Emma’s entire body flushed with heat like she was about to be sick. She turned away from the girls, pretending to examine one of the Degas prints on Madeline’s wall so they wouldn’t see the look on her face. Every fiber of her being wanted to derail this prank, but she couldn’t figure out a way to stop it. Sutton probably would have. Sutton would’ve made a biting comment that would have put everyone in their places. It made her feel like Old Emma again—tongue-tied, acquiescent, and wimpy.
“I, um, have to go to the bathroom,” she blurted, jumping to her feet and running into the hall. If she stayed in Madeline’s room a moment longer, she might burst into tears.
She made her way down the beige-carpeted hallway, trailing her hand along the adobe walls. Where the hell was Madeline’s bathroom, anyway? She peered into the first available door, but it was just a linen closet. Behind the second door was an office with a computer and an industrial-sized printer. She passed the third door, which hung slightly ajar, and peeked inside. It was a room done up in light blue carpeting, darker blue walls, and a black bedspread. Soccer posters were taped to the walls, and shiny trophies stood on a shelf by the window.
Thayer’s room.
Her stomach lurched. Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of this sooner? If Sutton and Thayer had a secret relationship, maybe there would be some sort of evidence of it in here.
She shot a quick glance over her shoulder, then nudged the door open and tiptoed inside. Books were stacked neatly on the desk. There wasn’t a trace of dust or clutter anywhere. A swivel chair with leather padding was tucked beneath his dark wooden desk. No one had bothered flipping the months on the Arizona Diamondbacks calendar tacked to the wall —a photo of a uniformed player swinging a bat and about to make contact with a blurry white ball hung above block letters marking JUNE. It was clear that this room had already been thoroughly searched, probably by the cops—by Quinlan—when Thayer went missing. Emma ran her fingertips along the stereo. She picked up an iPod and put it back down.
Seeing the iPod and stereo made my mind expand. I saw myself in Thayer’s room, listening to an Arcade Fire song on that iPod. Thayer lay next to me on the carpet, grazing his fingertips across my knee. Strands of carpet tickled the backs of my bare legs. I reached forward to toy with the edge of his light green T-shirt, lifting it just a sliver to touch the hard stomach muscles beneath. Thayer cupped my chin with his palms and leaned forward until his mouth was a breath away. His lips covered mine and I felt my entire body spark. And then a door creaked open. We froze for a split second before breaking apart, sneaking down the back staircase, and slipping into the den. Just as Mr. Vega crossed the foyer and stared at us with wide, suspicious eyes, the memory faded away.
Emma circled the room, running her hands under the pillows on Thayer’s bed, peeking into the bureau and desk drawers, and poking her head into the nearly empty closet.
It was as bare and impersonal as a hotel room. Nothing was out of the ordinary. There were no left-behind tubes of lipstick that might have been Sutton’s. No pictures of her on his bulletin board. If Thayer had a relationship with Sutton, he’d kept it a secret.
But then, suddenly, she saw it. There, stacked alongside the crime novels on the bookshelf, was a tattered, pale yellow book. Little House on the Prairie, said the spine. Emma reached for it. If it was random that Sutton had a book from the Little House series, it was downright bizarre that soccer-star-jock-boy Thayer had one.
The book felt light in Emma’s hands. When she turned it over, she realized the pages had been removed and the book was hollow. Shaking, she plunged her hand into the opening and felt her fingers close on a bunch of papers. As she pulled them out, she got a whiff of a flowery fragrance she instantly recognized. It was the same musky smell Emma had spritzed on herself from an expensive-looking bottle with a gold-trimmed label marked ANNICK on Sutton’s dresser.
With trembling fingers, she unfolded the papers.
Sutton’s distinctly rounded handwriting stared back at her.
Dear Thayer, it began. I think about you all the time… I can’t wait until we can meet up again… I am so in love with you …
She turned to the next page, but it said more or less the same thing. So did the six letters after it. Every one was addressed to Thayer and signed with an oversized S.
Sutton had written a date at the top of each page; the letters started in March and continued through June, just before Thayer disappeared.
I looked at the letters, too, trying to make a connection, but nothing came. I had to have written them. A secret tryst with Thayer must have been intoxicating for me. I was a girl who lived on the edge, after all.
Emma stuffed the letters into the front pocket of her hoodie, then slipped back out into the hallway, pulling the door nearly shut after her, the same way she’d found it.
“Sutton?”
Emma flew around with a gasp. Mr. Vega stood right behind her, seemingly nearly twice her size. His dark hair was slicked back with gel, exposing a pointed widow’s peak and making him look like he should be playing cards in a dark, smoke-filled hall. The tanned skin on his forehead wrinkled as his eyebrows met in the center.
He glanced at Emma’s hand on Thayer’s doorknob.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“Um, just going to the bathroom, sir,” Emma squeaked.
Mr. Vega stared at her. Sutton’s letters felt bulky in her pocket. She folded her arms in front of her chest, trying to hide the bulge.
