The Lying Game (21 page)

I felt my own guilty pang, for all that I obviously had

in my life but seemed to have taken for granted. There had been loss all around, but death hadn’t seemed like something that could touch a girl like me. How wrong I was.

Sighing, Emma picked up Sutton’s drab name tag and taped it to her outer locker door. It looked pathetic next to the other bright, cheery name tags on either side. After a moment, she pulled the handle and looked at the contents of Sutton’s tennis locker again. The shiny varsity jacket hung from a hook. An empty bottle of Propel water lay crumpled at the bottom. There was a balled-up pair of gym socks on the upper shelf, crusted over with sweat. Emma wished she could tell Nisha she’d lost her mom, too.

Nisha ripped off more tape and silently hung up more signs. Emma went to shut the locker, but then she paused. Something bulged in the front pocket of the varsity jacket. After a moment, she reached in and pulled out a large folded paper napkin. On the inside was a note written in sloppy, boyish handwriting:
Hi Laurel!
And then there was a drawing of a smiley face with googly drunk eyes and a lolling tongue holding a frothy mug of beer. It was signed
Thayer.

“What’s that?”

Emma whirled around. Nisha stood right beside her, her Altoid breath icy on Emma’s neck. Emma moved to fold up the napkin before Nisha could see it, but Nisha’s eyes had already narrowed, reading the words. “So you steal your sister’s mail, too?”

Emma blinked hard. “I …”

Nisha shook her finger at Emma. “I heard Laurel was ready to kill you for what you did.”

“Kill me?” Emma repeated. She thought of the picture of Laurel wearing Sutton’s necklace on Madeline’s iPhone.

Nisha watched her carefully. A tiny sparkle stuck to her cheek glinted in the overhead light. “Don’t play dumb, Sutton. You knew Laurel had a thing for him.”

Emma blinked. But before she could say anything more, Nisha spun on her heel and walked back to the office, leaving a trail of red glitter in her wake.

And leaving Emma and me reeling, desperate to know more.

On Thursday, after yet another terrible tennis practice, Emma sat on Sutton’s bed with a notebook and pencil on her lap.
Top story,
she wrote.
Sister Tries to Track Down-Twin’s Murderer. Too Intense for Words.

She dropped the pencil on the mattress and shut her eyes. She’d hoped writing this out like a news headline might put it in perspective, make it seem more normal. Nothing about this was normal though. Instead she wrote another list about Sutton’s friends and the potential motives each of them had to kill her. She’d probably composed ten versions of the same list so far, scrawled onnotebooks, crumpled in trash cans, written in shorthand on Sutton’s iPhone, which was somehow the most ironic of all. The problem was, every single member of the Lying Game had motives—Charlotte because Sutton had stolen Garrett. Laurel because Sutton … well, she’d done
something
to Thayer. Had that same something pissed off Madeline, too?

Emma’s old cell phone bleeped from its hiding spot under the bed. She set the notebook aside and reached down to retrieve it. After using a new iPhone, her BlackBerry struck her as old and banged-up. It was like seeing a stray mutt on the street after spending time only with shiny show dogs.

ALEX HAD SENT HER A TEXT:
EVERYTHING OKAY IN SISTER
LAND?

SURE,
Emma replied. She didn’t even itch from lying anymore. She and Alex had texted a few more times during the week, and Emma hadn’t revealed a single thing about what was really happening. As far as Alex knew, Emma was staying with the Mercers while she and Sutton got to know each other, just like a fairy tale.

A note pinged back into Emma’s inbox immediately:
WHAT ABOUT THE STUFF YOU STASHED IN THE STORAGE LOCKER? YOU GOING TO GET IT, OR DO YOU WANT ME TO SHIP IT TO YOU?

Emma flopped back on the bed and scrunched up herface. She had no idea what to do with that stuff in the locker—especially the money.
CAN LEAVE IT THERE FOR NOW,
she wrote back.

Just then, the bedroom door slowly opened. Emma wheeled back on the bed, shoving the BlackBerry under a pillow. Laurel appeared in the doorway. Mrs. Mercer stood behind her, a laundry basket in her arms.

“Whatcha doin'?” Laurel asked, walking into the room.

Heat rose to Emma’s cheeks. “Have you ever heard of
knocking?”

Laurel’s face fell. “Sorry.”

