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“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.”
“Please?” Emma gave Mrs. Mercer puppy-dog eyes that matched Laurel’s. A week ago she wouldn’t have believed she’d want to go to something at Nisha’s house. But the truth was, being grounded kind of . . . sucked. It wasn’t that she was simply stuck in the house; Mrs. Mercer had taken away Emma’s Internet privileges, disconnected the cable box from Sutton’s room, and confiscated Sutton’s iPhone. After becoming accustomed to Sutton’s shiny, high-tech gear, the outdated, banged-up BlackBerry Emma had brought from Vegas wasn’t exactly cutting it. She had spent the evenings scouring Sutton’s room once more, searching for anything relevant to her murder, but there was nothing. The only thing left to do was homework. Sutton was probably rol ing over in her grave.
If I was somewhere as boring as a grave. Which I highly doubted.
Emma wasn’t supposed to be al owed out for Nisha’s tennis team dinner, but Coach Maggie had apparently cal ed Mrs. Mercer at work this afternoon and urged her to let Sutton attend. It would be good for team morale, Maggie had said, assuring Mrs. Mercer she would be there and would keep an eye on Sutton. But now Mrs. Mercer was hesitating.
“You’l watch her like a hawk, Laurel?” Mrs. Mercer asked.
“Yeh-hes,” Laurel groaned, fidgeting with the strap of her flowered camisole.
“And you two wil come straight home after the dinner is over?”
“Absolutely,” the two girls said in unison.
Mrs. Mercer put a finger to her lips. “Wel , it is Nisha.”
She uttered Nisha’s name in the same reverent way she might talk about the Dalai Lama. Mrs. Mercer was convinced Nisha was a model girl with straight As and irontight morals who could do no wrong.
“Okay, fine.” With a sigh, Mrs. Mercer lowered her shoulders and shooed them out the door.
