Emma turned as the Buick sputtered around the corner. For a fleeting second, she hoped that Becky had taken off because the cops had pulled up, not because she wanted to get away from her daughter. “Was that a friend of yours?” Quinlan asked, looking at the car, too.
“Um, no. I thought I recognized her, but I … didn’t,” Emma finished lamely, wishing it had been any other cop patrolling the street. Quinlan knew enough about her as it was—at least he thought he did. He had a file five inches thick on her twin, mostly about dangerous pranks she’d played with her clique called the Lying Game. Like the time Sutton had called the police to tell them she’d seen a lion prowling around the golf course, or the time she’d claimed to hear a baby crying in a Dumpster, or the time her car had “stalled” on the train tracks, only to miraculously spring back to life just in time to escape an oncoming train.
My friends had been particularly pissed at me for that one. They’d put together a revenge prank that was so dark, I hated to think about it even now. A video of it, which showed a faceless assailant strangling me, had been leaked on the Internet. And it was that video that had led Emma to me.
Quinlan squinted suspiciously. “Well, if you do know her, make sure she drives a little more carefully. She might hurt someone.” He looked pointedly at the swarm of kids watching with interest from the sidewalk.
Irritation seized Emma. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Don’t you have anything better to do?” she asked brazenly. Pushing the envelope was Sutton’s M.O., and it felt liberating to channel her sister’s attitude sometimes.
Thayer finally caught up to her, panting. “Afternoon, officer,” he said carefully.
“Mr. Vega.” Quinlan looked weary at the sight of Thayer—he didn’t trust him much more than he trusted Sutton. Thayer placed a hand protectively on Emma’s arm.
I twitched. I knew Thayer was trying to be supportive, but I felt jealous all the same. I wasn’t the kind of girl who shared, even with my own sister. Especially not my boyfriend.
Finally, Quinlan shook his head slowly. “I’ll see you both around,” he said, and drove away.
Thayer ran his hands through his hair. “Déjà vu. At least no one ran me down this time.”
Emma laughed weakly. The night of her sister’s murder, Sutton and Thayer had been together at Sabino Canyon. He’d snuck home from his rehab center in Seattle to visit Sutton, but what had started as a romantic moonlit walk had quickly gone sour. First, they’d seen Mr. Mercer talking to a woman who they’d assumed was his mistress. Then someone had stolen Sutton’s car and rammed it right into them, shattering Thayer’s leg. Sutton’s sister, Laurel, had picked Thayer up and taken him to the hospital, leaving Sutton behind in the canyon. She had then met with Mr. Mercer, her adoptive father, who’d told her the truth about the woman he was with: Her name was Becky and she was Mr. Mercer’s daughter—and Sutton’s biological mother.
But as for what happened next, Emma wasn’t sure. All she knew was that Sutton hadn’t survived it. Emma had been piecing together that night in the canyon ever since she arrived in Tucson. Every clue brought her a little closer to the truth, and yet she still felt so far from solving the puzzle. She had figured out that Sutton, furious at Mr. Mercer’s betrayal, had run back into the Canyon—but where did she go next? How did she die?
Emma looked down to see a ribbon of blood trickling into her sandal from the scrape on her leg.
“Here,” Thayer said, following her gaze. He took a blue bandana from his pocket and knelt by her feet, carefully dabbing at the wound. “Don’t worry, it’s clean. I keep it on hand just so I can offer it to hot girls in distress,” he added with a grin.
As the faded piece of cloth turned dark with my twin’s blood, a memory flashed before me. I saw Thayer, his eyebrows furrowed, handing me that same bandana to wipe the tears from my eyes. I couldn’t remember what I’d been crying about, but I remembered hiding my face in the fabric’s soft folds, breathing in the warm sweet scent of Thayer’s body that lingered on it.
“Who did you say that was?” Thayer asked, tying the bandana snugly around Emma’s ankle to cover the wound.
Emma scrambled for an explanation, for yet another lie. But then she looked at the boy who’d loved her sister, his hazel eyes soft and concerned, and all that came out was the truth: “My birth mom.”
Thayer blinked hard. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“How did you know it was her? I thought you’d never met.”