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Emma removed the top from her coffee cup, and steam bil owed into her face. “You know how it is when you’ve just got to have something,” she said vaguely. “I would’ve total y gotten away with it, too, if the bitch working the register had been actual y doing her job instead of obsessing over me. I think she has a little crush. ”
“Someone’s losing her touch,” Charlotte sing-songed, biting into a carrot with a decisive crunch. She seemed almost happy Emma had gotten caught.
Emma took a dainty sip of the latte and winced—it was piping hot. “I’ve blown my chances for going to Homecoming. I’m grounded for the next mil ennium. ”
“Oh please. You’re going. ” Madeline popped a yogurtcovered raisin into her mouth. “We’l find a way. And you’re going camping with us afterward, too. ”
Then, Madeline snickered at something behind her.
“CourtZil as at twelve o’clock. ”
Even though the twins traditional y dressed like opposites—Gabby had a Stepford Wife thing going, with preppy headbands and grosgrain-piped everything, and Lili went for the Taylor Momsen look, with plaid flannels, übershort skirts, and lots of raccoonish eye makeup—today they both wore tight-fitting pink dresses with frothy tul e skirts and mile-high platform heels that laced up their thin ankles. As usual, they clutched their iPhones. Everyone—
from the band kids in the corner to the sul en, arty types by the stucco wal —stared at them.
“Hi, girls!” Gabby tril ed as she reached their table.
“Ciao!” Lili said. “Did someone say camping? Where are we going this year?”
“We are camping at Mount Lemmon,” Charlotte said pointedly. “I don’t know where you are camping. ”
“That’s too bad,” Lili said just as pointedly back.
“Because we’re the only ones who know where the best hot springs are. ”
“And we’ve got an adorable little hibachi gril . We could make s’mores,” Gabby added.
“I don’t know if starting a fire in the desert is the best idea. ” Laurel smirked.
Emma ran her tongue over her teeth as she stared at the girls, thinking of their car slowly passing Sutton’s house. Had they been the ones lurking outside Sutton’s house last night, watching her and Ethan swim?
Madeline appraised their outfits. “Voting for court already happened, ladies. You don’t have to dress like Homecoming Barbies anymore. ”
“Maybe we like it. ” Lili put her hands on her bony hips.
“So, girls. Have you figured out the plans for our ceremony yet?”
“It’d better be good,” Gabby jumped in, chomping hard on a piece of gum. The scent of watermelon wafted through the air. “Servants . . . awesome food and music . . . and perhaps a Lying Game initiation ceremony as the cherry on top?” Gabby ticked off each request on her fingers.
“We have some kil er prank ideas,” Lili said, a glint dancing in her light eyes.
“We’d be an asset to the group,” Gabby said in a low voice, staring directly at Emma. Emma drew back slightly, her heart speeding up just a tick. Gabby pul ed a tiny bottle from the pocket of her dress, flicked open the pink lid, and placed a round pil on her tongue. Her throat rose as she swal owed. Her gaze never left Emma’s, as though passing an unspoken message between them.
“No can do on the Lying Game invite, ladies,” Emma said, trying to sound confident and poised. Sutton hadn’t al owed Gabby and Lili into the club before—maybe for a good reason.
Gabby’s eyes flickered over Emma’s body, as if sizing her up for a fight. “We’l see about that, won’t we?” she said, her words suddenly hard.
Lili lightly touched Gabby’s wrist. “Chil , Gabs,” she said in a hushed voice. Then she yanked Gabby across the patio. “No autographs!” she cal ed to their gaping classmates, shielding her face as though she was being chased by the paparazzi. As soon as Lili let go of her, Gabby spun around and made her finger into a gun, pointing at Emma and pretending to shoot. Emma’s mouth fel open.
A flash instantly swarmed my vision of me ushering the twins out of my room at a sleepover, simpering, “Sorry, girls. We have private Lying Game stuff to discuss. Stay out in the den with the other nobodies. ” Gabby’s knuckles had gone white as she clutched her iPhone tighter. Then Lili had risen to ful height. “Mark my words, Sutton, it won’t always be this way,” she’d spat.
But now, Madeline just rol ed her eyes at the Twitter Twins. “Something’s gotten into those two lately. They’re crazier than ever. ”
“That’s for sure,” Charlotte said, sipping her coffee and staring at the double doors the twins had disappeared through. “But they do have a point—we have to plan their ceremony. ”
“Let’s do it Saturday. ” Madeline stuffed her empty Tupperware container into her purse. “My house?”
“I can’t,” Emma said. “I’m grounded, remember?”
Charlotte let out a snort. “When has that ever stopped you?”
The bel rang, and everyone rose en masse, tossed their leftovers into the trash, and headed back into the school. Laurel and Charlotte split off in opposite directions, but Madeline hung back and waited for Emma to pack her bag so they could walk together.
They turned a corner into the music wing. Off-key notes blared from open doorways. At the end of the hal , Elvira handed out more flyers for the Homecoming dance. Her fake nose threatened to fal off her face, and a couple of kids snickered as they passed. Madeline glanced at Emma out of the corner of her eye.
