Of course she couldn’t tell the cops, couldn’t say she was there that day. She knew how that would look. She had called Sarah—threatened her. But she did go, she went there to confront Sarah, to hurt her, and instead she saw . . . what?
I kept pedaling toward the wrought iron fence ahead, the archway over the main entrance, the gates swung open. People were coming and going, sitting on the edge of the big fountain just inside the gates. Picnic blankets spread on the grass, toddlers in a playgroup chased bubbles. A group of campers in matching green T-shirts lined up for a hike as a counselor counted them. It could have been that day. Years had passed, but it was all the same.
Sarah stopped her bike and got off next to the big gate. She looked back at me, her sunglasses so dark I couldn’t see her eyes. As I pulled my bike up alongside her, she said quietly, “Do what I do. Act normal, okay?”
I nodded, but she didn’t even look over at me. She walked to a guy with a handcart. “Got any lemon pops today?” she asked brightly.
The guy slid open the lid and pulled out a frozen lemonade. “This do?”
“Two please, one for me and one for my sister,” she said. I watched her slip a carefully folded twenty from her pocket into his hand. He made change and she pocketed only the bills, giving him back the coins as a tip. “Thanks.”
We took the frozen pops and sat on a nearby bench. I felt sweat run down my back under my tank top. Sarah opened her frozen lemonade and ate it like nothing was wrong. After a few moments, I had to ask, “What are we going to do?”
Sarah let out a sigh. “Well, we’re going to do what we need to do, right?”
I shook my head.
“Nico, eat your pop, you’ll feel better.” She let out a light laugh. “Listen, the detective has questions, we’re going to give him answers. Okay?”
I peeled back the paper on the frozen lemonade and the first bite was so sour and good, it went straight to my brain, as if turning it on for the first time in a long while.
Sarah kept talking. “Paula told him some things, he needs answers to those specific things—whatever they are. Then it will be fine. You’ll see.”
“But what did she tell him?” I asked.
Sarah turned to me and balled up her wrapper. “I don’t know—you tell me, Nico.”
SARAH
I DIDN’T COME UP with a plan to take Sarah’s place. And Ma didn’t either. To be honest, I don’t think either one of us had the smarts to come up with an idea like that. It just happened, by accident. We were at a Best Buy near Gainesville with a new credit card and a new ID for me. Of course, the fake ID, stolen with the card, had me listed at twenty-five and I was only sixteen, but places like Best Buy almost never ask for ID; if they do, they just glance at the photo to see that it matches the name on the card, and mine did.
Ma was busy looking at flat screens, pretending that we were outfitting our new house—her favorite version of the Stranger Game—when a salesperson came over to help. In the middle of explaining the latest technology, he turned to me. “You know who you look like—that girl who went missing from Pennsylvania, what was her name? Blond girl.” He squinted at me suspiciously.
I just shook my head, having never heard about the case. “I don’t know,” I told him honestly, and I didn’t. He seemed to let it drop, so we went on shopping. When we were done, it took a clerk with a flatbed cart to wheel all the stuff out to the van: new huge screen, a surround sound system, DVD player. The works. And the credit card had gone through no problem.
But as the guy was loading up Ma’s van, two Gainesville police cars pulled into the lot and we knew it was trouble. “Ditch the cards,” Ma whispered to me, so I opened my purse and tossed the credit card and ID under the car next to ours in one swift motion. A shame, as the fake ID had been a tough one to make and it looked pretty damn perfect.
“Evening, ladies.” One officer approached us. Two other cops went into the store.
“Yes, can we help you?” Ma said, clutching her receipt tightly.
“Oh, it’s not about your purchases here tonight—we just had a report that your daughter matched a missing person report from another state and we wanted to come and check it out.”
“Who, Libby?” Ma laughed, looking over at me. “Well, she’s not missing, I can tell you that!” She laughed a little too loudly—relieved that the cops were here for some nonsense and not the fact that we were basically stealing thousands of dollars of merch from the electronics store.
The cop took out a small black notebook and asked me a couple of questions, and I answered them—giving a fake last name, but not the one on the credit card. Where did I go to school? What was my birthday? He jotted down a few things in his notebook. He looked up at me, studying my face, then looking at a folded piece of paper he had in his hand. “Yeah, I can see the similarity”—he shook his head—“but you’re not her,” he said finally.