Two Truths and a Lie (2 page)

A nervous chill ran down Emma’s spine. She recognized Thayer Vega from his missing person posters—he’d vanished from Tucson, Arizona, in June. But that was long before Emma had made the trek to Tucson to reunite with her long-lost twin sister, Sutton. Long before she’d received an anonymous note saying that Sutton was dead and that Emma had to take her place, and tell no one … or else.

Emma had scrambled to figure everything out about Sutton on the spot—who her friends were, who her enemies were, what she liked to wear, what she liked to do, who she was dating. She’d come to Tucson simply to find a family member—a foster child, she was
desperate
for family,
any
family—but now she was mired in solving her sister’s murder. It had been a relief to rule out Sutton’s closest friends and sister, but Sutton had made a lot of enemies … and any number of people could have been her killer.

And Thayer was one of them. Like so many other people in Sutton’s life, what Emma knew about him she’d cobbled together from Facebook posts, gossip, and the Help Us Find Thayer website his family had created after he’d skipped town. There was something dangerous about him—everyone said he’d been mixed up in some kind of trouble and had a horrible temper. And according to the rumors, Sutton had something to do with his disappearance.

Or maybe
, I wondered, staring at the wild-eyed boy in my room,
Thayer had something to do with mine
. A memory popped into my head. I saw myself standing in Thayer’s bedroom, the two of us locked in a bitter stare-off. “Do what you want,” I spat, wheeling toward the door. Thayer looked hurt, then his eyes flashed with anger. “Fine,” he snapped. “I
will
.” I had no idea what the fight was about, but it was obvious I’d really pissed him off.

“What’s the matter?” Thayer assessed Emma now, crossing his arms over his toned, soccer-player chest. His knowing expression was identical to the one in his
MISSING
poster. “Scared of me?”

Emma swallowed hard. “W-why would I be afraid of
you
?” she asked in the toughest voice she could muster, the one she used to reserve for butt-grabbing foster brothers, borderline-personality foster moms, and creepy guys loitering in the dodgy neighborhoods she’d grown up in after our biological mother, Becky, ditched her. But it was all a front. It was almost 3
A.M.
on Saturday. Sutton’s friends, who were downstairs for a post-Homecoming sleepover, were fast asleep. So were the Mercer parents. Even the family’s huge Great Dane, Drake, was snoring away in the master bedroom. In the eerie calm, Emma couldn’t help but think of the note she’d received on Laurel’s car her first morning in Arizona:
Sutton’s dead. Tell no one. Keep playing along … or you’re next.
And the strong, terrifying hands that had strangled her with Sutton’s locket at Charlotte’s house a week later, threatening her once again to keep quiet. And the imposing, shadowy figure she’d seen in the high school auditorium just after an overhead light fell inches from her head. What if Thayer was behind all that?

Thayer smirked as though he was reading her mind. “I’m sure you have your reasons.” And then he leaned back and stared at her like he could see right through her—like he was why she was here, pretending to be her dead sister.

Emma looked around, assessing her options for escape, but Thayer grabbed her arm before she could put any distance between them. His grip was hard, and she let out an instinctive, piercing scream. Thayer clamped a hand over her mouth. “Are you insane?” he growled.

“Mmm!” Emma moaned, struggling to breathe through Thayer’s suffocating hold. He was standing so close that Emma could smell his cinnamon gum and see the tiny freckles that dotted the bridge of his nose. She struggled against him, panic welling in her chest. She bit down hard on his hand, tasting earthy, salty sweat.

Thayer swore and stepped back, letting Emma go. She spun away from him. His elbow crashed into a sea-green vase on Sutton’s bookshelf. It tipped over, plummeted to the ground, and shattered into dozens of tiny pieces.

A light flipped on in the hall. “What the hell was that?” a voice called. Footsteps sounded and, seconds later, Sutton’s parents burst into the room.

They moved to Emma’s side. Mrs. Mercer’s hair was mussed and she wore a baggy yellow nightshirt under a robe. Mr. Mercer’s white undershirt was messily tucked into blue flannel pajama bottoms and his hair stood out straight from his head in silver-flecked spikes.