“Be nice, Sutton,” Mrs. Mercer scolded. She marched over to Sutton’s chest of drawers and dropped a stack of clothes next to the TV. Among them was Emma’s striped dress. Emma wanted to thank her—she hadn’t had anyone wash clothes for her in years—but she had a feeling this was probably something Mrs. Mercer did for Sutton all the time.

Laurel remained after Mrs. Mercer padded out of the room. Emma smoothed her hair behind her ears. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, and her hands began to tremble. All she could think of was that picture of Laurel wearing Sutton’s necklace. “What do you want?” she asked.

“I wanted to know if you were ready to get mani-pedis at Mr. Pinky.” Laurel clasped her hands at her waist. “If you still want to go, that is.”

Emma gazed blankly at the white-and-pink egg chair in the corner. It was still covered with the bikinis and socks Sutton had left there before she died; Emma hadn’t had the heart to move any of it. After Nisha’s elusive comment last night, she’d logged into Sutton’s Facebook account and searched Laurel’s page once more. Emma had figured Laurel and Thayer were friends, but she hadn’t guessed that Laurel had a crush on him. As she looked back at the pictures though, it was obvious. In all the group shots, Laurel stood next to Thayer. In a shot where Thayer laughed at something with Charlotte, Laurel lurked in the background looking at Thayer. A YouTube link showed Thayer and Laurel dancing a tango at a school formal. When Thayer dipped Laurel low, Laurel had a delighted, enchanted smile on her face. It was a smile of someone who wanted something more than just friendship. But in May, a month before Thayer allegedly ran away, the Wall messages between the two of them abruptly stopped. There were no more pictures of Laurel and Thayer together. It was as though something—or someone—had forced them apart.

Don’t play dumb, Sutton,
Nisha had said.
You knew she had a thing for him.
And there was the entry in Sutton’s journal from May 17:
L is still ruined over T. Pull yourself together, bitch. He’s just a guy. T
obviously stood for
Thayer.
There were no easy answers, though. It wasn’t as if anyone had written what exactly had happened.

And it certainly wasn’t like I remembered. I hoped I hadn’t done something to hurt my little sister, but I really didn’t know.

Emma watched Laurel as she picked up a bottle of perfume from Sutton’s dresser and sniffed the top. She smiled pleasantly, as if she didn’t have a mean cell in her body. Then Emma thought about the crane Laurel had placed at Emma’s plate last week. Maybe she was jumping to conclusions. Just because Nisha
said
Laurel would kill her didn’t mean she actually had. It’s just something people say. And maybe there was a good reason Laurel was wearing Sutton’s locket in that picture on Madeline’s phone. The same locket that now hung around Emma’s neck.

“Let me put on jeans,” Emma decided.

Laurel smiled. “Meet you downstairs.” Just as she was halfway across the room to the door, Laurel paused and widened her eyes at something on the bed. “What’s
that?”

Emma followed her gaze and panicked. Her notebook lay face-up on the mattress. Scrawled across the top sheet were the words
Girl Strangled in Mansion. Thinks Friends to Blame.
She grabbed for the notebook and covered it with her hand. “Just a project for school.”

Laurel paused for a moment. “You don’t do projects for school!” She shook her head and walked out of the room. But before she stepped down the stairs, she cast one more glance at Emma.

From where I watched it was hard to tell if it was questioning … or something more.

Mr. Pinky was a small salon tucked into the foothills, in a complex that also contained an organic yogurt shop, a holistic cat daycare, and a place that advertised
ULTRA-CLEANSE COLONICS! LOSE FIVE POUNDS IN MINUTES!
in the front window. At least Laurel hadn’t dragged her
there.

The salon was part upscale spa, part
Star Trek.
All the nail technicians wore formfitting jumpsuits that were supposedly trendy, but Emma thought they looked ready to board a starship and fly the whole salon to the Crab Nebula.

Emma and Laurel plopped down on a sleek gray couch to wait. “So are you ready for your party?” Laurel pulled ChapStick out of her bag and smeared it over her lips.

“I guess,” Emma lied. More RSVP cards had been waiting in Sutton’s bedroom when she came home from tennis today. All of them said things like
Can’t wait!
and
The party of the year!

“You’d better be.” Laurel nudged her in the ribs. “You’ve been planning it for long enough! So has Garrett told you what he’s getting you yet?”

Emma shook her head. “Why? Has he told you?”

Laurel’s smile broadened knowingly. “Nah. But I’ve heard rumors….”

