True Lies: A Lying Game Novella Read online

  “So what was with the breather you took during the last challenge?” she shouts, clearer than I would have thought possible given the noise level in the club. “If it was too easy for you, you should have said so.”

  I step back, bumping into a bleached blonde with dark roots. “What are you talking about?” I ask Char. “What breather?”

  Charlotte puts her hands on her hips. Her midnight-blue manicure shines against the beading on her draped tunic top. “Sutton, I saw you. It was after the treasure hunt started, and I ran back to the Bellagio because I forgot my phone. And then I spied you by New York-New York. You were talking with some guy.” She rolls her eyes. “You really wanted to ride that thing, huh? Next time you’re trying to go incognito, though, you should step up your game. You need to do better than a ratty T-shirt and a ponytail. The Lying Game has standards.”

  I blink. “I wasn’t at the roller coaster. I was doing your treasure hunt. It was plenty hard.”

  Charlotte doesn’t look convinced. “Sutton, I totally know you’re lying. I just hope you weren’t over there figuring out a way to cheat.”

  “I wasn’t there,” I repeat. What can she possibly be talking about? Is there some random Sutton doppelgänger out there in Vegas?

  Charlotte’s already shrugging like it doesn’t really matter. But something else does.

  I touch her arm. “I need you to be straight with me: Are you really okay with me dating Garrett?”

  Charlotte licks her lips, clearly torn. “I don’t know.”

  “You should have told me that to begin with.” I look her straight in the eyes. “I’ll break up with him.” The thought makes me feel sad—it’s been nice having a sweet, regular, public boyfriend these past few days—but no guy is worth hurting my friend over.

  Charlotte purses her lips and then shakes her head shortly. “No, don’t. You guys are good for each other, I can tell. Besides”—she smiles—“knowing you, it’ll last for, like, three days before you get bored and move on.” The glint in her eyes tells me she’s teasing. “I’m cool with it, I promise.”

  I glance over to where Garrett is moving on the dance floor, allowing Mads to lead him in a goofy tango. The sight of him having fun with my friends makes me grin. “Thanks,” I say.

  Garrett catches my eye from over Mads’s shoulder and waves me over. Once I’m close, he slips an arm around my waist and tilts me away from the group. Light strobes against his face. All around us, people are dancing wildly, infected by the beat.

  “Listen,” he yells over the music. “I just wanted to tell you that I had a really great time this weekend.”

  I open my mouth to give a patented Sutton, confident, snappy retort. But Garrett’s face is open and vulnerable and, instead, I snuggle closer to him, feeling his heart beat through the thin fabric of his T-shirt. “I did, too.”

  He clears his throat. “I, uh . . . the thing is, Sutton, I like you a lot.”

  I clasp my hands behind his neck gently. “I like you, too,” I say. “And I want to see where this goes.”

  With Char’s permission, I feel like I can. And just like that, I set Thayer free. This is my new future. This is the new Sutton.

  I think I’m going to like her.

  14

  THE LESSER OF TWO HOTTIES

  There’s something to be said for being back home. It’s Tuesday night, and I’m cuddled up in my bed, my hair piled on top of my head in a messy bun, my legs clad in soft sweats. I sip a Diet Coke as I flip through the Facebook photos Mads, Charlotte, and Laurel posted of our Vegas weekend. Thankfully, there isn’t anything incriminating I need to untag myself from. It just looks like a fun weekend away, nothing more. I pause on a picture of Garrett, a rush coming over me. There’s that tingle I’ve been waiting for. I’m finally starting to feel something for him for real, and it’s pretty amazing.

  I hover my mouse over the shot of Garrett, about to post a comment, when there’s a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” I call.

  “Hey.” It’s Laurel, shyly playing with her side ponytail and leaning against the door frame. In her free hand she has a package of Red Vines, which she offers to me. I nod and she brings the package over, settling on the bed and cuddling a chenille throw pillow to her lap.

  I set my laptop aside. “So. Let the first planning session commence?”

  Laurel nods eagerly. On the drive home Sunday night, I’d whispered to my sister that she and I could plan her first official Lying Game prank by ourselves—no Char and Mads needed. Laurel had seemed beyond excited about it, and it made me feel as though I’d cracked some kind of Laurel code that had been baffling me for all these years. All she needed was for me to actually be nice to her.