“What’s with you lately?” Madeline asked, slowing their pace.
“What do you mean?” Emma replied, startled.
Madeline skirted around a girl struggling with a tuba case. “You’ve been . . . weird. Cautious, disappearing and not explaining why, shoplifting by yourself . . . Char and I think an alien life-form has come down and taken over your body. ”
Emma felt a flush creep over her face and chest. Calm down, she said silently. She tugged on Sutton’s necklace, fighting for composure. And then she had an idea. “I guess I’m upset because you and Char seem to be real y close lately,” she said in a pinched voice, trying to sound petulant and jealous. “Am I being replaced as your BFF?” She eyed Madeline’s tal bal et-dancer frame, clad in skinny cargo pants and a gray dolman-sleeve sweater, hoping she’d take the bait.
Madeline’s finely drawn features tightened. “Char and I have always been friends. ”
“Yeah, but something has changed between you two,”
Emma goaded. “You seem tight now. Does this have to do with the night before Nisha’s party? I know you were together, Mads. ”
Madeline stopped short in the hal , letting students stream around them. A vein at her temple pulsed. “Would you lay off about that night?”
Emma blinked. A fire raging in her bel y fueled her forward. “Why?”
“Because I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
“But . . . ”
“Just leave it, Sutton!” Madeline turned and blindly pushed through the nearest door, which led to the school library.
Emma shoved her shoulder against the library door and fol owed Madeline inside. Kids hunched over homework at long, wide desks. Computer screens glowed behind a wal of glass. The big room smel ed like old books and the disinfectant spray-cleaner Travis used to huff. Madeline disappeared down one of the back aisles.
“Mads!” Emma cal ed, sweeping past a low shelf of atlases and encyclopedias. “Mads, come on!”
The librarian put her finger to her lips. “Quiet!” she ordered from behind the checkout desk.
Emma hurried past posters of the Twilight and Harry Potter series, which gave her a tiny twinge of longing. Becky used to read Harry Potter to her, making up the voices for each of the characters and wearing a dingy black velvet cape she’d picked up at a garage sale after Hal oween. Emma had loved being read to; she didn’t care that the cape kind of smel ed like mildew.
Emma turned down the aisle Madeline had veered into. Madeline had stopped at the very end of the row, next to a bunch of copies of The Riverside Shakespeare. Her long, dark hair cascaded down her back, her posture ramrodstraight. Al of a sudden I had a sharp, distinct memory of Madeline standing in that same taut but wounded pose. We were in her bedroom, and there was a commotion coming from down the hal , muffled voices gaining in volume. I’d heard tiny gasps, as though she was trying to stifle tears.
“Mads?” Emma whispered. Madeline didn’t answer.
“Come on, Mads. Whatever I said, I’m sorry. ”
Madeline whipped around and stared at Emma with redrimmed eyes. “Look, I cal ed you first, okay?” Her voice caught, and she pressed her lips together. “You didn’t answer. I guess you had more important things to do. ”
She sniffed and took a choked breath. “The world doesn’t revolve around you, you know. I always jump when you tel me to jump, but it would be nice if you reciprocated sometimes. I cal ed Charlotte next, and she stayed with me al night. So yeah, of course we’ve been tight lately. Satisfied?”
Steeling her jaw, Madeline swept past Emma as though she were a faceless student clogging up the library aisles.
“Mads!” Emma protested. But Madeline didn’t stop. She stormed through the doors and out into the hal . Everyone in the library turned and stared at Emma. She ducked back into an aisle and leaned against a stack of books. Madeline was hiding something big, but it wasn’t what Emma thought. There was no faking the reaction Madeline just had. Whatever she’d dealt with the night Sutton went missing was her own issue, something completely divorced from what had happened to Sutton. Madeline was busy that night. Innocent. And now, because they were together, Charlotte likely was, too. Relief washed over me, hard and fast. I wanted to cheer aloud. My two best friends were actual y my best friends—
not my murderers.
A series of shril beeps sounded as the librarian scanned books for a scrawny red head. Emma turned to leave, but her knee caught the corner of a copy of The Riverside Shakespeare and knocked it to the floor. The book splayed open, its paper-thin pages ful of highlights and notes from kids who didn’t seem to care that it was a library book. A line from Hamlet caught Emma’s eye, sending a chil up her spine.
One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.
It made me shiver, too. Charlotte and Mads were in the clear, but my kil er was stil out there—smiling, watching, lurking, waiting.
Chapter 13
Never Underestimate the Power
of Snooping
“She’l be good, Mom,” Laurel begged. “I promise. Please let her go?”
It was Friday evening, and Emma and Laurel stood in the foyer of the Mercer house. Mrs. Mercer peered at the girls from the doorway of her office. Drake panted beside her, his long tongue looking like a thick slab of ham. Emma edged away from him slightly.
“It’s just a stupid tennis dinner. ” Laurel went on in a sweet voice. “It’s going to be total y boring—Nisha’s throwing it. And anyway, didn’t Coach Maggie tel you she was practical y going to put an ankle monitor on Sutton once she gets there? You have nothing to worry about. ”