good-bye.”
Dr. Banerjee took off his glasses and polished them on the corner of his grimy shirt. When he put them back on, they looked more smeared than before. A sad smile quirked his lips upward ever so slightly. He
reached out and patted her elbow. “Of course, Sutton.”
Somewhere in the depths of the house, the cat let out a loud, pleading cry. Dr. Banerjee gave a start. “I suppose I should feed him,” he said vaguely. His vision went a little distant again, as if the
effort required to focus his attention had finally exhausted itself. He ran his fingers through his hair and left it wilder than ever. “Just let yourself out when you’re done,” he said, then disappeared
down the hall.
The house was almost completely dark. A flower-shaped night-light in the hallway to Nisha’s room gave off just enough illumination for Emma to navigate. Passing the gleaming bronze kitchen, she saw the
remains of a week’s worth of takeout piled on the counters. Pizza boxes and Chinese containers towered precariously. A fly circled a half-eaten samosa on a ceramic plate. A fallen pint of Ben & Jerry’s sat
in a puddle of melted Cherry Garcia.
Emma had been in Nisha’s room once before, during her second week in Tucson. At the time Nisha had still been a suspect, and she’d snuck in during a tennis dinner to try to find clues. When she snapped on
the light now she was surprised at how little it had changed since then. There was no sign of the mess Nisha’s killer had made—it looked like Dr. Banerjee had put everything straight. The purple bedspread
was smooth, eight fluffy pillows propped at the head like an ad for a five-star hotel. All of her books were alphabetized on the shelves. The only evidence that someone had recently disturbed the room was a
drawer with a broken front panel in the dresser. Otherwise it looked like Nisha could have just stepped outside.
Emma stood uncertainly in the middle of the rug. She didn’t even know what she was looking for, much less where Nisha might have hidden it. She would just have to hope she’d know it when she saw it. While
she glanced around, Agassi slunk in around the door and leapt lightly to the bed.
Emma started with the dresser, looking through the neat stacks of sweaters and T-shirts, feeling at the back and under each drawer for a hidden compartment or a note taped out of sight. Nisha had kept her
belongings color-coded and perfectly organized, and the sight of her pure white tennis socks arranged row by row sent a surge of grief through Emma. She got on her knees and examined the desk, felt under the
bed, and even peeled back the rug on the floor. Nothing seemed out of place. She blew a lock of her hair out of her face and sighed heavily.
Nisha kept her photos behind a glass panel near her headboard. Emma knelt in front of it, her eyes darting over the collage. Most of the pictures were of Nisha playing tennis. There were also a few of her
with a woman Emma assumed was her mother, elegant in pearl earrings and burgundy lipstick, and several of Agassi looking glossy and well groomed.
Then Emma noticed a new picture, one that hadn’t been there the last time. It was an older photograph, slightly crumpled, and unframed. It showed three little girls in ice skates, arm in arm and laughing so
hard that one of the girls on the end—a tiny blonde girl with hair in pigtails—seemed about to fall. They all wore poofy party dresses, and the girl in the middle had a tiara tucked into her dark hair. It
was Laurel, Nisha, and Sutton. Sutton had a tooth missing. A purple glittery star had been painted on one of her cheeks. Emma turned over the picture. It was dated April twentieth, with the words MY EIGHTH
BIRTHDAY.
Emma’s lips twisted downward. Once upon a time, Nisha had been friends with Sutton—or at least friendly enough to invite her to a birthday party, friendly enough to skate arm in arm with her. It looked like
Nisha had put it up recently, after she’d started hanging out with Emma.
For a moment I heard a distant sound of childish laughter echoing down the corridors of my memory. That day at the ice rink, Nisha and I had tried to teach ourselves some of the tricks we’d seen during the
Olympics. Michelle Kwan made toe loops look so easy, but we spent most of our time falling flat on our butts and laughing at ourselves. I couldn’t remember why we’d ended up hating each other so much. Maybe
it had just been that we were similar in all the wrong ways. We wanted the same things, and we were both willing to fight for them.
Emma climbed back to her feet and sighed. If there had ever been any evidence here, it was already in the hands of the killer. After all, Sutton’s murderer had been a step ahead of her since she first