As soon as the parents noticed the intruder, their eyes widened. Mr. Mercer inserted himself between Emma and Thayer. Mrs. Mercer wrapped a protective arm around Emma’s shoulders and pulled her close. Emma sank gratefully into Sutton’s adoptive mother’s embrace, rubbing the five angry marks that had popped up on her skin where Thayer had gripped her.

I had mixed feelings about my parents protecting Emma from Thayer. Were they simply worried because she’d screamed … or was it because of something more sinister about Thayer himself, something they knew about him from a past run-in?

“You!” Mr. Mercer bellowed at Thayer. “How dare you? How did you get in?”

Thayer just stared at him, a hint of a smirk on his face. Mr. Mercer’s nostrils flared. His square jaw was set menacingly, his blue eyes blazed, and a vein stuck out on his temple, visibly throbbing. For a second, Emma wondered if Mr. Mercer assumed Sutton had invited Thayer into her room and was mad that his daughter let a boy in at three in the morning. But then she noticed the way Mr. Mercer and Thayer were crouched, as if ready to fight. It felt like something dark and hate-filled hung in the air between them, something that had nothing to do with Sutton at all.

More footsteps pounded up the stairs. Laurel and Madeline appeared in the doorway, having come from the den where the sleepover was taking place. “What’s going on?” Laurel grumbled, rubbing her eyes. Then she caught sight of Thayer. Her light eyes opened wide and she covered her mouth with trembling fingers.

Madeline was dressed in a black camisole and her black hair was pulled back in a perfect bun even though it was the middle of the night. She elbowed her way between Laurel and Mrs. Mercer. Her mouth fell open. She reached out for Laurel’s arm as if she might fall to the ground in shock.

“Thayer!” Madeline’s voice was shrill, her expression an odd mixture of anger, confusion, and relief. “What are you doing here? Where have you been? Are you okay?”

The muscles in Thayer’s arms flexed as he balled his fists. He glanced around at Laurel, Madeline, Emma, and the Mercer parents like he was a wounded animal wanting to flee his attackers. After a beat, he spun on his heel and bolted in the opposite direction. He shot across Sutton’s bedroom, hoisting himself out the window and shimmying down the oak tree that served as an escape hatch from Sutton’s room. Emma, Laurel, and Madeline flew to the window and watched Thayer scramble through the darkness. His gait was uneven—he favored his left leg with a pronounced limp as he moved across the grass.

“Get back here!” Mr. Mercer screamed, racing from Sutton’s bedroom and banging down the stairs. Emma scampered after him, with Mrs. Mercer, Laurel, and Madeline following behind. Charlotte and the Twitter Twins staggered out from the den, looking sleepy and confused.

Everyone gathered around the open doorway. Mr. Mercer had run halfway across the yard. “I’m calling the cops!” he shouted. “Get back here, damn it!”

No answer came. Tires screeched around the corner. Just like that, Thayer was gone.

Madeline whirled around to stare at Emma. Tears welled in her blue eyes and her face was red and blotchy. “Did you invite him here?”

Emma gasped. “What? No!”

But Madeline sprinted out the door. A few sharp
bleep
s pierced through the air, and Madeline’s SUV lights illuminated the darkness.

Laurel shot Emma a pissed-off look. “Now look what you’ve done.”

“I didn’t
do
anything,” Emma protested.

Laurel looked at the other girls for support. Charlotte cleared her throat. The Twitter Twins fingered the iPhones in their hands, surely itching to post an update about this to their many social-networking sites. Laurel’s glare was icy and incredulous, and Emma could guess why. Laurel and Thayer had been best friends before his disappearance, and Laurel had a major crush on him. But Thayer had barely registered Laurel’s existence in Sutton’s bedroom. From what Emma had gathered over the past few weeks in Tucson, something big had gone on between Sutton and Thayer before he went missing.

“Didn’t
do
anything?” Laurel whipped back to face Emma. “You got him in trouble!
Again.
”

Mrs. Mercer ran her hands over her face. “Please, Laurel. Not now.” She stepped toward Emma, cinching the belt of the pink terry-cloth bathrobe she’d stopped to grab on her way downstairs. “Sutton, are you alright?”

Laurel rolled her eyes. “Look at her. She’s
fine
.”