  Maybe I can do that. Maybe I can be a better sister.

  I pull out a notebook and grab a pencil from my desk. “So what are you thinking?”

  Laurel swallows a bite of licorice. “Since we got so good at sneaking around in Vegas, maybe we could kick off the summer by crashing the Starr Pass Resort’s Annual Gala?”

  I nearly choke on my own strawberry twist. “Laurel, those tickets are three thousand dollars a pop. There’s no way we’d get past the door.”

  “We can figure it out! We’ll just talk our way in!”

  “We created a monster in Vegas!” I cry.

  Laurel smirks. “Scared? That’s not like you, Big Sis.”

  I grin, mentally scanning my closet for exactly the right LBD to make me look old enough to be at the most exclusive cocktail party in Arizona. “It has potential,” I say. “We can hash out the details over a friendly volley after dinner.” After a weekend off from tennis, I’m ready to wipe the floor with her.

  “A volley,” Laurel says, considering. “You’re on.” Her forehead furrows, and she looks at me with frank curiosity. “Is anything ever not a competition with you?”

  “Not usually, no,” I say. I hold her gaze, her blue eyes steady and her expression slightly unreadable. After a beat, I shove her lightly and slide off the bed. “But that’s what you love about me.”

  “That’s what you tell yourself, Sutton,” Laurel says. Her voice is light enough, but there’s an edge underneath it. I decide to ignore it for now and just concentrate on what’s going right.

  But as I’m walking down the stairs, my phone rings. I stare at it in my hand, my heart leaping to my throat.

  It’s Thayer.

  Laurel, who’s in front of me, spins around and looks at me curiously. “Everything okay?”

  “Um . . .” I stammer, at a loss for a second. “Yeah. I’ll be right with you.”

  I run back up the stairs to my room and shut the door tight, wondering if Laurel’s going to have her ear pressed to the door. Cautiously, I say, “Hello?”

  “Sutton, I’m sorry.” Thayer sounds choked and urgent.

  I inhale sharply. “Sorry for what?”

  “I miss you so much,” he continues. “I don’t want us to be apart. I should never have told you I needed space. Not talking to you has been torture.”

  My heart catches in my throat. Across the room, the image of Garrett is still on my computer screen. His eyes twinkle at me. His smile makes my heart do a cartwheel. I picture him at home right now, composing one of his sweet, poignant, happy little texts. Texts he sends promptly, not six hours later.

  But I feel that same pull for Thayer I always do. “Come home, then,” I challenge.

  Thayer pauses. “I . . . can’t.”

  “Why not?” I demand.

  He sighs.

  “Thayer, at the very least, let me tell Mads where you are,” I demand. “She’s going crazy with worry. Can’t I give her something?”

  “Not now. I’ll tell her myself.”

  “Why can’t I tell her now?”

  He sighs. “Because I’m somewhere, getting help. And I just need time.”

  “Help for what?”

  His words come out in a rush. “I can’t explain. Not right now. But I will, I pro
mise . . . when things are different for me. Please just know that I’m doing the best thing for me, and for us, for the long run.”

  I stare out the window. What does that mean?

  “I’m going to come back a changed person.” Thayer’s voice cracks slightly. “I’m going to be ready to be your boyfriend, for real.”

  A tiny flare of hope blooms in my chest. For real. Two weeks ago, that was all I wanted to hear from him, but now it might be too little, too late. There’s Garrett to think about now.

  Still, I can’t keep myself from asking in a small voice, “So, you didn’t run off with Mary?”

  “Mary?” The line crackles. “God, no, Sutton. Absolutely not. You’re the only one I want to be with.” He pauses again, and I hear the steady rhythm of his breathing. “So, what do you say? Will you wait a little bit longer for me? We’ll find a way to be together, soon.”

  My heart pounds. What should I do? Who do I choose? The boy who’s here, who’s cute and stable and sweet? Or the boy who’s sexy and mysterious . . . but also mysteriously absent?

  I wait for a beat before bringing the phone back to my ear. And then I clear my throat and say what I never imagined saying before.

  “I don’t know, Thayer,” I say. “I just don’t know.”

  “Sutton, what do you—”

  “I have to go,” I say quickly, the words clogging my throat. Then I hang up.

