires. Tall cacti passed within an inch of the car. Emma’s heart suddenly started to thump. “Ethan, this is the wrong way,” she insisted.
Ethan didn’t answer her. He maneuvered the car up a small slope. Lights twinkled in the distance, as far away as the stars. Emma felt the scratches on her neck from the near-strangulation last weekend. Her mouth immediately felt dry. She peeked at Ethan’s profile. His eyes were narrowed. His jaw jutted out. His hands gripped the steering wheel hard.
“Emma . . .” I cried weakly. Something about this suddenly seemed really wrong.
Emma’s stomach turned over. Slowly, carefully, she reached for the door handle and started to pull.
Click. The tiny knob that locked the door depressed all on its own. Emma hit the button to unlock the door, but it wouldn’t budge. “Stop the car!” she shrieked, suddenly reeling with fear. “Stop the car now!”
Ethan hit the brake so hard that Emma shot
forward, ramming her arm against the glove box. The car lurched back again. The engine idled loudly. She squinted in the flinty darkness. As far as she could tell, they were in the middle of a barren, empty desert. This wasn’t even a road.
“What?” Ethan asked. “What’s the matter?”
She turned to Ethan, trembling. The tears flowed freely and easily down her cheeks. “I want out. Please unlock the door. Please.”
“Settle down,” Ethan said gently. He unbuckled his seat belt and turned so that he was facing her. Then he grabbed Emma’s wrist. Not tightly exactly, but not very loosely either. “I just wanted to get us far away from where anyone could see or hear us.”
“Why?” Emma wailed. All kinds of awful possibilities flashed through her mind.
“There’s something I think I know,” Ethan’s voice dropped a half octave. “Something I don’t think you want anyone else to know.”
“What are you talking about?”
Ethan’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “You’re not who you say you are.”
Emma blinked hard. “I-I’m sorry?”
“You’re not Sutton. You can’t be.”
The words sliced through Emma’s brain. She opened her mouth, but no sounds came out. How could he know that? Slowly, she felt the door handle with her free hand. It still didn’t open. “Of course I’m Sutton,” she said, her voice shaking. Her heart pounded.
“You’re acting nothing like her.”
Emma swallowed awkwardly. She was beginning to feel woozy. “H-How would you know?”
Ethan leaned forward a little. “For a while I thought Sutton had changed—ever since that night you showed up in my driveway. But tonight you’re totally different. You’re someone else,” Ethan said in a lonely, sad voice. “It’s freaking me out. So you’d better tell me what’s going on.”
Emma stared at him, her body stricken with fear. But as Ethan talked, things started to whirl in my head. Ethan’s lost, haunting smile. The smell of the desert plants, the dust. The feel of someone pulling something soft over my head and squeezing something thin and sharp around my neck. A giggle.
All of a sudden, a chain reaction went off in my head. Lights sparking other lights. Images rolling into new images. And just like that, a new, lucid memory unfurled before me, like a red carpet unrolled for a queen. All I could do was watch helplessly. . . .
Chapter 31
NOT FUNNY, BITCHES
The blurry, shadowed figure grabs my shoulders and pulls me out of the trunk. I bang my knee on the side of the car and twist my ankle on the hard ground. Hands press against my shoulder blades and shove me forward. I pitch my head down, trying to get a look at the ground beneath me, but it’s too dark. I can smell a desert fire somewhere in the distance, but I have no idea where I am. I could be in Tucson. I could be on the moon.
The same hands push me to sitting. The bones in my butt dig into what feels like a wooden folding chair. I make a couple of muffled cries, the gag in my mouth sopping wet from my saliva. “Shut up,” someone hisses.
I try to kick whoever is near me, but my feet grope in thin air. There’s more crunching through gravel, and then a tiny electronic ping. Through the blindfold, I see a small LED beam staring at me. I bite down hard on the gag.
“Go,” a voice whispers. A girl. More crunching footsteps. And then someone’s hands grab my neck. The chain of the locket I always wear pulls against my throat. My head jerks back. I wriggle my hands in their binds, but I can’t free them. My bare feet thrash, hitting the cold, rough ground.
“Harder,” I hear a voice whisper. “A little higher,” says another. The chain digs into my throat. I try to breathe, but my airway can’t expand. My lungs scream for air. My whole body starts to burn. I thrash my head forward and see the little red light still watching me. Two shapes hover behind the light, too. I can see whites of teeth, glitters of jewelry. I’m dying, I think. They’re killing me.
My vision starts to turn gray. Spots appear in front of my eyes. My head throbs, my brain desperate for oxygen. I want to fight, but all at once I’m too weak to kick or wriggle. My lungs shudder, wanting to give up. Maybe it would be easier to give up. One by one, each muscle surrenders. It’s like a delicious reprieve, like falling into bed after a long tennis match. All sounds around me dribble away. My vision narrows until it’s a tunnel of light. Even the chain collapsing my windpipe doesn’t hurt so much anymore. I feel my head flop forward, my neck no longer rigid. Darkness envelops me. I see no visions. I’m still afraid, but the fear feels muffled now. It’s too much effort to fight.
