Cross My Heart, Hope to Die (34 page)

Authors: Sara Shepard

Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Girls & Women, #Mysteries & Detective Stories, #Social Issues, #Dating & Sex

My family stares at one another over the round table filled with steaming dishes and wine glasses smudged with lipstick and fresh flowers springing out of their vase. Laurel’s hands have flown to her mouth and frozen there, while Mrs. Mercer sits in mute shock. Ethan’s eyes are wide with horror. And Emma—who is no stranger to violence by now—clenches her phone in one hand. The screen shows all the phone calls from Nisha she’d ignored. They’d stopped abruptly that afternoon, right after school.

Could she have saved Nisha’s life if she’d just picked up the phone?

As I watch my family grieve, I wonder where Nisha’s soul has gone. If she has attached herself to someone else, hoping to wrap up
her
unfinished business. Will I be able to see her if she’s there, or will she be as invisible as I am to the people at this table right now? I look around, half hoping to see my old nemesis. It would be a relief to have someone to talk to, even if I’m not sure what I’d say.
So, death sucks, right? I’m glad you and my sister became friends
. But there’s no sign of Nisha in the yard. Emma sobs suddenly, a sound like an awkward hiccup, and Ethan pulls her into his arms.

Was Nisha’s death a suicide? An accident?

Or did she find out something my murderer didn’t want her to know?

A vague memory of Nisha at a junior high day camp comes back to me. The rest of us spent our afternoons splayed out in deck chairs working on our tans, but Nisha couldn’t seem to stay out of the water. She swam like a fish. She beat everyone at the end-of-summer races that year and got a fake gold medal during the camp’s closing ceremony.

No, it hadn’t been an accident. Deep down, Emma and I both knew it. Nisha had something she wanted to tell Emma. Whatever it was, my murderer somehow found out that she knew it—and made sure she was silenced, permanently.

Emma’s investigation unearths as many questions as it does answers. Emma and I have another sister somewhere, who may or may not know anything about us. Becky’s illness has brought Emma and my dad together, but Mrs. Mercer still doesn’t know they’ve been in contact with my birth mother. And no one seems to know about Emma’s existence, much less that she’s taken my place.

Now there are even more questions to add to the list. What happened between Nisha’s last call to Emma and Dr. Banerjee’s grisly discovery in the pool? What had she so desperately wanted to tell Emma?

My killer is still out there, clearly willing to kill again. Emma needs to find my killer, fast, before the cracks in her performance start to show. Thayer’s already onto her. And if she’s exposed, she’ll either be blamed for my death—or she’ll be next.

Celeste’s warning drifts back to me.
You’re in real danger
.

Time is running out. Emma needs to make the next move soon, or my killer will make one for her.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Huge thanks as usual to Lanie Davis, Sara Shandler, Josh Bank, Les Morgenstein, Katie McGee, and Kristin Marang from Alloy Entertainment—such a great Lying Game team! Also to Jennifer Graham—I don’t know what I would have done without you. Much appreciation to Kari Sutherland and Farrin Jacobs at HarperCollins. Thanks, too, to all of the readers of this series and viewers of the show, and a huge good-luck to all of the great people I met at the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators conference in Los Angeles this August. Love to MS, MG, CM, SC, AS, and CC. You all rock!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photo by Austin Hodges

SARA SHEPARD
is the author of the #1
New York Times
bestselling series Pretty Little Liars. She graduated from NYU and has an MFA from Brooklyn College. Sara has lived in New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Arizona, where the Lying Game series is set.

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OTHER WORKS

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