  And maybe let Thayer go, for real.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This ebook was a pleasure to work on, and first I want to thank my sister, Ali, for taking me to Vegas the first time; MINI Cooper, for requiring me to pick up a car in Vegas the second time; the Harrah’s in New Orleans for more gambling tips; and the casino down the street from where I lived in Tucson, which is where I learned blackjack. (I am by no means good.) Also thanks to Lanie Davis, Sara Shandler, Katie McGee, and the rest of the awesome Alloy crew, and to Kari Sutherland at Harper. A huge hug for Micol Ostow, too—thank you, thank you, thank you!

  Read on for more secrets, lies, and killer consequences in

  THE

  LYING

  GAME

  PROLOGUE

  I woke up in a dingy claw-foot bathtub in an unfamiliar pink-tiled bathroom. A stack of Maxims sat next to the toilet, green toothpaste globbed in the sink, and white drips streaked the mirror. The window showed a dark sky and a full moon. What day of the week was it? Where was I? A frat house at the U of A? Someone’s apartment? I could barely remember that my name was Sutton Mercer, or that I lived in the foothills of Tucson, Arizona. I had no idea where my purse was, and I didn’t have a clue where I’d parked my car. Actually, what kind of car did I drive? Had someone slipped me something?

  “Emma?” a guy’s voice called from another room. “You home?”

  “I’m busy!” called a voice close by.

  A tall, thin girl opened the bathroom door, her tangled dark hair hanging in her face. “Hey!” I leapt to my feet. “Someone’s in here already!” My body felt tingly, as if it had fallen asleep. When I looked down, it seemed like I was flickering on and off, like I was under a strobe light. Freaky. Someone definitely slipped me something.

  The girl didn’t seem to hear me. She stumbled forward, her face covered in shadows.

  “Hello?” I cried, climbing out of the tub. She didn’t look over. “Are you deaf?” Nothing. She pumped a bottle of lavender-scented lotion and rubbed it on her arms.

  The door flung open again, and a snub-nosed, unshaven teenage guy burst in. “Oh.” His gaze flew to the girl’s tight-fitting T-shirt, which said NEW YORK-NEW YORK ROLLER COASTER on the front. “I didn’t know you were in here, Emma.”

  “That’s maybe why the door was closed?” Emma pushed him out and slammed it shut. She turned back to the mirror. I stood right behind her. “Hey!” I cried again.

  Finally, she looked up. My eyes darted to the mirror to meet her gaze. But when I looked into the glass, I screamed.

  Because Emma looked exactly like me.

  And I wasn’t there.

  Emma turned and walked out of the bathroom, and I followed as if something was yanking me along behind her. Who was this girl? Why did we look the same? Why was I invisible? And why couldn’t I remember, well, anything? The wrong memories snapped into aching, nostalgic focus—the glittering sunset over the Catalinas, the smell of the lemon trees in my backyard in the morning, the feel of cashmere slippers on my toes. But other things, the most important things, had become muffled and fuzzy, as if I’d lived my whole life underwater. I saw vague shapes, but I couldn’t make out what they were. I couldn’t remember what I’d done for any summer vacations, who my first kiss had been with, or what it felt like to feel the sun on my face or dance to my favorite song. What was my favorite song? And even worse, every second that passed, things got fuzzier and fuzzier. Like they were disappearing.

  Like I was disappearing.

  But then I concentrated really hard and I heard a muffled scream. And suddenly it was like I was somewhere else. I felt pain shooting through my body, before a final, sleepy sensation of my muscles surrendering. As my eyes slowly closed, I saw a blurry, shadowy figure standing over me.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered.

  No wonder Emma didn’t see me. No wonder I wasn’t in the mirror. I wasn’t really here.

  I was dead.

  1

  THE DEAD RINGER

  Emma Paxton carried her canvas tote and a glass of iced tea out the back door of her new foster family’s home on the outskirts of Las Vegas. Cars swished and grumbled on the nearby expressway, and the air smelled heavily of exhaust and the local water treatment plant. The only decorations in the backyard were dusty free weights, a rusted bug zapper, and kitschy terra-cotta statues.

