LITMIR.BIZ

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and pulled away. “Worst of all, Thayer won’t tell us where he was all this time.”

      “At least you know where he is now, and that he’s safe,” Emma offered.

      Madeline whipped around and stared at her. Her blue eyes were puffy, and her mouth was a straight line. “What was he doing in your bedroom?” she asked bluntly.

      Emma flinched. Charlotte fidgeted with a heart-shaped keychain that hung on her leather Coach purse, avoiding eye contact with both of them.

      “I already told you I don’t know,” Emma stammered, feeling her stomach muscles bunch up into a tight knot.

      “Did you know he was coming to your house that night?” Madeline’s eyes narrowed.

      Emma shook her head. “I had no idea. I swear.”

      Madeline raised an eyebrow like she wanted to believe her, but couldn’t. “Come on, Sutton. You knew when he was going to take off. You’ve been talking to him while he was gone, right? You knew where he was all along.”

      “Mads,” Charlotte said. “Sutton wouldn’t—”

      “Mads, if I had known where he was or was communicating with him, I would have told you,” Emma interrupted. She could only guess at the truth of this. Yes, she hadn’t been talking to Thayer. But had Sutton?

      I had the sinking suspicion that Emma was right, even if I didn’t want it to be possible that I could have kept that from Mads. I had hurt so many people and kept so many secrets. If only I could remember what they were.

      Madeline chipped a fleck of gold nail polish from her index finger. “I know what was going on with you guys before he left.”

      A sharp, bitter taste filled Emma’s mouth. She breathed in to speak, but couldn’t find the words. What was she supposed to say? Maybe you could fill me in?

      Just then a shrill bell blared across the courtyard. Charlotte shot up. “We should go.”

      But Madeline just sat there, glaring.

      Charlotte rested a hand gently on the sleeve of Madeline’s sweater. “The last thing we need is your dad getting a phone call about you being late to class.”

      Finally, Madeline sighed and slung her bag over her shoulder. Charlotte murmured something about seeing Emma at lunch, then looped her arm through Madeline’s and guided her toward their first class. Even though Emma’s class was in the same direction, she got the distinct impression that she wasn’t invited.

      A hand clamped down on Emma’s shoulder, and she flinched. When she turned, Ethan smiled sheepishly behind her. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “I just wanted to know if you’re okay.”

      Emma reached out for Ethan’s hand, then pulled back. Her eyes swept furtively around the yard. A couple of drama kids were rehearsing a scene near the parking lot. There was a small line for coffee at the kiosk just inside the school doors. No one was looking at them, but she still felt paranoid. Ethan wasn’t part of Sutton’s clique, nor did he want to be.

      She sighed. “I’ve only been here for ten minutes and already it’s been a long day,” she moaned. “And from the way Madeline’s acting, something was definitely going on between Sutton and Thayer before he skipped town.”

      Ethan nodded. “Sounds like Sutton was playing Garrett, then.”

      “I guess,” Emma said. She didn’t want to assume her sister was cheating, but it was really looking like she had been.

      “So how are you going to find out more?” Ethan asked.

      Emma took a long sip of the coffee Charlotte had brought for her. “Continue eavesdropping on all the gossip, maybe?” she said with a shrug.

      Ethan looked like he was going to say something else, but he was cut off by the final bell. Both of them snapped to attention. “We’ll talk about this later, okay?”

      “Okay,” Ethan said. He stepped forward just as Emma did. They bumped feet and stepped back.

      “Sorry,” Emma murmured.

      “It’s cool,” Ethan said gruffly, shifting his backpack higher on his shoulder. Their eyes met for a moment, but then Ethan lowered his head again and scuttled toward the doors. “I’ll see you,” he mumbled.

      “Okay,” Emma said to his disappearing shape. She swung around and began to walk in the opposite direction.

      Suddenly, a rustling in the bushes made her stop short. Someone snickered behind a podium. Emma squinted, trying to make out who it was. Was someone watching her? Was it Laurel again, spying on her and Ethan? Before she could get a glimpse, whoever it was ducked into the school and darted up the stairs.

      CHAPTER 5

      GAME, SET, OUTMATCHED

      After school that day, Emma walked off the tennis court at Wheeler High, Hollier’s main rival, shading her eyes from the bright glare and smiling bashfully at the smattering of applause. All of Hollier’s sports teams were playing Wheeler that week, and Emma had just finished a grueling match against a petite redhead. Well, it wasn’t supposed to be grueling—Coach Maggie had basically said that the girl was so subpar she could be beaten with an ankle strain and a badminton racket. Before Emma had arrived in Tucson, the most tennis she’d ever played was on a Ping-Pong table in a dingy basement with Stephan, her Russian foster brother. She did use some of the Russian curse words he had taught her when she wanted to swear during a match without getting in trouble, though.

      For me, it was yet another reminder of how different our childhoods had been.

      “Good game, Sutton,” several people Emma didn’t recognize said as she passed. She collapsed into a chair on the sidelines, kicked off the state-of-the-art tennis sneakers she’d found in Sutton’s closet—not that they helped her game any—and let out a groan.

      “Someone still out of shape?” a voice lilted.

      Emma looked up and saw Nisha Banerjee leaning against the fence, a smirk on her face. Nisha’s long, slender fingers rested on her trim waist, her überwhite tennis uniform gleamed—she probably bleached it after every match—and there wasn’t even a hint of sweat on the terry cloth band that circled her head of sleek, dark hair. She was Sutton’s tennis co-captain, and she never missed a chance to tell Emma how undeserving she was of the title. Emma bit her lip and tried to tell herself that Nisha was being mean because she was hurting inside—she’d lost her mother this past summer and was dealing with a lot of pain. In a parallel universe, maybe she and Emma would even bond over their absent mothers.

      But not in this universe, I wanted to tell her. Nisha Banerjee and Sutton Mercer were sworn enemies and always would be. If Nisha hadn’t had a solid alibi for the night of my murder—she’d had the entire tennis team over at her house for a sleepover—she would have been at the top of my suspect list.

      Emma grabbed her gym bag and made her way inside the school. Wheeler’s locker room smelled like old socks and strawberry-scented body spray. A shower head dripped in the corner, and a flyer for intramural water polo hung limply on the cinderblock wall. Emma crumpled her sweaty white socks into her gym bag, pulled her tennis uniform over her head, and changed into Sutton’s pink ballet flats, denim shorts, and V-neck tee. As she walked toward the sinks, the muscles along the backs of her thighs protested loudly, and she winced. She had eight more tennis matches to go before the end of the season. She’d probably have to get thigh replacements after that.

      As she turned the corner, she saw girls in swim caps printed with HOLLIER SWIM TEAM. The room was filled with steam, and shower taps whooshed. Emma caught snippets of conversation: about someone’s butterfly splits, and then about some hot Wheeler swimmer named Devon. When she heard the name Thayer Vega, the hair rose on the back of her neck. She inched toward the showers.

      “And you just know Sutton Mercer had something to do with it,” a girl chirped.

      “Doesn’t

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