as vultures, circling her family, waiting for one of them to show signs of weakness.
The TV screen cut to a young man with glasses and a long blond ponytail, standing in front of a dormitory building on campus. “She was covered up with leaves and branches,” he said, his voice breaking.
“All I could see was her . . . her foot, sticking out at a weird angle.” He looked terrified, blinking in the bright light like a nocturnal creature out during the day. This will haunt him for the rest of
his life, Emma thought sadly.
The reporter returned. “The body has been identified as Emma Paxton from Las Vegas, Nevada.” The previous year’s school photo flashed on the screen. Emma had worn a vintage wrap dress she’d scored from a
garage sale in Green Valley. Her bangs were shorter then; she’d grown them out to match Sutton’s longer hairstyle. Her smile was maybe a little more guarded than Sutton’s, a little less confident. Still,
the image made the Mercers stir in their seats. Mr. Mercer dropped his fork onto his plate of untouched lasagna, and Mrs. Mercer stared at the screen with a rapt, shocked expression.
“It’s so weird,” Laurel said. “She looks just like you.”
All Emma could do was nod.
Watching news coverage of her own death was dizzyingly surreal. She felt weirdly exposed every time her picture appeared on-screen, as if the Mercers would suddenly be able to see that the girl in the photo
was sitting right in front of them. The newscasters had said her name so many times it was almost easy to believe that poor Emma Paxton, foster kid, was dead—that she really was Sutton Mercer now.
It was weird for me, too. I watched as my parents grieved for a girl they’d never met when their own daughter was gone. Would I be buried in Vegas, far away from my family and friends? Would my headstone say
my sister’s name? What if Emma never found my killer—would she live as me forever, until she was finally buried as Sutton Mercer at the ripe old age of ninety?
“Paxton went missing almost three months ago from Las Vegas, after an argument with her foster family. Clarice Lambert, her guardian at the time, spoke with our Nevada correspondent.”
Emma choked on a mouthful of water, sending it down the wrong pipe. She coughed, clutching her throat.
“Honey?” Mrs. Mercer put a hand on her back.
“I’m okay,” she said quickly. “Just drank too fast.” She took a deep breath, wiping the corners of her eyes. There on the screen, in front of the little bungalow house she’d stayed in for a few short
weeks, stood Clarice and her son, Travis. Clarice was wearing a strappy sundress meant for someone much younger than she was, her platinum hair piled high on top of her head. She had a mildly shocked,
scandalized expression on her face. Travis slouched next to her, a baseball cap pulled askew across his ear and a sanctimonious expression on his wide, fishy lips.
“She was obviously a troubled girl,” Clarice said. “She stole from me, she lied to me, and when I tried laying down the law, she took off in the dead of night. Never a note or a message saying where she
was going. Of course I worried, but there wasn’t anything I could do. She was almost eighteen.”
Emma’s body twitched involuntarily. Clarice had all but kicked her out of the house after Travis had framed her for stealing from her purse. Why was the news even talking to her? She didn’t know anything
about Emma.
Travis had the microphone now. “Emma was a wild girl,” he said with a smirk. “She was into all kinds of crazy stuff. I found a video of her online, getting held down and strangled and . . .” His next word
was replaced with a loud beep. “She always had money, too. Maybe she was involved with some kind of fetish dungeon or something.”
I goggled at the TV—would they show the snuff video? I didn’t want my parents to see me like that. They both stared at the screen, my mom with a disturbed grimace, my dad looking confused. I wondered if he
’d ever even heard the phrase “fetish dungeon” before, much less in connection with anyone he might be related to.
Across the table, Laurel set her glass down with a loud thunk. Emma glanced up at her, her mind shooting back to what she’d learned of the snuff video. Laurel had masterminded that prank—and she’d been the
one with the movie saved on her hard drive. What if she recognized what Travis was describing? But Laurel just toyed with her food, a distracted look on her face.
The newscaster’s voice came back. “When investigators tried to find the video, they found no trace. Whether it’s been since taken down, or was a case of mistaken identity, is still under investigation.
Meanwhile, LVPD, who is assisting the Tucson police with the investigation, discovered a locker checked out to the missing girl at the Greyhound station, containing clothes, what seem to be journals, and