  It was a far cry from my backyard in Tucson, which was desert-landscaped to perfection and had a wooden swing set I used to pretend was a castle. Like I said, it was weird and random which details I still remembered and which ones had evaporated away. For the last hour, I’d been following Emma trying to make sense of her life and willing myself to remember my own. Not like I had a choice. Everywhere she went, I went. I wasn’t entirely sure how I knew these things about Emma, either—they just appeared in my head as I watched her, like a text message popping up in an inbox. I knew the details of her life better than I did my own.

  Emma dropped the tote on the faux wrought-iron patio table, plopped down in a plastic lawn chair, and craned her neck upward. The only nice thing about this patio was that it faced away from the casinos, offering a large swath of clear, uninterrupted sky. The moon dangled halfway up the horizon, a bloated alabaster wafer. Emma’s gaze drifted to two bright, familiar stars to the east. At nine years old, Emma had wistfully named the star on the right the Mom Star, the star on the left the Dad Star, and the smaller, brightly twinkling spot just below them the Emma Star. She’d made up all kinds of fairy tales about these stars, pretending that they were her real family and that one day they’d all be reunited on earth like they were in the sky.

  Emma had been in foster care for most of her life. She’d never met her dad, but she remembered her mother, with whom she had lived until she was five years old. Her mom’s name was Becky. She was a slender woman who loved shouting out the answers to Wheel of Fortune, dancing around the living room to Michael Jackson songs, and reading tabloids that ran stories like BABY BORN FROM PUMPKIN! and BAT BOY LIVES! Becky used to send Emma on scavenger hunts around their apartment complex, the prize always being a tube of used lipstick or a mini Snickers. She bought Emma frilly tutus and lacy dresses from Goodwill for dress-up. She read Emma Harry Potter before bed, making up different voices for every character.

  But Becky was like a scratch-off lottery ticket—Emma never quite knew what she was going to get with her. Sometimes Becky spent the whole day crying on the couch, her face contorted and her cheeks streaked with tears. Other times she would drag Emma to the nearest department store and buy her two of everything. “Why do I
need two pairs of the same shoes?” Emma would ask. A faraway look would come over Becky’s face. “In case the first pair gets dirty, Emmy.”

  Becky could be very forgetful, too—like the time she left Emma at a Circle K. Suddenly unable to breathe, Emma had watched her mother’s car vanish down the shimmering highway. The clerk on duty gave Emma an orange Popsicle and let her sit on the ice freezer at the front of the store while he made some phone calls. When Becky finally returned, she scooped up Emma and gave her a huge hug. For once, she didn’t even complain when Emma dripped sticky orange Popsicle goo on her dress.

  One summer night not long after that, Emma slept over with Sasha Morgan, a friend from kindergarten. She woke up in the morning to Mrs. Morgan standing in the doorway, a sick look on her face. Apparently, Becky had left a note under the Morgans’ front door, saying she’d “gone on a little trip.” Some trip that was—it had lasted almost thirteen years and counting.

  When no one could track down Becky, Sasha’s parents turned Emma over to an orphanage in Reno. Prospective adopters had no interest in a five-year-old—they all wanted babies they could mold into mini versions of themselves—so Emma lived in group homes, then foster homes. Though Emma would always love her mom, she couldn’t say she missed her—at least not Miserable Becky, Manic Becky, or the Lunatic Becky who’d forgotten her at the Circle K. She did miss the idea of a mom though: someone stable and constant who knew her past, looked forward to her future, and loved her unconditionally. Emma had invented the Mom, Dad, and Emma stars in the sky not based on anything she’d ever known, but instead on what she wished she’d had.

  The sliding glass door opened, and Emma wheeled around. Travis, her new foster mom’s eighteen-year-old son, strutted out and settled on top of the patio table. “Sorry about bursting in on you in the bathroom,” he said.

  “It’s okay,” Emma muttered bitterly, slowly inching away from Travis’s outstretched legs. She was pretty sure Travis wasn’t sorry. He practically made a sport of trying to see her naked. Today, Travis wore a blue ball cap pulled low over his eyes, a ratty, oversized plaid shirt, and baggy jean shorts with the crotch sagging almost to his knees. There was patchy stubble on his pointy-nosed, thin-lipped, pea-eyed face; he wasn’t man enough to actually grow facial hair. His bloodshot brown eyes narrowed lasciviously. Emma could feel his gaze on her, canvassing her tight-fitting NEW YORK-NEW YORK camisole, bare, tanned arms, and long legs.