Finally, Drake, the Great Dane, trotted down the stairs and nudged Mrs. Mercer’s hand with his slobbery nose. “Some guard dog you are,” Mrs. Mercer muttered. Then she turned back to Emma, Laurel, and the three remaining girls in the foyer. “I think you girls should go home now,” she said wearily.

Without a word, Charlotte and the Twitter Twins turned back to the den, presumably to gather up their stuff. Emma’s head felt too foggy to follow them, so she trudged back upstairs and took refuge in Sutton’s bedroom to get her bearings. The room looked exactly as she’d left it: Old issues of
Vogue
lay neatly stacked on Sutton’s bookshelf, necklaces were twined together on her dresser, school notebooks were piled on her white oak desk, and the computer cycled through images of Madeline, Charlotte, Laurel, and Sutton with their arms wrapped around each other—probably celebrating some perfectly pulled-off Lying Game prank. Nothing was missing. Whatever reason Thayer had to break in, it wasn’t theft.

Emma sank to the floor, Madeline’s hurt look flashing through her mind once more. One thing Thayer definitely
had
stolen was the tenuous peace she’d finally made with Sutton’s friends and Laurel. Sutton had ruffled a lot of feathers while she was alive, and it had taken a fair amount of work to repair her relationships.

I bristled at Emma’s thoughts. These were
my
friends she was talking about. People
I
had known forever and loved, and who loved
me
back. But even I couldn’t deny that I’d made some questionable decisions. I’d stolen Charlotte’s boyfriend, Garrett. I’d clearly had some sort of rocky relationship with Madeline’s brother. I’d given Gabby a seizure during a Lying Game prank—and then told her sister that if she told anyone what I’d done, I’d make her life in high school a living hell. And I’d been dismissive of Laurel’s feelings in too many ways to count. One thing I’d learned being dead was that I’d made a lot of mistakes when I was alive. Mistakes I could never set right. But maybe Emma could.

After a few minutes of deep breathing, Emma slipped out of Sutton’s room and slowly went down the stairs. The scent of roasted hazelnuts greeted her in the kitchen. Sutton’s father was staring into a cup of black coffee, his face still twisted into an angry, almost unrecognizable mask. Mrs. Mercer traced circles between his shoulder blades with the tips of her fingers and whispered something into his ear. Laurel stared listlessly out the window, spinning a pineapple suncatcher around.

When Mrs. Mercer noticed Emma, she looked up and gave her a small smile. “The police will be here any minute, Sutton,” she said softly.

Emma blinked, wondering how to react. Would Sutton’s parents expect her to be relieved by this detail … or start vehemently defending Thayer? She settled on an expressionless face, crossing her arms over her chest and staring at Sutton’s dad.

“Do you understand how dangerous that boy is?” Mr. Mercer asked, shaking his head.

Emma opened her mouth to speak, but Laurel was faster. She pushed past Emma and gripped the back of one of the wooden chairs that circled the round oak table. “That
boy
is one of my best friends, Dad,” she growled. “And did it ever enter your mind that Sutton—not Thayer—is the one causing all the trouble?”

“Excuse me?” Emma squeaked indignantly. “How is this
my
fault?”

They were interrupted by the distant wail of sirens. Mr.Mercer headed for the hall, and Mrs. Mercer followed. The sirens grew louder and louder until they were right outside of the house. Emma heard a car pull up the drive and saw red and blue lights flashing on the front porch. She was about to follow the Mercer parents into the foyer when Laurel caught her arm.

“You’re going to throw Thayer under the bus, aren’t you?” Laurel hissed, her eyes blazing.

Emma stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know why he always comes to you first,” Laurel continued, as if she hadn’t heard Emma’s question. “You just make his life worse. And you’re never there to pick up the pieces. You leave that to me, don’t you?”

Emma fiddled with Sutton’s locket that hung from her neck, silently begging Laurel to explain herself, but Laurel just glared accusingly. Clearly whatever she was talking about was something Sutton was supposed to know already.

Except … I didn’t.

“We’ve got coffee on,” Mrs. Mercer’s voice echoed from the foyer. Emma turned just in time to see Sutton’s parents leading two officers into the kitchen. One of them had red hair and freckles and didn’t look much older than Emma. The other was more weathered, with oversized ears and a woodsy cologne. Emma instantly recognized him.