And just like that, I knew: It was Becky, our birth mother. I recognized her from Emma’s memories, although she looked even more ragged than the last time my sister saw her, thirteen years ago. And yet she seemed familiar to me, too. I wondered if we’d ever met. So far, I had only been able to remember my life in disjointed flashes, usually preceded by a disconcerting tingling sensation. I felt tingly right then, but when I closed my eyes, I saw nothing. I had found out about Becky the night that I died. My father had met Becky in secret that same night—what if I had, too? I concentrated on the tingling feeling, willing myself to remember more of that night. But my mind was a blank and I was left with a feeling of dread and doom.
Just last night, my father had told Emma that Becky was troubled, possibly even dangerous. As I watched the car take off in a cloud of exhaust, I couldn’t help but wonder: Was she disturbed enough to kill her own daughter?
1
DRIVE-BY MOM
Emma Paxton stared hard at the woman in the Buick. At first, all she saw was a haggard woman with a lined face, sunken cheeks, and cracked, thin lips. But then she realized that beneath her dull, spotted skin the woman had a familiar heart-shaped face. And if Emma squinted, she could picture the woman’s brittle, frizzy hair a shiny, raven black again. And her eyes—those eyes. An electric jolt ran through her. Our eyes are our best features, Emmy, her mother always used to say, as they stood in front of the mirror in whatever run-down apartment they happened to be living in that month. They’re like two sapphires, worth more than any amount of money.
She gasped. It was …
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
“What did you say, Sutton?” Thayer Vega asked.
But Emma barely heard him. She hadn’t seen her birth mother in thirteen years, ever since Becky abandoned her at a friend’s house when she was five.
The woman looked up and her eyes—two blue sapphires—locked on Emma’s. Her nostrils flared like a spooked horse’s, then there was a gunshot-like bang and the car peeled away in a thick cloud of exhaust.
“No!” Emma cried out, leaping up. She clambered over the wrought-iron railing that surrounded the café’s patio, scraping her shin in the process. Pain rocketed through her leg, but she didn’t stop.
“Sutton! What’s going on?” Thayer asked, hurrying after her.
She raced toward the Buick as it accelerated out of the parking lot and turned left into the Mercers’ subdivision. Emma followed it across the street, barely noticing the traffic whizzing past her. Horns honked at her in anger, and someone even stuck his head out the window to yell, “What the hell are you doing?” Behind her, Emma heard Thayer’s labored breathing and uneven footsteps as he did his best to keep up with her despite his injured leg.
The Buick turned down the Mercers’ street and picked up speed. Emma forced herself forward at a faster clip, her lungs heaving in her chest. But the car pulled farther and farther away from her. Her eyes blurred with tears. She was about to lose Becky again.
Maybe that’s a good thing, I thought, still shaken by my almost-memory—or, at least, my hunch. Whatever was going on, I had a feeling Becky didn’t come to town for a happy family reunion.
Suddenly, the brakes squealed and the Buick screeched to a stop so quickly that the smell of burnt rubber permeated the air. A bunch of kids playing kickball in the street screamed, and a boy stood inches in front of the car, frozen in fear, a bright red ball in his arms.
“Hey!” Emma called out, sprinting for the car. She cut across the Donaldsons’ lawn, hurdling their Kokopelli lawn ornament and narrowly dodging a staghorn cactus. “Hey!” she yelled again, plowing into the back of the car, bracing herself against the trunk to stop. She slapped her hand on the rear window. The exhaust steamed out hot against her knees.
“Wait!” she yelled. Her eyes met Becky’s in the rearview mirror. Her mother stared back at her. Her lips parted.
For a split second, it felt as if time stood still as Emma and her mother looked at each other in the mirror, cut off from the rest of the world. The boy ran off toward the sidewalk, clutching his kickball. Birds splashed in the Stotlers’ rock fountain. The grumble of a lawn mower vibrated through the air. Was Becky hesitating because she thought Emma was Sutton? Or was she thinking of Emma, remembering all the good moments they’d shared? Sitting in bed, reading chapters from Harry Potter. Playing dress-up with the clothes Becky brought home from the dollar bin at the thrift store. Making a tent out of blankets during a thunderstorm. For five years, it had been just the two of them, mother and daughter against the world.
But then Becky broke her gaze. The engine snarled once more, and the Buick shot off in a billowing cloud of dust. Emma choked back a sob. She turned away—and stopped in her tracks. A police car had driven silently up behind her.
The driver rolled down the window, and Emma sucked in a breath. It was Officer Quinlan.
“Miss Mercer,” Quinlan said acidly, his eyes hidden behind aviator sunglasses. “What’s going on here?”