Seven Minutes in Heaven tlg-6 Page 5

  Just as she was about to turn into the front office, she ran full-on into someone—someone who smelled familiar, like freshly mown grass, mint gum, and hospital. It was Mr. Mercer.

  “Thank God,” he mumbled, his eyes racing over her features like he was checking each and every one of them. He pulled her in and hugged her tight. “You’re okay.”

  He was still wearing a lab coat and hospital ID; he’d obviously come straight from work. For a moment Emma just stood there, rigid in his arms, her heart still racing. How had the murderer attacked this time? Did Laurel’s death look like a suicide, like Nisha’s?

  Then a shaky voice spoke up from behind Mr. Mercer. “Sutton, what’s going on?”

  Emma broke away to peer over his shoulder. Behind him, Mrs. Mercer stood, her eyes swollen with tears. And next to her was Laurel.

  “Oh my God,” Emma exclaimed, flying at Laurel and hugging her tight.

  For once, I was grateful for Emma’s tendency to show more emotion than I ever would. She needed to hug Laurel enough for the both of us.

  “Um, good to see you, too?” Laurel tried to joke, though she was clearly shaken. She took a step back and twisted a lock of hair nervously around her finger.

  A single hot tear cut down Emma’s cheek. “I just thought . . . I was worried that you . . . you weren’t in class . . .” She looked up at Mr. Mercer, frowning. “What’s going on, Dad?”

  “Let’s step outside,” he said softly, taking Emma by the elbow and leading her toward the door. Laurel and Mrs. Mercer followed.

  They exited by the student parking lot. A small strip of lawn stretched out between the building and the sidewalk, a beat-up picnic table carved with graffiti of ages past chained to a handicapped parking sign. A few feet away, Sutton’s beloved Volvo glittered in the sun. Mr. Mercer guided everyone gently toward the table, gesturing for them to sit down.

  The chasm of dread in Emma’s chest opened wider as her grandfather sat slowly next to her. He inhaled deeply, and then, finally, he met her eyes. What she saw there stopped her ragged breath in her throat. She knew what he would say a heartbeat before she heard it.

  “The police found a body in Sabino Canyon,” he said. “They think it’s your sister.”

  Emma’s hands clenched against her thighs. A panicked feeling clawed inside her chest, more and more frantic, until she couldn’t push it down any longer. She opened her mouth and let out an anguished sob.

  The sunny afternoon fragmented into a thousand pieces, like a mirror breaking before my eyes. My parents and my sisters fell away from my vision. And just like that, I was back in the canyon, on the last night of my life.

  7

  A HAND IN THE DARK

  Becky’s footsteps fade away into the velvet darkness, until there’s no sound in the canyon but the wind echoing mournfully through the trees. This late, even the crickets are silent. The moon looks ghostly, shining through tattered clouds and casting strange shadows all over the clearing, warped and grotesque. Far below me, the lights of Tucson sprawl at my feet. I feel more alone than I’ve ever felt in my life.

  The breeze is sharp on my damp cheeks, and I rest my hands over my face for a long moment, hiding from the world like I did when I was a kid. Between the darkness and all the crying I’ve done tonight, my eyes are starting to feel strained. The pressure of my palms soothes me, shutting out my surroundings—but it can’t shut out the memories that keep flashing through my brain. The fight with Thayer, after I’d spent so long looking forward to seeing him. The accident, the terrible crunching sound of Thayer’s leg snapping as my own car plowed into him, driven by someone I couldn’t see. My father, coming to tell me that I was his granddaughter, that my biological mother is his daughter Becky. And then Becky herself—my sad, tormented birth mom—telling me that somewhere out there, I have a twin sister.

  I think of my old dream, where my reflection would step out of the mirror and we’d play together. I would always wake up feeling peaceful and somehow sad. I never wanted to leave her, this other girl who looked like me and yet wasn’t. A part of me has always known, I realize now. A part of me has always missed her.