Finally, Mr. Vega pointed to another door. “The guest bathroom is on the other side of the hall.”
“Oh, right!” Emma smacked her forehead. “Just got a little turned around. It’s been a long week.” Mr. Vega pursed his lips. “Yes. It’s been a trying time for all of us.” He shuffled his feet, looking uncomfortable.
“Actually, since you’re here, I wanted to apologize for my son’s behavior. I am deeply embarrassed that he broke into your home. Trust me when I say that I’ll make sure he learns his lesson.”
Emma nodded grimly, thinking about the bruises on Madeline’s arm. She could only imagine how Mr. Vega planned to hit that message home to his son. “Well, I should probably get back to the girls,” she mumbled.
She started to inch around Mr. Vega, but he grabbed her arm. Emma inhaled sharply, her heart leaping to her throat. But Mr. Vega let go immediately.
“Please ask Madeline to come talk to me for a minute, will you?” he said in a low voice.
Emma let out a breath. “Oh. Sure.”
She moved toward Madeline’s room, but he caught her once more. “And Sutton?”
Emma turned around, raising her eyebrows.
“You never used to call me ‘sir.’” His lips were pressed in a flat line and he openly studied Emma. “No need to start now.”
“Oh. Okay. Sorry.”
Mr. Vega held Emma’s gaze for a moment longer, inspecting her thoroughly and carefully. Emma fought hard to keep her expression neutral. Finally, he turned and smoothly made his way down the stairs. She wilted against the wall and shut her eyes, feeling the lump of papers in her pocket. So close.
Maybe too close, I thought.
13
LOVE, S.
An hour later, Emma sat stiffly next to Laurel in the VW.
Laurel might have abandoned her at school, but there was no way for her to get out of driving her home from Madeline’s. She hadn’t said a word to Emma the whole time, and was wrinkling her nose at Emma as though she smelled like raw sewage.
Spying a strip mall that contained a grocery store, a Big Lots, and a bunch of other random shops on the corner, Emma grabbed the wheel and veered the car into the right lane. Laurel slammed on the brakes. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Getting you to pull over,” Emma said, gesturing to the parking lot. “We need to talk.”
To Emma’s surprise, Laurel signaled, turned into the lot, and shut off the engine. But then she got out of the car and stomped toward the strip mall without waiting for Emma to follow. By the time Emma caught up with her, Laurel had pushed into a shop called the Boot Barn. The place smelled like leather and air freshener. Cowboy hats lined the walls, and there were shelves and shelves of cowboy boots as far as the eye could see. A country singer crooned something about his Ford pickup truck in a twangy voice over the loudspeaker, and the only other customer in the store was a grizzly-looking guy with a wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth. The shopkeeper, an overweight woman wearing a vest with gall oping palominos embroidered on the front, gazed at them menacingly from behind the counter. She looked like the type who knew her way around a shotgun.
Laurel walked over to a black western button-down that had silver stud accents around the shoulders. Emma snickered. “I don’t think that’s quite your style.” Laurel placed the shirt back on the rack and feigned interest in a display of ornate belt buckles. Most of them were in the shape of cattle horns.
“Seriously, this ignoring me thing is getting a little old,” Emma said, following behind her.
“Not for me, it isn’t,” Laurel said.
Emma was grateful she’d at least said something.
“Look, I don’t know why Thayer came into my room, and—” Laurel whipped around and stared at her. “Oh, really?
Yo u really don’t know?” Her gaze fell to Emma’s waist.
Emma sucked in her stomach, feeling the folded letters she’d found in Thayer’s bedroom press against her. It almost felt like Laurel knew they were there.
“I really don’t know,” Emma said. “And I don’t know why you’re so pissed about it, but I wish you would tell me what I can do to make it up to you so you aren’t mad anymore.” Laurel narrowed her eyes and backed away. “Okay, now you’re freaking me out. Sutton Mercer doesn’t repent.
Sutton Mercer doesn’t make it up to anyone.”
“People change.”
Or sometimes they die and their nicer twin takes their place, I thought grimly.
A new country song blared over the loudspeakers, this one about loving the good old USA. Laurel absent-mindedly picked up a pair of pink cowboy boots and put them back down again. Her expression seemed to soften.
“Fine. There is one thing you could do to make it up to me.”
“What?”
Laurel leaned forward. “You could get Dad to drop the charges against Thayer. Or you could tell Quinlan that you invited Thayer over. That way the cops will be forced to let him go.”
“But I didn’t invite him over!” Emma protested. “And I’m not going to go behind Dad’s back and lie to the police.” Laurel blew air out of her mouth angrily. “Like that’s ever stopped you before.”
“Well, I’m trying to turn over a new leaf. Trying not to have Mom and Dad pissed at me every other day for once.”
“Yeah, right.” Laurel snorted.
Emma balled her fists in frustration, staring at the tobacco-colored carpet. The bells to the store jingled, and an incongruous-looking tall girl in a peasant skirt walked through. She was wearing a T-shirt that said CLUB
