Emma could hear the doubt in his voice. She thought back to all the times Becky had surprised her. One minute Becky would be doing something totally weird like crying in the middle of the supermarket over a slightly blemished grapefruit, and the next she’d be smooth-talking a waiter at the local diner into comping their dinner, or sneaking Emma deftly into a Disney movie without buying a ticket. She could be canny sometimes, even clever. She was a survivor. She and Emma were both survivors, and that meant they could be resourceful.
But that didn’t mean she was homicidal. Did it? But then she thought of how Becky had smiled when she called Emma by her real name, with such an eerily calm expression, as though she knew she wasn’t Sutton. As if she were sure of it.
Emma rubbed her eyes, the image of that manila folder coming back to her. “Dr. Banerjee has been her doctor for years. He had a file five inches thick on her. I bet there are session notes, diagnostic tests, all sorts of things in there. If I could get my hands on that, it might answer some questions.”
When she looked back at Ethan, his spine had gone rigid and his lips were pulled in a taut, angry line. His eyes looked black in the dark, unreflective and unreadable. “Psych records are private, Emma,” he said.
She recoiled at the coldness in his voice. “I know that. Trust me, I’m not thrilled at the idea of digging into my mom’s crazy past. But it could give us the answers we’ve been looking for. And we don’t have any other leads.”
He shook his head violently. “No. It’s wrong.”
“Ethan, this could clear Becky!” she exclaimed. A flare of irritation swept through her. Did he want to believe her mother was a murderer?
“You have no right to pry into someone’s head that way!” he snapped. Neither one of them spoke for a moment. Far off in the desert, some coyotes barked.
Then he exhaled loudly. “I’m sorry. I just feel strongly about this.”
At any other time in her life, she would have agreed with him—she didn’t want to go digging through someone’s private records either, particularly not her own mother’s. But the people in Sutton’s life protected their secrets so carefully, and Emma’s safety depended on learning everything she could.
“It doesn’t matter, anyway. I don’t have access to the files.” Emma sighed. “I don’t really want to look at them, Ethan. I’m just so tired of dead ends.”
He touched her cheek. “I know you’re frustrated.”
“I’m sorry, too.” Emma smiled sadly. “So much for romance, huh?”
A small smile spread across Ethan’s face. “I would say romance isn’t totally off the table,” he whispered into her ear. He nuzzled gently against her neck, kissing her throat softly. Emma shivered at his touch, coiling her fingers in his hair. The heat of their brief argument didn’t dissipate, but it softened, morphing into a different kind of energy. Her nerve endings hummed beneath his fingertips. He kissed her, a longer, deeper kiss than before. She closed her eyes and leaned into him.
All but one of the candles had flickered out. I stared at the last tiny flame, remembering the vitriolic shouting matches between Thayer and me, and the frenzied kisses that usually followed. That’s what you get for dating a brooder, sis, I thought. Lots of epic fighting, lots of hot apology make-outs.
I was glad Emma and Ethan were making up. But the question still lingered at the back of my mind: How was Emma going to find out whether Becky was innocent?
And if Ethan couldn’t help her prove it, who could?
12
MONSTERS IN THE ATTIC
After a grueling tennis practice the next day, Emma stood in the upstairs hallway, staring at the hatch to the attic. During their father-daughter—or rather, grandfather-granddaughter—dinner, Mr. Mercer had mentioned that some of Becky’s old things were still up there. Maybe something upstairs would help her piece together Becky’s relationship with her family and illuminate her motives. It was a thin lead, but it was all she had to go on.
She checked her watch. She had the house to herself—Mr. Mercer was at the hospital, Mrs. Mercer was out running errands, and Laurel was still at school for a physics project—but she wasn’t sure for how long, so she had to move fast. She tugged the cord down from the ceiling. Drake, who was keeping her company in the hall, scampered backward as dust billowed down around her. For a big lug, he was quite the coward.
Emma gripped the sides of the ladder and climbed up into the darkness. The musty smell of old paper and mothballs pervaded the attic, which was cluttered with evidence of abandoned hobbies and family history. A pair of downhill skis was propped against a yellowed dress form. Translucent boxes of red and green Christmas ornaments were neatly piled on the floor. A porcelain doll with a cracked cheek sat staring blankly from a child-sized rocking chair. At one end of the attic a few beams of sunlight fought through a small, dirty window that looked out over the backyard.