  Anger spikes through me. I lean down and pick up a handful of rocks, throwing them as hard as I can out over the side of the canyon. The muscles in my shoulder flex and burn with the effort. I’m mad at Becky. I’m mad at my grandparents. Because they couldn’t work out their own problems, I’ve been kept from my twin. I’ve been denied the one person who might have understood me, who might have made me feel less alone. It hurts, even more than the years of wondering why my birth mother abandoned me, why my parents loved Laurel more. It hurts because without this missing piece, I will never feel complete.

  “Selfish!” I shriek, releasing another stone into the night air. “You’re . . . all . . . just . . . selfish!” My voice echoes around the canyon, bouncing back at me fainter and fainter until it’s gone. Then my hands are empty. I stand there for a moment, my breath heaving, my fingers clenched. I could pick up more rocks. I could throw them all night.

  But suddenly I think of Becky’s ravaged face, thin and tear-streaked, its faint resemblance to my own unmistakable. I remember the stricken look on my grandfather’s face as I screamed at him earlier tonight. And the rage begins to seep out of me, like water from a sponge.

  I am a long way from forgiving them. But maybe, just maybe, they’ve already punished themselves enough for their mistakes. They’ve already suffered more than I would wish on any of them.

  Something snaps in the bushes. I stop and listen, my heart pounding, but whatever it is goes silent. Some nocturnal creature on its way home, probably. Turning away from the cityscape, I sit on the bench again, exhausted. I should start heading back down to the parking lot, and across the street to Nisha’s so I can make someone drive me home. But I don’t want to see any of my friends right now. They’re always waiting for me to show the slightest sign of weakness. The only person I’d let see me when I’m vulnerable like this is Thayer.

  I pull out my phone and scroll to Thayer’s number—I have no service out here, but I just want to look at his picture. It’s my favorite photo of him, gazing out over Wasson Peak. Thayer normally smirks for the camera, and even though I love that signature cocky smile of his, I managed to take this picture before he realized it. This thoughtful, serious side of Thayer—this is who he is when he’s with me.

  I sigh, looking at the picture and blinking back tears. I love Thayer. When we’re not fighting, we’re perfect together. We make each other stronger. The only thing that’s keeping us apart is the secrets we’ve been hiding, the lies we’ve been telling. Thayer was the one who wanted to keep our relationship a secret. And I agreed. I didn’t want to hurt Garrett or Laurel or Madeline.

  But I’m tired of lies. All our sneaking around is just as bad as the secrets my parents kept from me. We’ve hurt people, including each other. I’m not afraid of how real our love is, and I don’t care who knows it.

  I take a deep breath of the cool, crisp night air. I’m going to break up with Garrett and go public with Thayer. Garrett will be hurt, I know. His face will turn purple with rage, and he’ll say some mean and ugly things. But isn’t it kinder, in the end, to rip off the bandage now? To stay with him any longer would be leading him on.

  I open up an e-mail on my phone from our secret account and start to type, overcome by the sudden need to say all this, to get it down while the emotions are fresh and raw. Dear Thayer, I begin.

  And then I keep writing. I tell him everything I’ve held back so long. That I’m ready to move on to the next stage of our relationship. That I love him. It all comes pouring out of me.

  And then I hear another noise, another soft rustling in the bushes. I pause, my nerves singing. It doesn’t sound like an animal to me.

  Someone is in the canyon with me.

  “Hello?” I call. Maybe Becky came back to tell me more about my sister. Or maybe my dad came to pick me up.

  But no on
e answers.

  My blood picks up speed again, my pulse thudding in my ears. I save my draft and stand up from the bench, but I can’t see beyond the trees and boulders that circle the little clearing.

  It could be Madeline—Thayer could have called her from the hospital. Maybe he asked her to come pick me up and she decided to mess with my head a little first, punish me for being out here with her brother. I deserve it.

  “Is anyone there? Say something,” I yell. I sound braver than I feel. “Come on, it’s late, I’m not in the mood for this shit.”

  I take a few steps toward the source of the sound, willing myself not to look scared. Someone might be videotaping me from the trees. In the Lying Game, you never know when one of your friends is getting footage of you looking like a moron, or setting you up for a fall. You’re always waiting for your comeuppance. It used to be fun. I used to crave that adrenaline rush, that feeling of being just a little out of control. But that was back when we had an emergency brake. Before I destroyed it.

