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Ethan waved his hands in surrender. “I know you wouldn’t. But . . . some people are awful. Some people automatically assume the worst. They might make judgments about you without looking into who you really are.”
Emma blinked. The walls of the car began to close in on her. She certainly knew about the awful people in this world making judgments. Look at Clarice—she’d assumed Emma had stolen her money over her thuggish son, simply because she thought that was what foster kids always did.
“Oh my God,” Emma whispered, covering her head with her arms. Ethan was right. He leaned in and, after a moment, pulled her into a hug. He squeezed hard and buried his head into the crook of her neck. Sobs shook Emma’s body.
I watched as they stayed that way for minutes, clinging to each other. I wished I was Emma so badly. I wanted to hug someone—maybe Ethan—right now, too.
Then Ethan sat back and gazed at Emma. His light eyes crinkled with concern. The corners of his pink, kissable lips arced up in a compassionate smile. He had a sooty splotch on his cheek that Emma wanted to reach out and wipe away. “God,” he whispered. “You look exactly like her.”
“That’s how it works with identical twins,” Emma said softly. Her mouth wobbled into a smile, but then a new sob rushed in.
Ethan touched her chin. “Stay. If Sutton really was killed, we’ll find who did it.”
“I don’t know,” Emma murmured.
“You can’t let whoever did this get away with it,” Ethan insisted. “I’ll help you. I promise. And when we have proof, we can go back to the cops and they’ll have to believe you.”
The rain abruptly stopped. Far in the distance, a coyote howled. Emma felt like she’d been holding her breath for hours.
She gazed into Ethan’s endless blue eyes. “Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll stay.”
“Good.” Ethan leaned forward and squeezed her shoulder. Emma shut her eyes, the touch of his hands on her bare skin sending sparks down her back. She hoped this was the right decision. She hoped she hadn’t just made an enormous mistake.
I hoped so, too.
Chapter 33
LOOK OUT, SUTTON’S BACK
A while later, Ethan dropped Emma off at the foot of Sutton’s driveway. Most of the lights in the house were still on, though all of the cars were gone. When Emma opened the door, Drake bounded over to her and licked her arm. The same fear didn’t paralyze her muscles anymore. She supposed she was getting used to him.
“There you are!” Laurel ran in from the living room and threw her arms around Emma’s neck. “We’ve been looking all over for you!” Then she stood back and looked Emma up and down. “Why did you run off like that? You took off from us like the driveway was on fire!”
“I just needed to be alone,” Emma admitted, hoping the lie she’d concocted in Ethan’s car sounded believable. “I—something weird happened with Garrett.”
Laurel’s eyes were saucers. “What?”
Emma sank into the love seat and hugged a pillow into her chest. “It’s a long story.” She stared at the credenza across the room. Someone had brought all of the birthday presents in from the patio. She wondered if Sutton’s room still looked like a honeymoon suite.
“Did you have fun tonight, otherwise?” Laurel asked. An apprehensive look crossed her face.
Emma looked away. “Oh yeah. Definitely,” she lied. Informative, yes. Terrifying, definitely. But fun? Not even close.
“You weren’t . . . mad about anything?” Laurel flicked the tassels on the pillow. “Charlotte said you might’ve gone into my room. And that you might’ve . . . seen something. And then you ran crazily from us in the driveway. . . .”
Emma leaned into the cushions. Even though she wanted to admit that she’d seen the video, even though she wanted to believe Laurel, Sutton’s sister, was innocent in all this, trusting her was dangerous.
Emma’s brain swirled with what she needed to do. According to Ethan, the snuff film had happened almost a month ago—not the day before Emma had arrived. That meant Sutton had been around for weeks after that video was made and before her death. For all Emma knew, the strangling incident, the snuff film, had blown over long ago. But what had happened in between?
Emma looked up and regarded Laurel coldly, her face drained of feeling. All at once she knew what she should do. “I did see something in your room,” she said in a monotone.
Color drained from Laurel’s face. “What?”
Emma rose to her feet and slowly advanced toward Laurel. Laurel gasped when Emma wrapped her hands around her neck. Her eyes bulged. “Sutton!” she whimpered.
Emma froze for a long moment, her hands lightly around Laurel’s throat. Then she pulled away, rolled her eyes, and smacked Sutton’s sister playfully on the cheek. “Gotcha, bitch.”
It took a few seconds for relief to flood across Laurel’s face. She sat back in the chair and ran her hands over her throat. “You are so evil.”
“I know. But now we’re even.” Emma breezily returned to her seat. But her hands trembled as she moved a pillow out of the way. None of this was going to be easy. She was back to square one again—everyone was a suspect.
“There’s our birthday girl!” Mrs. Mercer’s voice rang out from the hall. She swept into the living room. Mr. Mercer followed with four cupcakes on a pink plate. A sparkler candle stuck out of the biggest one, which he positioned on the coffee table right in front of Emma. Red velvet. Her favorite.
