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What night? Emma wanted to yell. Why was Sutton so ridiculously vague? It was like she was keeping a journal for the CIA.
I was just as frustrated as she was.
Then a small construction-paper square fell out of the notebook and fluttered to the floor. Emma picked it up, gazed at the bold writing on the front, and gasped: THE LYING GAME MEMBERSHIP CARD. Below that was Sutton’s name, the title EXECUTIVE PRESIDENT AND DIVA, and then a date in May more than five years ago.
On the other side of the card was a list of rules:
1. Don’t tell ANYONE. Telling will be punishable by expulsion!
2. Only three people allowed in the club at one time. (But someone had crossed out three and written four above it.)
3. Every new prank must be better than the last. Those who outdo one another earn a special badge!
4. If we’re really in trouble, if it’s not a prank, we will say the sacred code words: “Cross my heart, hope to die.” This means 9-1-1!
Beneath that was a sub-list of pranks that were off-limits. It mostly contained things like hurting animals or little children, damaging stuff that was irreplaceable or really expensive (Charlotte’s dad’s Porsche was the example), or doing something that would have the government after them (someone had written a ha! after that). In different-colored blue ink at the very bottom, someone had added No more sexting, underlining it three times.
I stared at the membership card, too, my brain buzzing. I had a flash of Madeline, Charlotte, and me cutting out the cards and presenting them to one another ceremoniously, like we were receiving Oscar statuettes. But then, just like that, the memory was yanked away.
Emma read and reread the membership card several times over, feeling affirmed. At least she had a clear picture of what the Lying Game was now: Girl Scouts for psychopaths. She thought again about the snuff film. Perhaps it had started out as a prank, too. But maybe one of Sutton’s friends took it too far. . . .
She placed the membership card aside and went back to the journal. On the very next page, she noticed an entry from August 22: Sometimes I think all my friends hate me. Every last one. Nothing more, nothing less. Below it Sutton had written down what looked like a Jamba Juice order: bananas, blueberries, Splenda, wheatgrass detox shot.
Okaaay, Emma thought.
The next page was full of drawings of girls in dresses and skirts, titled “ideal summer outfits.” Sutton’s last entry was on August 29, two days before Travis showed Emma the video. I feel like someone is watching me, she’d written in shaky, hurried handwriting. And I think I know who it is. Emma read the entry again and again, feeling like someone had reached into her heart and squeezed.
I concentrated hard, but nothing came to me.
Emma placed the journal on Sutton’s desk next to her computer. She moved the mouse on the sky blue pad, and the screen flickered to life. She opened Safari and clicked on Facebook. Sutton’s page loaded automatically. As Emma scrolled through the posts and notes, patterns began to emerge. In August, Sutton had written, I see you on Laurel’s Wall. In July, she’d told Madeline, You’re such a naughty spy. She wrote Charlotte a private message in June: You’re after me, aren’t you? She’d even written something similar on the Twitter Twins’ pages: Will you two stop plotting against me?
“What’re you doing?”
Emma jumped and whirled around. Laurel leaned against the doorway, iPhone in her hand. Her blond hair was pulled up into a ponytail, and she’d changed into a pink terry beach cover-up and black flip-flops. Ray-Ban sunglasses obscured her eyes, but there was a broad smile on her face.
“Just checking email,” Emma said in the airiest voice she could muster.
The iPhone in Laurel’s hand bleeped, but she didn’t look at the screen. She kept her eyes fixed on Emma, turning a silver ring around her finger. Then her gaze fell to the open padlock on the bed. The journal in Emma’s lap. The Lying Game membership card on the desk. Emma’s heartbeat pulsed in her fingertips.
Finally Laurel shrugged. “I’m going out to the pool if you want to join me.” She shut the door behind her as she left.
Emma opened to a page in Sutton’s journal again: Sometimes I think my friends hate me. Every last one. Emma gritted her teeth. Emma had never known her father. She’d been abandoned by her mother. And now her sister had been taken from her, too, before she’d ever had the chance to meet her. Emma wasn’t even sure she would have liked Sutton, but now she’d never know. And Sutton’s friends—or sister—weren’t going to get away with it. Not if she had anything to do with it. She was going to find out what they did to Sutton. She’d do whatever it took to prove they’d hurt her sister. She just had to get close enough to find out more.
She swiveled to the computer, clicked the mouse on Sutton’s Facebook status update window, and began to type: Game on, bitches.
Three responses to the status pinged onto the screen almost immediately. The first comment was from Charlotte: A game? Do tell. I’m in! Then Madeline: Me too! And Laurel added: Me three! It’s a secret, right?
Kind of, Emma typed in answer. Except now the prank was on them. And this time it was a matter of life and death.
Chapter 21
UNREQUITED SPYING
“So where do you want to go for dinner?” Garrett asked Emma, guiding his Jeep Wrangler down a hill.
“Um, I don’t know.” Emma bit her pinkie. “Why don’t you pick somewhere?”
Garrett looked shocked. “Me?”
“Why not?”
A glassy, indecisive look swept across Garrett’s face. He reminded Emma of the malfunctioning Tickle Me Elmo doll she had inherited from an older girl her first year in foster care; sometimes the Elmo stared into space and didn’t know what to do next. “But we always go somewhere you like,” Garrett said.