  Just a few weeks earlier, I’d pretended to stall my car on the train tracks. It was a good prank. But during that stunt I’d done the unforgivable: I’d said, Cross my heart and hope to die, the phrase we were only supposed to use if we were really in trouble. At the time it seemed like a great idea. Our pranks were starting to get predictable and stale. We’d gotten so used to each other’s tricks we could see one coming from a mile away and derail it before it had a chance to really get good. Breaking the safe-words’ hold on us was the only way to keep the game interesting.

  But since then, the game has gotten a little too interesting. My friends fake-kidnapped me a week later and filmed my sister strangling me into unconsciousness with my own locket. It left a big bruise on my throat; I went through three bottles of concealer in a week trying to cover it up. Garrett caught sight of it one night when we were waiting to get a table at Cafe Poca Cosa and freaked out—he asked what had happened, but I just shrugged off his question. What happens in the Lying Game stays in the Lying Game.

  Before that night we’d never actually gotten physical with each other. The stakes have gone up, and it’s not as fun as I expected—I’ve been twitchy since then, constantly waiting for the other shoe to fall. And now there’s no going back. Once you’ve broken a rule like that, you can’t fix it.

  “Mads? Char?” I take another step toward the trees, squinting into the darkness. My mouth has gone dry. I think of the stranger in my car, bearing down on Thayer. Whoever hit him could still be out here, hiding in the shadows. I try to swallow but it’s like I’ve got a throat full of sand. A few yards away an owl gives a soft, chuckling hoot, making me jump.

  “You guys?” My voice sounds too high. I clear my throat and try again. “Whatever, bitches. Your lame stalker act isn’t fooling anyone.” I turn back to the bench, my hands shaking as I throw the bag over my shoulder and start for the trail.

  I’m tired of not being able to trust anyone—not even my best friends. Maybe it’s time to end the Lying Game. I try to imagine their reactions to that idea. Charlotte will go all alpha on me and tell me it’s not mine to end. Madeline will wheedle and coax. Laurel will get sullen and claim I’m only ending it to hurt her after she worked so hard to get in. But I hate that tonight of all nights, after all I’ve been through, I’m literally freaking out because I think my own friends are up to something. That’s not how friendship is supposed to work.

  The path to the parking lot is steep and treacherous, covered in roots and rocks. I start down it slowly, leaning back to counterbalance myself as I go. When the moon disappears behind a dense cluster of clouds, I have to feel my way in the dark. That’s when I feel someone’s hand on my shoulder.

  “Sutton,” growls a voice behind me, rough and angry. The smell of whiskey mingles sickeningly with that of spearmint.

  But I know that voice. And as soon as I realize who it is, I know just how much trouble I’m in.

  It’s Garrett.

  8

  THE GAME’S AFOOT

  Emma’s lungs seized as if she’d had the wind knocked out of her, the breath frozen painfully in her chest. “My . . . my sister?”

  Across the table, Mrs. Mercer stifled a sob, and Laurel put a comforting arm around her shoulders. Emma turned to look at Mr. Mercer, noticing for the first time the mud on the elbows of his lab coat, the twig snagged in his shoelaces.

  “I’m sorry, Sutton,” he murmured. “Yes. It was Emma. I identified the body.”

  The body. Someone had finally found my body. After so long, it almost didn’t feel real.

  Emma’s breath kept catching in her throat so that she felt just a step away from hyperventilating. The world slid in and out of focus around her. Of course, she’d known all along that Sutton was dead . . . but somehow, hearing this made it feel more real.

  “That is,” Mr. Mercer went on, his eyes haunted, “there wasn’t much to identify. Her body wasn’t . . . wasn’t in good shape. But they found her driver’s license in her bag.” His voice cracked. “The picture. God, Sutton, I just—it looked just like you.”

  Emma’s gut wrenched violently. Her driver’s license? As in Emma’s driver’s license? Her wallet, along with her duffel bag, had been stolen on her first night in Tucson. If the police had found it with the body, that meant two things: one, that the murderer had been the one to steal her things—which she’d suspected but hadn’t been able to verify.