Emma pinched a handful of fabric on the couch. What was the big deal with Garrett’s present?

Nail dryers hummed across the room. The smell of polish remover and aloe hand lotion filled the air. Emma reached into her bag and touched the napkin from Thayer. Her stomach streaked with nerves. She’d intended to bring it up at the end of the manicures, but she couldn’t wait any longer. “Laurel?”

Laurel looked up and smiled. Emma placed the napkin on the empty cushion between them. “I found this in my tennis locker.”

A wrinkle formed between Laurel’s eyes as she gazed at Thayer’s drunk smiley face. Her fingers worked a tiny hole in her jeans. There was a sharp rip, and the hole suddenly, forcefully, split open. “Oh,” she whispered.

“I’m really sorry.” Emma’s voice shook. “I don’t know how it got there.” It wasn’t technically a lie.

Laurel balled the note in her hands and stared blankly at the rainbow-colored bottles of nail polish on the shelf. Emma gripped the arm of the couch hard. Would Laurel explode? Scream? Come after her with nail scissors?

“No biggie,” Laurel finally said. “It’s not like I don’t have a million notes exactly like that from Thayer in my room.”

Then she calmly pulled out her iPhone and checked her email.

“Do you miss him?” Emma blurted.

Laurel continued to tap her iPhone. “Of course.” Her voice didn’t rise or dip. It was as though they were talking about the differences between creamy peanut butter and crunchy. Then she nodded at the Snapple bottle Emma had taken from the Mercer fridge. “Mind if I have some?”

Emma shrugged, and Laurel took a long sip. As soon as she set the bottle back on the coffee table, her shoulders began to convulse. Her head jerked back, and she tipped over on the couch. She clutched her throat and stared at Emma with frightened, bulging eyes. “I … can’t …”

Emma shot to her feet. “Laurel?” Laurel made a choking sound, flopped once, and went limp. Her blond hair fanned out on the couch cushion. Her right hand spasmed.

“Laurel?” Emma shouted. “Laurel?” She shook her shoulders.

Laurel’s eyes were glued closed. Her mouth hung open limply. The iPhone she’d been holding slowly released from her grip and clonked to the carpet.

“Help!” Emma called out. She bent down and listened for breathing. No sounds escaped from Laurel’s lips. She pressed her fingers to Laurel’s wrist. It felt like there was a pulse. “Wake up,” she urged, shaking her. Laurel’s head bobbed like a rag doll. Her chunky silver bracelets jangled together.

Emma leapt to her feet and looked around. A blackgirl stared at them from a pedicure chair across the room,
Vogue
in her lap. A small Spanish woman rushed over. “What’s the matter with her?”

“I don’t know,” Emma said frantically.

“Is she pregnant?” the woman suggested.

“I don’t think so….”

“Hey.” The Spanish woman jostled Laurel’s arm.
“Hey!”
she yelled in her face, slapping her cheek. Emma put her ear to Laurel’s mouth again. The mouth-to-mouth unit of the babysitter training class she’d taken in sixth grade rushed to her mind.
Did you pinch the nose
then
breathe into the mouth, or the other way around?

Then something cold and wet touched her earlobe. Emma pulled back in alarm. Was that … a
tongue?
She stared at Laurel’s face. And then, suddenly, Laurel’s eyes popped open. “Boo!”

Emma screamed. Laurel exploded with giggles. “I totally had you! You thought I was dead!”

The lady made a
tsk
sound with her tongue. “You had all of us! What’s wrong with you?” She stormed away, shaking her head.

Emma sat back up. Her heart felt like a flag flapping crazily in the wind.

Laurel adjusted her T-shirt, color rising to her cheeks. “You’ve taught me well, sis. But I never thought I’d get you with something so easy!” And then she stood, slid herpurse over her shoulder, and cruised to the wall of nail polishes to choose the color for her manicure.

Emma stared at Laurel’s straight, slender back, her head spinning. That
certainly was an innovative way to change the subject from Thayer.
But something unsettled her, too. A girl whose older sister did something to ruin her chances with her crush didn’t just shrug it off with a laugh and a prank. If someone had done that to Emma, she’d tell them off. Fight back. Retaliate.

And then Emma raised her head. The hot lights above scorched her scalp. She could think of one reason Laurel might not be angry anymore.

I thought it at the exact same time, too: Maybe Laurel had already gotten her revenge.