From far within my head, I hear sharp whispers. Someone calls my name. Then there’s a muffled scream, and then more footsteps. Something heavy hits the ground with a muted thud. Seconds later, my skin vaguely registers the sensation of someone pulling the blindfold from my head and the gag from my mouth.
“Sutton?” a soft voice calls. A guy’s voice. Wind whips across my face. I feel my hair tickle my forehead. “Sutton?” the same voice calls again.
Consciousness begins to dribble back to me. The tips of my fingers tingle. My lungs expand. A spot appears in front of my eyes, and then another. One of my eyelids flutters. I stare groggily around, feeling just like I had when I’d woken up from the anesthesia after I’d gotten my tonsils out. Where am I?
My vision clears and I see an empty tripod in front of me. A video camera lays tipped over on the grass, the red LED power button now flashing. I’m in a clearing of some sort, though I don’t see any cars or lights. The air smells a little like a cigarette. Then I notice someone crouching right next to me. I jump and stiffen.
“Are you okay?” whoever it is cries. He touches the rope on my hands. “Jesus,” he says under his breath.
I take him in, still so disoriented. He has close-cropped hair, startling blue eyes, and is wearing a black T-shirt, green cargo shorts, and black Converse sneakers. The blindfold that had just been covering my face is in his left hand. For a moment I wonder if he is the one who did this to me, but the look on his face is such a mix of disgust and concern that I immediately dismiss the idea. “I can’t really see that well,” I say in a hoarse, scratchy voice. “Who’s there?”
“It’s Ethan,” he says. “Ethan Landry.”
I blink hard. Ethan Landry. My brain feels like it’s slogging through mud. I can’t quite think who he is for a minute. I remember a brooding boy roaming the halls. A hopeful face watching me from across a parking lot. “W-What happened?” I ask faintly.
“I don’t know.” Ethan reaches down to untie my hands. “I saw someone strangling you. I ran into the clearing and they took off.”
“They threw me in a trunk,” I murmur. “Someone dragged me here.”
“Did you see who?”
I shake my head. Then I gaze at Ethan, trying to figure out what I know about him. Why I don’t like him. Maybe it’s just one of those things—we haven’t liked him for so long we forgot what started it. But it suddenly feels like he’s my only friend in the world.
Crack. Twigs snap behind me, and I turn. Three figures emerge from the trees and scamper toward me. “Gotcha!” Charlotte cries, stepping into the light. Madeline follows. And then Laurel appears, a ski mask in her hand. She looks like she might cry.
Ethan gapes at them. “This was a joke?”
“Uh, duh.” Madeline scoops up the video camera from the ground. “Sutton knew it all along.”
Ethan stands in front of me protectively. “You almost killed her.”
The girls pause and exchange a glance. Laurel licks her lips. Madeline slips the camera into her bag. Finally, Charlotte sniffs and tosses her hair over her shoulder. “What were you doing following us anyway? Stalker.”
Ethan looks at me for a moment. I turn away, feeling both vulnerable and humiliated. He waves his hand dismissively and backs away toward the brush. But as Madeline bends down to cut through the knots around my hands, I catch his eye again. Thank you, I covertly mouth, my heart banging ste
adily but firmly in my chest. Ethan nods, resigned. You’re welcome, he mouths back.
And then, just like that, everything fades out once more. My memory has hit yet another dead end.
Chapter 32
THE BITTER TRUTH
In the car, Ethan was still gazing intently at Emma. “What’s going on?” he asked again.
“I’m Sutton,” Emma answered, trembling. “I swear.”
“You’re not.” A sad smile appeared on Ethan’s face. “Just tell me the truth.”
Emma stared at his glowing teeth in the darkness. She glanced around at the dark desert before them. A terrible thought crackled through her head like a lightning bolt: He sounded so sure. But how could he be positive, unless . . . “Did . . . did you kill her? Is that how you know?”
Ethan jolted back. He triple blinked, his face turning gray. “Kill her? Sutton’s . . . dead?”
Emma bit hard on her lip. Ethan looked shattered. “She was murdered,” she admitted in a tiny voice. “I think someone strangled her. Someone she knows. I saw it on a video.”
Ethan frowned. “Strangled?”
“With this necklace.” She lifted the locket from under her dress to show him. “In the woods. Her friends caught it all on tape. They even posted it online.”
Ethan’s gaze shifted to the right. A horrified look of understanding swept over his face. “Oh. Oh.”
“What?”
Ethan sank back into the seat and covered his face with his hands. “Was she blindfolded in this video?”
“Yes . . .”
Ethan took a deep breath and looked at her again. “I was there that night.”
Emma blinked hard. “You were there?”
“I was riding my bike when I saw this familiar car whip past,” he explained. “I recognized it by the SWAN LAKE MAFIA sticker on the back window—Madeline and I had assigned parking spots next to each other last year. It stuck in my head.”
Emma gulped.
“I don’t know why, but something made me follow them down this hill into a clearing,” Ethan went on. “By the time I got there, the camera had been set up and they’d just started strangling Sutton. I didn’t know what was going on or why they were doing it, but it seriously looked like they’d killed her.”