  And two, the killer had gone back to the scene of the crime to plant evidence.

  “Garrett had gone back,” I corrected my sister silently. I could still feel that hand on my shoulder, that voice in my ear, as if no time at all had passed since the night in the canyon. Garrett. It seemed so obvious now. He’d been so jealous. So violent. Why had I stayed with him, knowing all that? How could I have been so stupid?

  “The police thought she was you, at first. They thought it was some kind of fake ID,” Mrs. Mercer said softly. Her cardigan was buttoned wrong, and her hands kept fluttering nervously to her mouth as if she wanted to stop the words from coming out of it. “But of course, you aren’t missing, and that body had been in the canyon for . . . for a few months, at least. They called us down, and we explained about Becky and that we’d just found out about Emma ourselves.”

  Emma put her hands over her face. Her heart hammered so loudly in her ears that for a moment, she couldn’t hear anything else. She tried not to think about Sutton’s body—a girl who looked just like her, but . . . well, decomposed. But now that she knew it was real, the image was hard to shake. “Who found her?” she whispered through her hands.

  “A kid,” Mr. Mercer said. “A freshman at the university. He was hiking off the main trails and found her at the bottom of a ravine. She was covered with leaves, so no one could see her from the trail. But he saw her . . . her foot sticking out.”

  I strained my mind, trying to connect myself to what they’d found there in the canyon. Even though Emma didn’t want to imagine the body, I couldn’t help it. Was I a skeleton now, empty eye sockets staring at the sky? I felt a strange sort of detachment. Even though I had lived in it for eighteen years, that body wasn’t me; not anymore.

  Emma drew her hands away from her face. She took a deep breath, and finally her lungs filled all the way. The world suddenly seemed to have a surreal brightness, as if the sky and trees and mountains were oversaturated with color. Laurel sat staring at her, her mouth drawn into a small button in her face. Mrs. Mercer’s eyes were moist with compassion. Next to her, Mr. Mercer put a hand on her back and rubbed gently.

  No one seemed to have any suspicions, yet, that the body wasn’t Emma’s. At least there was that.

  “How did she die?” Emma’s voice was barely a whisper.

  Mr. Mercer hesitated, exchanging glances with his wife. Something unreadable darted across his face and was gone.

  “They won’t know for sure until after an autopsy,” he said. “It appears that she fell off the cliff. A lot of her bones were bro
ken.”

  Of course. The killer had made Sutton’s death look like an accident, or possibly a suicide—just like Nisha’s. For all intents and purposes, Sutton Mercer—or now, Emma Paxton—had simply stumbled to her death.

  Would they ever find proof that I was murdered? I tried to go back to the memory, to Garrett’s hand on my shoulder, hoping I could trigger the rest of it. I wanted to know how he’d done it. But it was just like trying to go back to sleep to continue a dream that was interrupted. I couldn’t do it.

  “They wouldn’t answer any of my questions when I identified the body,” Mr. Mercer continued. “They said the investigation was ‘ongoing,’ whatever that means. So we’ll just have to wait for the medical examiner’s report to know for sure.” He ran his hands over his eyes violently, like he was trying to rub away the memory of what he’d seen. “When I first saw her, I was sure it was you. Even though my brain was telling me it couldn’t be, that she was too long dead and I’d just seen you this morning, I was absolutely certain it was you. She was wearing a pink hoodie I could have sworn I’d seen you in before. I’ve never been so scared.” He pulled her into a rough hug. “But you’re okay. Thank God you’re okay.”

  Mrs. Mercer’s shoulders shuddered as she started to cry again. Laurel grabbed her purse and rummaged inside, coming up with a small packet of Kleenex that she handed to her mother. Emma felt her own lip tremble at the sight of her grandmother so disconsolate. She clasped her hand over her mouth to keep from letting out a sob.

  “I just don’t know what to feel,” cried Mrs. Mercer. “I’m so relieved it’s not our baby. I’m so grateful for that. But Emma . . . Emma was ours too. I know we never knew her. But now we never will.”